The Catholic Church is edging further into the 21st century after giving a nod of approval to an iPhone app which guides its followers through confessing their sins.

Confession: A Roman Catholic App is designed to help users understand their earthly sins and offers a personal conscience profile based on their age, sex, job and marital status.

The app, which costs £1.19, is particularly aimed at those who've not confessed to a priest in a while and hopes to prepare them to once again enter the box again.

When partaking in the virtual confession, believers can choose from a list of sins or add their own, while choosing from seven different acts of contrition. More importantly it supports the iPhone's Retina Display.

Vatican approved

A spokesperson from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales told BBC News the app was a "useful tool to help people prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation".

"The Church believes in embracing new technology and this creative app will hopefully help people to make a good confession."

It is thought to be the first time the church has approved an app, which is part of the Pope's drive for catholics to "make good use of their presence in the digital world."

Whatever future-thinking concepts might be next? Approval for contraception? Embracing same sex relationships? The sky's the limit.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... app-927086

If you can't beat the false God, join him... He's not the Messiah, he's just a very rich man!

I'm sure I posted this in the Random Sh!t thread.

I normally don't miss much here, but it might be this crappy mouse that for some reason causes the page to scroll up a bit once it reaches the end, causing mild confusion... WTF's that about?

Sounds like something you'd see on Father Ted.

'Father, I swear I couldn't get a signal here on the island...'

Fantastic religion. Do what the feck you like and then confess on an app.

When does the Hail Mary app come out then?

It merely continues to prove the point...

Has no one noticed that God's divine spokseperson on earth is in fact just a weird old man wearing a stupid glittery costume? It's like noticing that Father Christmas is wearing your uncle's wristwatch.

Gary Glitter is Pope?

Not far off.

Give it time...

Jon

'Use the touchscreen to show us what happened, son.'

this forum wouldn't be the same without the regular unfunny "jokes" about catholics ...

I pride myself as being an equal opportunities offender, personally

It's ok - the other side have their own pope available on the iPhone too - http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/richard-dawkins/id405817731?mt=8

The Catholic church covered up cases of men raping little boys, that's a fact, dark humour relies on references to something being true, even though saying such things goes against perceived correctness, it's important to allow it in order to not curtail freedom of expression.