PIZZA, weather forecasts, erotica and now a brand of spiritual absolution are all available on a telephone near you. The Tridentiae bishop, Michael Cox, has launched a phone confession service for £1 a minute to help pay for restoring a Co Offaly church.
However the "healing and confessions line" has met with stiff disapproval from the Catholic Church. "Confession is a personal encounter with Christ with the priest merely standing in," a spokesman for the Catholic press office said. "Catholics should be aware that the confessions he is offering on his phone have no value whatsoever in sacramental terms."
Callers to the 1570 premium line hear a tape offering a voice activated menu. They can choose an interview with the bishop, a healing line, a special intention line or the confessions and absolution service.
In the preamble, which takes more than three minutes, they are invited to leave details of "any medical problems that might be troubling you" for which a Latin Mass will be offered the following Sunday.
The bishop says the service is aimed at disabled and infirm people with limited mobility. The tape stresses the strict confidentiality of the service, and tells callers not to give their names.
He said yesterday all proceeds from the new service would go towards the restoration of his church, St Colman's, near Birr, Co Offaly. He lives in "abject poverty" in the grounds of the church, according to the tape.
A former Dun Laoghaire Harbour policeman, Bishop Cox (51) lived in Monkstown, Co Dublin, in the mid 1980s and offered Tridentine Latin Masses there. He was ordained in 1987 by Roman Catholic clergy who were followers of the Tridentine church, and made a bishop in 1992.
He says he is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be "valid but unlawful. That is, I am valid in that I have been made bishop in a direct line of Roman Catholic consecration, but unlawful in that my practices follow the Council of Treat, as opposed to Vatican II".
Bishop Cox said that he moved to the midlands after his health deteriorated in the late 1980s.
"I found St Colman's, which was formerly used as a factory, and I sold everything I possessed to buy it. It is dilapidated and needs renovation. The proceeds of the telephone calls will go towards that, as well as looking after the poor and the sick." The Catholic press office spokesman said he would describe the service as merely "eccentric if it wasn't for the question of the money and expense".