Parish Adding "Frequent-Flyer Program" for Frequent Penitents
Tiered Benefits Will Allow Frequent Penitents to "Check Out Faster"
Sacramento, CA - Fr. Andrew Nelson, the pastor of St. Stephen the First Martyr Catholic Church is weighing options for better helping penitents who show up to Confession with unusually high frequency. Coming up with better processes for confession at traditional parishes like St. Stephen’s, run as it is by the FSSP, is extremely important due to its infamously long confession lines that extend all the way out of the church no matter how many hours they schedule for confession.
As the three priests of the Fraternity who serve the parish, of course, like all priests, are unable to reveal anything about demographics or particular individuals that tend to show up outside of the Sacrament, they are not exactly able to determine what causes this problem, whether it’s from an excess of sinfulness or because of scrupulosity, which amounts to more or less the same thing. However, they did determine that the establishment of a self-reported system for penitents based on their personal frequency of attendance to the sacrament would provide them ways to help better serve the needs of their frequent attendees. Under the new system, "Regulars" will be those who would avail themselves of the Sacrament not more frequently than once in a month. Those who might show up twice in the average month will be calleed "Bonus Points Members." Weekly penitents, they will term, "Weekly Specials." Daily attendees, further, are to be termed, "Daily Scruples."
All of these are subcategories of a broader category of what the church will term "high-maintenance Catholics", into which most of the parish’s members are placed. Taking care of these Catholics's spiritual needs requires a lot more effort by the priests, and while they want to reward attempts at growing in holiness, it also wants to ensure that its services are "fair and equitable." To this end, this so-called "frequent flyer program" for penitents will give "tiered benefits" that "help them efficiently and effectively along their journey while helping the priests serve its other customers just as well" according to Fr. Pius Tentherson, another priest of the FSSP who serves the parish.
"Regulars" will receive a special express "confession line" as well as the ability to sign up for and reserve confession slots in advance once a month. Within confession itself, they will receive expedited "bullet point" advice from the priest as well as a rushed prayer of absolution, "since they already know it."
"Bonus-point" members in the program will receive the above benefits as well as special advice on how to more "prudently and succinctly perform an examination of conscience." They will also receive the ability to write out their sins on a special form to be read by the priest ahead of time rather than the more time-consuming and repetitive process of confessing them out loud. Alternatively, they will also have the option of simply telling the priest that they are confessing " the usual " while confessing.
"Weekly Specials" will have all of the above as standard, as well as the ability to pre-pay, or, that is, "pre-perform their penances" ahead of time.
"Daily Scruples" members will have all of the above benefits as well as the ability to perform their confession over the phone with a priest.
"We're looking into AI solutions for confession as well in order to further expedite confessions and reduce long wait times," Fr. Pius Tentherson commented. "However, we're not yet sure about the canonical validity of ordaining such intelligences. We know they would offer better advice than any priest, but an FSSP parish also might not be a good place to launch such a system in the spirit of our commitment to tradition and all. We hope the SSPX tries them out first, and maybe we’ll adopt it after they take all the heat for doing it first.”
Anyone who meets the attendance qualifications of the Sacrament of Reconciliation for each tier at the parish will automatically be enrolled in the program.