Church Introduces Drive-Through Confessions With Express Checkout

"Got to Keep The Lines Moving Somehow," Priest Argues

St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Austin, Texas is introducing a “drive-through confessional” adjacent to their Church to help “expedite confession lines” throughout the rest of their Lenten “busy season.” The idea is simple, yet brilliant. A hut-like structure sitting over a driveway on the outskirts of the parish property with a priest sitting inside (an electrically actuated screen can pop up and down as desired between him and the penitent’s car) and a long snake-like driveway approaching for people to line up in their cars, the parish’s plan even includes a large “menu” of sins a few lengths before the confessional for people to make a brief examination of conscience and even an ability for “express checkout” to expedite the process further.

Criticism from around the country directed towards the church’s pastor, Fr. Mark Ferreira, arose as soon as Ferreira and the parish council announced the plan yesterday. But according to Fr. Ferreira, the decision was made because of a “state of necessity.”

“We can’t find this idea anywhere in tradition, but we’ve got to keep the lines moving somehow. If people are forced to drive into our hut with their car running, they make it through faster and I can see to more of my parish in less time. It’s a state of necessity type thing. We have a schedule of confession times, and people complain to me about it not being enough. It’s enough. 1 hour a week should be good for a parish of a thousand families. But for some reason, people confess for way too long .”

Fr. Ferreira clarified that early rumors are untrue, the “express checkout” service will not be a deacon or supposed “extraordinary minister of confession” making a record of each penitent’s sins at the “menu” sign, but merely an AI chatbot that will “print out a summary report” for the priest to briefly review after you narrate your sins to it while waiting in line. “It allows you to confess your sins to the priest but without each penitent having to recite them all to him directly. So much faster! Pray the opening prayers, give a sentence or two of advice, and voila, absolution, and on to the next one. And don’t worry, the AI system that will “pre-take” your order won’t remember your sins directly. It’s not stored on a hard drive anywhere but only on random access memory (RAM) and displays only temporarily on a screen in front of the priest.”

Fr. Ferreira hopes to be able to reach a rate of processing 40 penitents per hour, allowing his parish to remain with only one hour a week of available time for confessions even through this busy season, and potentially even to reduce that schedule to only 30 minutes a week during the post-Easter low season.

Meanwhile, St. Stephen the First Martyr Parish in Sacramento, California, as we covered below, has adopted a different solution to tackle long lines by setting up a “frequent-flyer program” with perks for their most frequent penitents such as being able to cut in line.