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The Catholic Church has lately dived into the digital revolution with an uninhibited enthusiasm, exploring new ways to reach parishioners and potential converts alike. This may be attributable to Pope Benedict XVI, whose digital-ecumenical efforts have included championing the Internet as a way for Catholics to share their faith, establishing the Vatican's YouTube channel and even asking followers to text their concerns about recent scandals. But with the Church's headlong leap into tech, one can expect some missteps. For example: the Austrian priest who tried to sell a confessional on eBay for use as a "one-person sauna, a small bar or a children's playhouse."The Vienna archdiocese was not amused. Spokesperson Erich Leitenberger told the Salzburger Nachrichten that the resale of "objects that were used for dispensing the sacraments is not acceptable." Otto Weber, the Hirschstetten-based priest who posted the auction on eBay, was just trying to raise money for renovating his church. But, to compound the blunders in Weber's good intentions, the archdiocese finally pulled the plug on the post when it reached 40 bids, at a total of 666.66 euros. eBay: The Devil's Marketplace. [From: AP, via: Gawker]
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Comments
23
Subscribe to commentszee wiseoneJul 21st 2010 2:48PM
It was probably clumsy for the Priest to have phrased things like that, but my cousins bought an old confessional that is tastefully displayed in their living-room and used as a small library and for displaying art objects. No disrespect intended. We are all becoming way too sensitive ...!!!
nvdesertdreamerJul 21st 2010 3:06PM
Maybe the Vactican should give up some of its millions.
Sin D FetishJul 21st 2010 2:55PM
Yea thats cool...it'd make cool toilet or doghouse.
Frank ODonnellJul 21st 2010 2:58PM
Was this Confessional the Prototype that tested the new " Vatican VISA" Credit
Card for paying your Penance safely and quickly before you leave the Confessional..........sounded like a great idea to me !
damoneJul 21st 2010 2:57PM
Get over it, its just a wooden structure built by ordinary carpenters with ordinary tools. Nothing magical about it. I recently purchased a church and am turning it into a house.
joanJul 21st 2010 3:05PM
I am a Catholic, but this story cracked me up. What a sense of humor this priest has!! LOL!
jakeJul 21st 2010 4:25PM
I enjoyed it also... It's the unnecessary, disrespectful and insulting comments by childish, uninformed, poorly bred and pathetically immature clowns (like nvdesertdreamer, Sin D Fetish and Frank ODonnell) that I find tasteless. They tell more about themselves and the sort of parents they had than they realize.
LisaJul 21st 2010 3:33PM
HILARIOUS !!!!!!!
David S.Jul 21st 2010 4:03PM
I agree a confessional is just a wood structure; however, unless the priest owned the church, it wasn't his to auction off! No different than me taking something from my place of employment and trying to sell it. This priest is a thief....
LILLIAN FIGUEROAJul 21st 2010 4:42PM
Clearly if the money was to be used to renovate the Church, this was not theft.
What are they supposed to do with no longer used confessionals, burn them?
Churches sell items all the time to use for renovations, repairs and charity. If he was putting the money in his own pocket and spending it on nonChurch items, that would be theft.
robJul 21st 2010 4:30PM
two hail mary's and an our father for penence
Jay LJul 21st 2010 5:07PM
maybe the vatican should sell just one or two of those huge, expensive paintings or staues hanging around and feed all the starving Catholics in the world??
katieJul 21st 2010 5:50PM
They can't. They're stolen.
AnneJul 21st 2010 5:17PM
We are not to confess our sins to any man. Confess to your Father who is in heaven and He will hear and forgive your sins.
You can talk over your concerns of a sin with anyone. Even sitting in a cardboard box its about as useful as this wooden thing they call a confessional
TerryJul 21st 2010 6:26PM
Bar, confessional, what's the difference? You drink before you go into one and after you go into the other. And either case, you discuss what's bothering you with guy on the other side......
1newlifecogicJul 21st 2010 7:50PM
Now that's a thought!!
King DavidJul 21st 2010 6:29PM
Now THAT'S FUNNY!!!! LOL
AngelaJul 21st 2010 6:46PM
I would love to have one.
SteveJul 21st 2010 6:46PM
When people practice a sin like telling people they have to confess to a priest, which is found nowhere in Scripture, it just leads to other weird behavior, such as trying to sell a "confessional".
This, from what I understand, is why in Roman Catholicism, the so-called leaders don't want the parishiners to read the Bible for themselves, but tell them that the priests will tell them what the Bible says. From what I understand, parishineres in Roman Catholicism are told to stay away from Christians.
This is a very dangerous practice indeed. I am a Christian, and have read through the Bible some 25 times as of July, 2009, and have continued in daily devotionals for the past year, and reviewing the assigned readings for "Through the Bible in a year", and there is no place in Scripture where it tells people that they are to confess their sins to a human priest. Nor is there any such place as Purgatory, or any such practice as "Buying your loved ones out of Purgatory".
The Bible teaches us that there is Heaven and Hell, and that if we reject Christ, we'll go to Hell, because with our sins, we cannot enter into Heaven, and the Bible is clear that all have sinned. But there's Good News!
The cure to this disease of sin, is to confess our sins to God, repent of our sins, do a 180 degree direction change, as we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and open our hearts to Christ.
This is why Jesus had to come and die on the cross. If there were any other way to enter Heaven, God would not have had to send His One and only Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross, and shed His sinless blood to atone for a world of lost sinners.
As we accept Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior, He then becomes our Great High Priest, to whom we can go and confess our sins anytime, 24/7.
The Bible tells us then, that if we confess our sins, [Jesus] is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Furthermore, we as believers become a royal priesthood, eliminating the need for a human priest, which was the law in the Old Testament, under God's orders. But with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, there is no longer a need for human priests, and the shed blood of animals, and a scapegoat, to atone for our sins, as we are now under the New Testament!
When Jesus cried out from the cross, "It is finished!" The perfect, full atonement of Jesus Christ, was complete, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, symbolizing that the way was opened for humankind to go directly to God the Father, with the confession of our sins.
As newborn Christians, the Bible refers to us as "Babes in Christ", and tells us that we are to desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby, and we are then indwelt by God's Holy Spirit, which will then give us discernment, as we begin to read the Bible.
We then receive God's free gift of eternal life, and we are no longer Hell bound, because when God looks at us, He doesn't see a sinner, as God looked directly at us before. But now God looks at us through His perfect Son, Jesus Christ, Who has come between, and so then God sees us sinners as being perfect, because He sees Christ in and through us.
The 4th. and final verse in the hymn; "The Solid Rock" (Who is Jesus Christ Himself), it reads;
"When [Christ] shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne."
And in closing, the "Gospel in a nutshell" is found in the New Testament book of John, the third Chapter, where Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees, the Bible tells us, who was a religious leader of the Jews, but was lost as a goose in a hailstorm, so to speak, so that He came to Jesus by night, to ask Him the way of salvation and light, and Jesus, the Master made answer in words true and plain, "You must be born again." (Read John Chapter 3).
But we are told in "The Gospel in a nutshell",
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him, might be saved" (John 3:16,17).
That's the Real Deal, Folks.
gailJul 21st 2010 7:20PM
Where on earth did you get your misinformation??? You may be referring to practices of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, which I might remind you managed to keep the Bible and Christianity alive, but you are certainly not referring to the modern Catholic Church. As all human institutions do, it has its share of problems. (Many Christian churches of various denominations are in the news for problems ranging from financial scandals to sexual misconduct.) But the church does not discourage its members from reading the Bible. Most parishes have very active Bible study groups.