Father forgive me - I threw an aluminum can in the trash
Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer?
The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in “green confessions” to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness.
Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county’s Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated 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 of those who have not recycled the things they ought to have done and who have consumed the things they ought not to have done.
...“I’ve had one or two comments about abuse of the confessional. One or two people have said, ‘Father, is this quite right?’ Luckily, more people see it as an excellent idea.
Some days a parodist can get quite depressed. If I had wrote a parody that had included "Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors" people might have had a quick laugh but it wouldn't seem all that plausible. Good parody makes you wonder if something might be a real story. The problem is too many real stories make you wonder if it might be a parody.
Only one or two people have questioned this as an abuse?
Canon 964
+1. The proper place to hear sacramental confessions is a church or
an oratory. +2. The conference of bishops is to issue norms
concerning the confessional, seeing to it that confessionals with a
fixed grille between penitent and the faithful who wish to make use of
them may do so freely. +3. Confessions are not to be heard outside
the confessional without (nisi) a just cause.
You also have to wonder what kind of penances he would give? Say three Hail Al Gore's? Though you could admit to clubbing a seal and he couldn't tell anybody because of the seal of confession. Much is always made of what is called Catholic guilt (use to be called a conscience), but this seems like something tailor made for liberal guilt. Though this is not surprising that they would apply confession in the matter since they already have indulgences for your carbon footprint called a carbon offset.
I think though that this is a serious abuse of the sacrament to have a theme to confess on. As important as true stewardship is of what God has given us the solutions given by so many environmentalists are often junk science or just plain ineffective.
Known as 
This is just as funny as a recent thread on the Catholic Answers Forum...
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=179577
I made a Modest Proposal a la Jonathan Swift at post 45
-ACEGC
I have a new theme for the confessional. Every saturday, show up to focus on the theme of SIN.
Oh, wait, that isn't a theme, it is the purpose.
"Seal of confession"--arr! Arr!
Maybe we could have rotating confession themes?
Week 1 - Lust (Everyone would want to go but they wouldn't want anyone else to see them there!)
Week 2 - Sloth (The people that need to show up wouldn't make it)
Week 3 - Wrath (Great fights would break out)
Week 4 - Pride (All the people that need to go wouldn't think they needed to go)
etc.
Honestly, I'm unsure without meeting the priest. He might be another hippie priest, or just a smart, slightly pragmatic shepherd who heard the idea and thought, "If it gets people in the confessional..."
The self-righteous, rich and prideful could simply purchase a carbon penitent rather than go to eco-confession. Money solves every problem, even Catholic ones.
I am just listening to a morning news show in the DC area and they are making fun of this priest and his "confessions". That should tell you how wrong that is mocking the sacrament for political purposes.
Ah, stewardship. How does that one responsory in the Liturgy of the Hours go? something like:
Many men are said to be merciful, but the mark of a steward is that he is faithful to his duty.
"As soon a coin in the coffer rings, the carbon from your footprint springs!"
-- Johann Tetzel, German Dominican friar remembered for selling indulgences.
This isn't true, is it? He CAN'T mandate a theme, can he? I could see if the priest were to ask people to search their conscience for particular sorts of sin, but can the penitents be made to confess only one type of sin?
Here are green penances targeted specifically at today's feminist (stolen from Doctor Laura) to counteract that sinful carbon
1. quit your job: not going back and forth from work will reduce carbon emissions
2. take your kid out of daycare: the reduced travel also cuts down on carbon emissions
3. cancel your gym membership and take walks instead: the air conditioning at gyms puts lots of carbon into the biosphere
4. do laundry instead of sending clothes to the dry cleaner: dry cleaners put all sorts of toxic waste into the biosphere
5. now that you don't need to drive to work, daycare, and dry cleaner - get rid of that second vehicle
6. Cook meals instead of buying processed food: processed food has high carbon overhead and the plastic wrappers use up non-renewable resources
7. throw away the hormonal contraceptives and use natural methods of fertility regulation: the estrogen in the pills does nasty things to the water after urination.
Next week on When Liberal Causes Collide: affordable housing for lower income people vs preserving wildlife habitats.
Wow! that sounds SOOOO much like a former pastor of mine. He'd be complaining about parishioners confessing sexual sins rather than confessing they ate bananas during winter & thus "robbing" the poor peasants working in Central America! Of course he was fornicating with a honey on the side & had to leave the priesthood when she became pregnant. (The Lord works in marvelously mysterious ways!)