Friar Gives Coupons Good for 50% Off Penance

Saying he wanted to prevent a “spiritual recession,” a Franciscan friar is handing out coupons giving Roman Catholics who confess sins 50% off their penance.

Father Bede Ferrara said Tuesday he got the idea after seeing people depressed and devastated by their economic woes.

“We tell people it’s tough to lose your job, it’s worse to lose a loved one, but it’s also worse to lose your courage,” Ferrara said. “We feel this will help people. We don’t want a spiritual recession.”

The coupons allow a churchgoer who confesses and receives a penance of 30 Hail Marys, for example, to do only 15. They also ask for donations of canned food to the church if possible.

Ferrara said his goal was to “counteract the frustration, the hurting that’s going on in the world because many people have lost their money.”

The 68-year-old traveling preacher, director of the Ministry of the Word in Clifton Park, N.Y., said he first offered the discount the week before Easter at a church in Providence, R.I. About 85 people there redeemed the coupons, he said.

The coupons are “something tangible” to give churchgoers, Ferrara said. “It sets the mood of humanism.”