Church Offers Cure For Green Guilt

by Nicole

It seems eco-sinners are lining up to have their guilt assuaged. A group called Earthly Sins was the first to offer eco-absolution at their portable confessional booth at the Glastonbury Festival in 2004. The “non-judgmental environmental advice installation” encouraged post-confessional participants to take a three-point pledge to make planet-positive changes in their life.

Now it seems the Roman Catholic Church are jumping on the green-guilt bandwagon. According to the UK’s Times newspaper, Benedictine monk Dom Anthony Sutch will don green robes, made from recycled curtains, to work an ecumenical eco-confessional box at the Waveney Greenpeace Festival in England this Sunday. Instead of Hail Mary’s, local green politician Rupert Read will be on hand offering transgressors guidance.

For those of us unable to walk or use public transport to get to an eco-confessional booth, rather than adding to your list of stuff to confess by making an unnecessary car journey, eco-sinners can repent in the privacy of their own home by leaving online anonymous confessions at: www.truegreenconfessions.com

Here’s a selection of Daily Mantra’s favorites from the site:

“I work for a car manufacturer, get a new car every year as a benefit and hate myself for it. I am a stumpy traitor.”

“My boyfriend tosses his cigarette butts out of his Prius.”

“I once dumped a boy for littering at an Earth Day festival.”

“If I only pee a little, sometimes I wont flush the toilet. I'll wait until I go once or twice more before flushing. I guess that's kinda gross, but it's just me living on my own, so no one else sees it.”

“ Ever since I was a kid, I've gone by the mantra, ‘if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down.’”

“I do green things (homemade cleaning products, line drying all my clothes, repurpose items, etc) not because I care about the environment, but because I'm cheap.”

“Since I confessed to my love of long baths here, my water heater broke and had to be replaced. The new one only heats up enough water to barely fill the tub halfway. I blame you guys for that.”

Well that’s eco-karma at work. / Photo courtesy of Earthly Sins

| 08/31/07 | Beliefs