Following the announcement of a drive-thru Ash Wednesday at a church in Galway, an Armagh chapel are going one better with a scheme that will additionally wash and shine your car for charity.
‘Car wAsh Wednesday’ is the brainchild of Father Paul Pitt from St Patricks in Armagh, who says he was planning his event before the drive-thru news broke.
“We’ll be out all day on Wednesday ashing heads and washing away sins, for a good cause” he smiled. ” It’ll be £3 for a ‘Wash & Ash’, £5 for the ‘Sin and Shine’ and £8 for the almighty one – a full wash, wax, t-cut and alloys. We’re calling it the ‘Bodywork of Christ’” he laughed.
Following the news, other parishes have come forward to reveal similarly progressive slants on old Catholic favourites.
“We let our congregation do their confessions on Facebook Messenger now!” revealed Father Neil Down from St Peter’s Church in Drogheda. “You can seek forgiveness via a voice or video call, or if you’ve used up all your data watching porn, a priest can forgive you in plain text – provided you can prove you’re typing with both hands!”
“We call it Facebook Confessionger!”
Others are trialling similarly modern schemes. Armagh church are doing a photo-sharing confession service called “SnapCheat”, St Eugenes in Derry are offering takeaway portions of Holy Communion with taco sauce, whilst collection baskets in Enniskillen have now been replaced by iPads.
These devices are passed around as normal, allowing church goers to make a donation online. However there have been issues with the payment provider.
“Currently we only accept Papal” revealed a source.