'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.""Oh goody, I love a juicy confession. What have you got for me this time? Bit of Gluttony? Avarice? Pride? Or is it your favourite and mine, that old faithful Lust?"
"None of the above, Father, it's even worse. I've not switched over to energy-saving light bulbs yet, I forgot to recycle my rubbish, and I just got a pay rise."
(Cue the sound of priest fainting with shock on the other side of the confessional.)
Don't blame the messenger. Now that the Vatican has decided, in its wisdom, to add seven new deadly sins to the ones already in place -- bringing "polluting the environment" and "excessive wealth" into the category of things for which Catholics need to urgently ask God for divine forgiveness or risk eternal damnation in Hell -- the potential for making a mockery out of penance in the above manner has shot up considerably.
Confession will soon be like the scene in Wind in the Willows when Mr Toad is arrested for stealing a car and driving dangerously, and is brought before the Bench of Magistrates for sentencing. He gets 12 months for the theft, three years for the bad driving, and 15 years for being cheeky to the police officer who arrested him, adding up to 19 years, so they decide to round it up to 20 "and be on the safe side".
From now on, it'll be the odd Hail Mary here for common or garden gluttony, and an, "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry," there for knocking off your neighbour's wife while he's out playing golf -- but the theological equivalent of 100 lashes for ... how is it the new list of seven deadly sins puts it? Oh yes, "contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor".
The irony is that the list, published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, is designed as a response to Pope Benedict's lamentation for the "decreasing sense of sin" in a "secularised world", but will most likely only increase secularisation as observers everywhere read it and wonder if the Church has finally lost the plot.
As an illustration of what is wrong with Christian thinking today, the new list sure takes some beating. There's more intellectual rigour in the witterings of your average New Age tree-hugger than there is in the Vatican's latest bout of desperate attention-seeking. Polluting the environment indeed. Does this include elderly parishioners throwing an extra piece of turf on the fire, if they can afford it, in the depths of winter?
Well, wouldn't want to damage the ozone layer, would we now?
Anyone who has a child in the school system -- from junior infants to Junior Cert and beyond -- knows how the green message is continually rammed down pupils' throats with a pious relentlessness that makes the Christian Brothers' fondness for beating a love of Jesus into the boys back in the good old days look half-hearted by comparison.
The environment has become synonymous with virtue, and woe betide anyone who dares question the new green catechism. The Vatican is just cynically trying to hitch its cart to the new religion as it gallops madly on.
You can see how their minds must have been working. What are the young ones into these days -- apart, that is, from drinking vodka mixers and collecting new STDs? The environment, of course! So let's grab a piece of the action for ourselves.
It's pathetic, like watching your middle-aged uncle trying to break dance in the mistaken belief that it makes him look cool. Yo, Fr Trendy, is that a rolled up copy of the Kyoto Protocol in your cassock, or are you just pleased to see us?
As for the new deadly sin of "allowing for social injustice", which clerical genius dreamt that one up? I'm no theologian, but Jesus wasn't exactly big on combating social injustice, according to the Bible. "Render unto Caesar," and all that. Jesus was more concerned with the intentions of the heart. In fact, that's precisely why left-leaning Christians have always had such a problem recruiting the bearded one to their cause, since his focus tended to be on the glories of the next world rather than the failings of this one.
Excessive wealth? Jesus never said a single word about being too wealthy either. All he ever condemned was the excessive love of money -- so the dole scrounger who can't spare a euro for the poor box because he'd rather put it towards another can of Special Brew can potentially be as guilty as the millionaire driving past the homeless in his gas-guzzling Mercedes.
Nobody gets a free pass in New Testament theology simply by being stony broke. It's what goes on in the hidden corners of the human conscience that make the difference. Besides, if the Vatican wants to set an example, how about giving its own vast riches to, ooh, let's say the victims of priestly sex abuse? But no, "despoiling the innocence of children" isn't one of the new deadly sins, so they're off the hook on that one.
How convenient.
The growing audibility of Christian voices in public affairs, of which this silly new list from the Vatican is the latest manifestation, may partly be a reaction to the success of Muslims in aggressively using their religious identity as a political tool. If the imams can do it, goes the thinking, why not the bishops? Whatever the reason, after years in the shadows Christians are undoubtedly beginning to flex their collective muscles once more.
A small but telling illustration: last week, the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK banned an ad for ceramic hair straighteners on the grounds that, by quoting from the Lord's Prayer in a light-hearted way, it had offended the sensibilities of believers.
One of those to complain was the Archdeacon of Liverpool, the Venerable Ricky Panter, who insisted the Lord's Prayer "should not be treated as trivial".
Now hang on one itsy bitsy moment, your panting venerableness. The right to treat the Lord's Prayer trivially, or anything else for that matter, is one of the things which make getting out of bed in the morning worthwhile. Are we supposed to throw it away for no other reason than that the practitioners of one religious sect or another have had their feelings hurt?
That's a false economy, if ever there was one. Giving in to the demands of bearded men in frocks for the sake of a quiet life rarely results in a quieter life for anyone.
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