The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis

by Charles Brett

  The obvious difference, to Davide, about the Santofonino was that it did not display the usual first screen of an Apple, Android or Windows smartphone. Instead there was what he correctly assumed to be the crossed keys emblem of the Vatican and underneath the words, in Italian and English, “To start, press here”.

  José Antonio stopped Davide from starting.

  “Please do not press or you will be connected to one of my colleagues in the Confessional Call Centre. Please press the bottom button three times quickly. That should bring up a screen stating, ‘Testing’, and then prompt you for a password. Press on that. A keyboard will appear. Please enter Alpha-a-Omega, with a capital A and a capital O for Omega. This should put you into what I am told is called a test mode, something that I normally leave to my more technology literate colleague, Father Giorgio.”

  Davide did as instructed, entering the password. A similar screen to the first one appeared.

  “Now press the button on the screen. This will connect you to what they call an automated response system, so you do not have to do any confessing. It enables us to check the system is working.”

  Davide pressed the button. He was given a choice of languages, starting with Italian, then English, French and Spanish, with another button for additional languages. He selected Spanish, to José Antonio’s amusement.

  The small speaker on the Santofonino asked if he wished to confess and started the ritual. He proceeded through the various steps until the Santofonino announced that he would have to say ten Hail Mary’s and ten Lord’s Prayers. It then asked if he would like to make a contribution.

  “How does it know I’m male?” Davide asked aloud, more to himself than to José Antonio.

  “Apparently there’s some clever analysis that I do not understand which matches voice patterns to decide whether a man or woman is confessing. This works most of the time. I have only had one complaint, from a distinctly masculine-looking lady, who was disconcerted at being treated as a man. She was not happy but my sympathies were with the Santofonino because her voice was almost bass.

  “Now you can see a special keyboard offering you the local currency or a choice of other currencies. You then have to choose an amount to contribute.”

  Davide decided to be mischievous by selecting US Dollars and offering 100.

  The Santofonino replied that he was most generous. The church thanked him for that generosity and invited him to select his contribution method from Amex, MasterCard, PayPal, Prepaid Confessional Card, Visa, or from others available at this location. He selected PayPal and was asked to enter his payment details. Once complete he pressed the authorise button. Moments later he saw that this dummy transaction had been processed successfully. He then heard his automated confessor reduce his penance to five Hail Mary’s and five Lord’s Prayers. Finally he was given an automated absolution, a blessing, and then the screen invited him to press the “Termina esta confesión’’ button whereupon the crossed keys insignia of the Vatican reappeared ready for the next sinner.

  “That is pretty much it, at least from the sinner’s viewpoint. As you can see it is both simple and straightforward to use. In fact it has become more sophisticated over time. When we first started it was available in Italian and only with Visa and MasterCard. Nelson’s people had not yet found a way to distribute Prepaid Confessional Cards, which the faithful can now buy in advance. That is a comparatively recent development, aimed more at developing countries or poor parishes. For these today, you go to a bank or post office and buy one. The card has a monetary value that decreases as you use what you have prepaid. At least this is what I think happens.”

  “Very interesting. It’s been elegantly done. It goes much further in practice than my little discussion. Okay. What next? Do we have a meeting arranged within the Vatican to experience the other end?”

  “Yes, tomorrow. Now, would you like a cappuccino? Yes, it’s still early enough even for me, and I am not even Italian. Let’s go next door to the Parish Office where I can introduce you to Father Giorgio. We were fortunate enough recently to receive an amazing Lavazza coffee-making machine, donated in gratitude by a generous parishioner appreciative of all Father Giorgio did to support his dying mother. It’s very new to us. I have yet to understand how to use it. But Father Giorgio is already a master.”

  Saturday, Nahalal

  Miriam, like Michele, had woken early but for a very different reason. There had been a tapping on her door and Tamar had let herself into the bedroom.

  “Are you awake?” she asked.

  “If I wasn’t I am now. What time it is it?”

  “A little after six. I am sorry for waking you but I wanted to talk and we have little time.”

  “What do you mean? We’ve all day and tomorrow, if I can stay. I’m not even booked on a flight until late tomorrow night, which will then get me back to New Jersey” (she pronounced ‘Jersey’ as if it had three or even four syllables, as its locals tended to do) “by early Monday morning.”

  “Noach has been an idiot. He is so wrapped up in his own world” (the sisters smiled to each other at this understatement) “that he has forgotten that Yom Kippur starts this evening.”

  “So?”

  “Ah. You have never been in Israel during Yom Kippur. It is the Jewish Day of Atonement, an especially sacred day. There are customs that must be observed. The first is that once Yom Kippur begins no one will eat until it finishes. The second is that no vehicles can move during the approximately twenty-four hours of Yom Kippur. While this is not a law it is observed by all here. If you try driving you may end up being stoned or threatened. Using a bike or skateboard is fine but you can use nothing powered. In some places, like Jerusalem and in Orthodox settlements, the attitude is one must do nothing but atone and pray. In others, like Tel Aviv, it is more relaxed and sociable; everyone walks along the beach and enjoys themselves, without eating of course. I’ve never been in Tel Aviv during Yom Kippur but I’ve heard the atmosphere is weird, with a whole modern city without traffic, except for tens of thousands of families riding bikes on roads normally teeming with Israelis fighting each other loudly to be first.”

