Archdiocese Introducing "Leave a Tip" Tablets In Every Confessional
Chicago, IL - In response to struggling diocesan finances, parish membership, and Mass attendance, even with all the clown masses to “appeal to the youths” don’t seem to be helping the situation, the consultancy firm Diocesan Inc., which is advising the Archdiocese of Chicago, made an additional recommendation beyond adding guitars, cracking jokes in homilies, or closing parishes.
And no, the idea isn’t rainbow flags this time.
Under the new plan, suggested by the consultancy and approved enthusiastically by Cardinal Zupich today, the Archdiocese of Chicago will soon be adding tablets in every confessional, at every parish around the region, asking penitents to leave tips.
“Not only will it singlehandedly save diocesan finances,” commented Cardinal Zupich, “but it will also help our priests, as we’ll let them keep 10% of the tips, and it will encourage them to be easy-going and give light penances. No downsides, pure profit, and it will even help grow our parishes and keep more Catholics in the Church, once we become known here in Chicago for fast, reliable, and satisfactory service. This idea from Diocesan Inc. is amazing, and I highly recommend them to any diocese looking to be transformed!”
“Maybe, if it goes well,” commented the diocesan communications’ manager, “We’ll even be able double confession times from five to ten minutes per month.”
Critics of the move, however, feel that this unduly commercializes confession and the Church as a whole.
“This would be simony, right?” asked Chicago Catholic Theresa Scheidler. “They could put a collection box in the confessional, and it wouldn’t be a problem, but having an iPad with a credit card scanner asking for a tip is kind of pushing it too far. How is that going to be secure and not break the seal of confession?”
Churches in other dioceses, meanwhile, are introducing other technological innovations, including drive-through confessions and frequent penitent programs.
At the time of publishing, a member of the staff of the Archdiocese had nailed 95 notes to the door of the diocesan chancery building, complaining about the “commercialization of confession” and calling for the Cardinal archbishop to debate him.
Cardinal Zupich, surprisingly, agreed with the criticism and counter-proposed that the Archdiocese solve the commercialization and simony problem by simply replacing sacramental confession with secular “listening booths.”
Oh wait, in order to pay for the tablets in every Church, Cardinal Zupich announced that they have to sell off five more churches in his archdiocese…
My college has been fundraising a lot for our church recently. Why don’t they just do this?
Yes, just do away with confession. Have the collection boxes there and people can leave money to have their sins forgiven. There could be a sliding scale fee for how much to pay for what sins. Mortal sins could be $1000.