Bless me father and recycle my sins
Thursday August 30 2007
The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in "green confessions" to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness from God.
Dom Anthony Sutch, a Benedictine monk, will be at Waveney Greenpeace festival in Suffolk this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated priestly confessional booth of its kind.
Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors, he will hear the sins of those who have not recycled the things they ought to have done and who have consumed the things they believe they ought not to have done.
Fr Sutch, who will don the curtains over his monastic habit, tries to practice what he preaches.
Parishioner
But, he has turned the heating down so low at his church of St Benet's that at least one parishioner has fled to the warmer care of a neighbouring priest for winter services.
He said: "It is not, I hope, blasphemous to do this. I do not think it is. It is just an attempt to make people conscious of the way they live and its effects.
"The Church is aware of green issues and of how aware we have to be of how we treat the environment. I know the Pope has now set up his own airline, but I am told the Vatican will be planting trees every time it flies.
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