  “So what does this mean in practice for me – us?”

  “To be honest, I am not sure exactly. What I do know is, as a Gentile, nobody, even you, will be welcome. I am sorry. I wish it was otherwise. But you have seen Golda and for Yom Kippur she will tolerate nothing that breaks her concept of Jewish tradition.

  “If I’m correct you all will have to leave here before sundown. Actually, it means that you must all arrive where you intend to go by sundown. If you do not want to observe the Yom Kippur fast, you need to be somewhere close to places that provide food. My guess is that this means either Tel Aviv, especially Jaffa where Arab Christian restaurants happily offer food, or East Jerusalem where Arabs, Christian or Muslim, equally delight in thumbing a nose at our tradition.”

  “What about flying out?”

  “Unless you are already booked on a flight that takes off from Ben Gurion by four or five this afternoon, don’t even think about this. The airport begins closing down a couple of hours early, allowing its employees time to return home in time to observe the start of Yom Kippur. You mentioned having your reservation for Sunday night. So long as your plane arrives after Yom Kippur finishes then there shouldn’t be a problem for your departure.”

  “My flight is scheduled at just before midnight. Thinking about it, maybe this explains why I wasn’t able to obtain a reservation for tonight. I just thought that flight must have been full. Anyhow, from what you say we need to be away from here by mid-afternoon, with somewhere to stay. Have I got you right?”

  “Sorry, but I am pretty sure that is what has to happen. It’s why we do not have long together and I need to talk to someone.”

  “Okay, little sister; talk away. I could see last night that you wanted to. Why don’t you call me more often?”

  Tamar started unburdening herself about what felt like everythi
ng. Miriam wondered if the flood would ever stop.

  Saturday, Santa Maria, Monteverde

  “Father Giorgio, may I introduce my old friend Davide? Davide, this is Father Giorgio, my delightful skating colleague whom I told you about.”

  Davide was rather impressed with the young priest because not only did he have on his skating cassock but he was standing tall on inline skates beside a small, clearly new coffee machine.

  “Would you be able to weave your usual technical magic, Father Giorgio, and make us both a cappuccino? You know how I am hopeless with machines and you always do a better job.

  “By the way, Father Giorgio, you’ll be interested to know that Davide was the person who first described what we know as the Santofonino. You remember I looked up that article on the Internet a few days ago?” Father Giorgio nodded, focusing on manipulating the coffee machine. “It was his original description I was looking for, and to my amazement, I found it.”

  “If you’ll forgive the pun, it is a godsend, Davide. Unlike Father José Antonio, I only served briefly in the traditional Confessional. I should not say it but I disliked it. I didn’t have the patience to sit and wait, sometimes for no one to appear. In contrast, as you will see if you visit the Confessional Call Centre, one is busy all the time even if it does seem a bit like a sin-processing factory. When I did my time there we had a good but almost strange atmosphere.”

  “How so?” asked Davide, intrigued.

  “I am not quite sure how to describe it. There was a competitiveness as well as a camaraderie. We were mostly friendly to each other. There was certainly a positive feeling that we were contributing to God’s greater good, if you see what I mean?”

  “And the competitiveness?”

  “That came in two different ways. You may find this hard to believe but during the breaks the conversation was often about what were the worst sins confessed that day or, at the other extreme, which were the most boring. I know that sounds disrespectful and I suppose it was. But it provided us with some amusement.”

  “You said it came in two ways. What was the second?”

  Father Giorgio looked at Father José Antonio, saying, “I have never discussed this with you. I suspect you will disapprove. Forgive me, Father.”

  “Let me see. I am not offering forgiveness until I know more. I hope you weren’t too awful.”

  Though said in severe tones there was an approving edge in José Antonio’s eyes. In truth he was also intrigued. Father Giorgio always came up with some little angle or insight that had never occurred to him. Maybe it was just youth. Nevertheless, it gave José Antonio pleasure to listen to Father Giorgio’s foibles and adventures, though he was glad not to be his confessor, which would have been the case before the Santofonino.

  Davide watched them. Intrigued by the interplay, he saw they were more than work colleagues, more than just workmates. They clearly supported each other.

  “Come on. Tell us.”

  “I’m not sure how much you know about how the Confessional Call Centre works. As a call comes in, it is assigned at random by software to a priest so that nobody is likely to speak with the same penitent twice in a row. The priest hears the confession and enters the details of the sins into the Call Centre database, of course without any identification of the penitent because each call is anonymous. At the end of the confession the confessor will ask the system to recommend suitable penances which are calculated based on the sins. The confessor sees the recommendation on his computer and can make amendments depending on his sense of the penitent’s remorse. At this point he invites the penitent to consider making a contribution to our church before processing the payment of whatever was volunteered. Up until this point all was above board.

