This is so cool!
St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church pastor Fr. Patrick Baikauskas, O.P, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana offers confessions in a new, original way.
The campus ministry pastor created “the confession to-go cart.” He drives a go-cart with the sign “confessions to-go,” offering confessions right on the college campus.
“If this is a really important sacrament, then let’s show it,” Fr. Patrick told WLFI News 18. “Let’s get out where the people are–where the students are–take this golf cart out [and] do confessions on-the-go.”
“Pope Francis said we’re supposed to smell like the sheep,” Fr. Patrick said. “Smelling like the sheep means you’re not going to stay in that church and wait for all the people to come to us.
“Pope Francis wants us to go out to the people and experience them right where they are.”
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The news story also explains that Fr. Patrick stops for students waving him down. He hears face-to-face confessions in the golf cart.
“We want to honor our traditions, but we don’t want to be traditionalists,” Fr. Patrick added. “We don’t want to be so stayed and so off-putting that we get stuck in the traditions without recognizing how we can bring them to people in a new way.”
Purdue college students expressed their reactions to this less-than-traditional confession method.
“I thought it was pretty funny when I first saw it, but I think it’s kind of cool that it’s there and it’s spreading the message,” Purdue University freshman Liv James said.
David Evans, another Purdue University student and member of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, said he goes to confession every week. He explained that this is “just another way” for him to receive the sacrament.
“The point of confession is to receive mercy, to look at yourself and say ‘this is where I screwed up, but this is how I do better’,” Evans told WLFI News 18.
How awesome!
What do you think of the “confession to-go” cart?
[See also: “Need Confession?”: Priest’s Sign on University Campus Goes Viral]
[See also: 5 Conditions for a Good Confession Every Catholic Needs to Know, In One Infographic]