  “Where we started to be — how shall I put it, Father José Antonio, irregular? — was that we would keep a personal written total each day of whatever we collected. Then someone, who shall remain nameless” (Father Giorgio could not meet José Antonio’s eye), “thought about using each confessor’s mobile phone to keep the running total. We would then compare, at breaks, who had brought in the most money.

  “That wasn’t all. Another priest developed a counting system that ran on a small laptop. As every confessional sum was entered into each confessor’s mobile phone it was transmitted by Wi-Fi to this laptop, which kept a running total for all participants.

  “Of course the systems had the potential to be gamed by someone entering false amounts, but I do not think this ever happened. There was always a sense that we were doing God’s work and inventing false payments would have been dishonest.

  “The final stage of this occurred when another person discovered a way to project the running totals from the laptop onto the wall. At this point two things happened. Some gambling on ‘confessional income prospects’ started, a bit like a horse or dog race. Some of these developed names, like the ‘Daily 3.15, 90-Minute Sin-Stake’. This started at quarter past three and continued for ninety minutes. The randomised allocation of calls plus not knowing what sins would be confessed and how generous might be the contributions contributed a genuine uncertainty that lasted the entire allotted time.”

  By this time Davide was bent over with laughter. This was a side to a call centre that had never have occurred to him. He also imagined it provided some interest to the work. On the other hand José Antonio was clearly unamused.

  “The downfall of this was the projection of the ongoing totals for each Sin-Stake for the day, week and month. That was too obvious. The Confessional Call Centre management took notice, started to enquire about what was happening and were disapproving. They closed down what worked but borrowed some of the concepts. Today there is no gambling, not that everybody participated I hasten to add, Father José Antonio. But the idea of projecting running totals reappeared, without the ability to make confessor-specific bets. There was, however, a ‘re-education’ phase that instilled in all working in the Confessional Call Centre that any such gambling involving the sins of others was neither holy and certainly was not acceptable behaviour in people who had committed themselves to Our Lord. It was also noticeable that certain individuals were moved out to parishes sooner than they might have expected, including me.”

  Davide was highly entertained. He had never thought of such an inventive wrinkle within his concept for the HolyPhone. On the other hand, such competitive spirits in the Confessional Call Centre matched what he had seen in similar places, irrespective of where. It seemed to be a natural consequence of cramming people in a small space doing a dull job talking on the phone all day.

  In contrast, José Antonio was manifestly unhappy — it did not seem respectful to him. Yet Father Giorgio seemed to have learnt his lesson about what one could and could not do. His contrition sounded genuine. His telefonino rang, just as Father Giorgio was handing round newly-made cappuccinos. The original ones had gone cold during his descriptions.

  “Pronto. Nelson. How can I help? No, that will be no problem. I’ve shown Davide the confessional end of the Santofonino. Father Giorgio has been telling us of some subtleties in the Confessional Call Centre that I’ve never appreciated. Could we meet tomorrow morning after Mass?”

  José Antonio looked at Davide who nodded agreement.

  “I have to go over to the Confessional Call Centre myself. Might we meet there? I will also bring a confidentiality document that I have created — one that I hope Davide will sign when you bring him.”

  “We will be there. Hasta mañana,” said Father Antonio, dropping into his native Spanish. “Now Davide, I must return to more spiritual matters, if you do not mind?”

  “Certainly not. Shall we meet here tomorrow morning at around eleven thirty? That would be good. I can go back and have a lazy day plus catch up on my emails.”

  Davide walked down the road towards the Residencia. He really did need to spend a couple of hours catching up and recording his expenses. He could also do with a nap. Jet lag was not hitting quite as hard as he had expect
ed but it was still there.

  On reaching his room he opened his laptop and logged into his email. One of the most recent ones was from, of all people, Conor Laoghaire asking if Davide would be available for dinner in London at the end of October. Davide decided to call Conor rather than email him. A friendly voice would be welcome.

  He punched in the numbers on Skype for Conor’s mobile phone. After a few seconds, which struck Davide as odd, the connection went through and he heard Conor’s Irish voice.

  “Davide. How are you? Back in the UK, according to the number on my phone. Will you be there at the end of October as mentioned in my email asked? It’s time we got together again and killed some wine.”

  After replying that he was unsure where he would be in October, but was in Rome right now and might be there for some time, Conor laughed loudly.

  “So you’re in the Eternal City too? I arrived here earlier today and will stay for at least the next three days, attending a conference that one of the high-ups in my organisation wants me to be at and with a lady in tow. No, no, not that way. She’s been attached to me in theory to learn from me, though who knows what an Aussie will decide to absorb from an almost Brit, albeit an Irish one? What’re you doing here? What about meeting up? I’m sure I can lose her for an evening if you have time.”

  “This evening too soon for you?”

  “Actually that should work fine. There is a formal conference dinner tomorrow, but tonight there is only an informal cocktail get-together, after which we are free to explore the delights of the Eternal City. Where shall we meet? What about Trastevere, though I hear it is riddled with tourists? I have never managed to get there.”