WERE you fooled by our drive-through confession? Well you're forgiven says Father Bob Maguire.

But don't be too disheartened it you suspended your disbelief for a few moments, with today the day for pranksters to prey on the gullible with a string of wild, wacky and simply impossible tall tales.

Click here for our wrap of the best April Fools' Day pranks.



Father Bob said he had been swamped with interest about his tongue-in-cheek plan to offer drive-through confessions for parishioners, including TV and radio appearances today.

CathNews were among those to take the bait, reproducing the story on their website today.

The story has also been picked up by Catholic news feeds around the world.

But Father Bob was unrepentant for apparently poking fun at the Catholic sacrament, despite the outrage by some more pious Christians on the heraldsun.com.au.

On the other hand almost two-thirds of readers supported the radical idea to allow drive-through confessions.

Did you think the drive-through confessional was a good idea? Vote and tell us below.

What are the best April Fools Day pranks you've come across?

“I don’t think I’ll be getting a medal from the Church,” Father Bob admitted.

But he said he was happy to play the fool, if it meant that he got the message of Christ into the community.

“Like all parables the drive-through was designed to raise awareness of sin and forgiveness especially during Lent,” he said.

Father Bob plays the fool with drive-through confession plan



As part of the plan sinful could repent on the run with the opening today of Australia's first drive-through confessional.

And we reported, The pray-as-you-go service was set to become slicker, with a sin-selection board to be installed by Easter and a smartphone app on the way.

South Melbourne Catholic priest Fr Bob Maguire said yesterday that the move brought the church up to speed with modern life.

"Everybody drives past this place but no one comes in," Fr Maguire said.

"Now they can stop at the window, open their window and confess their sins. Then I'll reassure them that they'll be right."

The 60-second car wash for the soul was supposedly to include a symbolically refreshing spray of rose water.

A flashing green light will signal when a driver's sins have been forgiven. "When you're driving out you'll be clean as a whistle," Fr Maguire said before his prank was revealed.

The seven cardinal sins - lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and pride - will be numbered on a sign, Chinese menu-style.

From 6.30am, sinners will repent at a mobile unit dubbed the Hopemobile in the St Peter and Paul's church driveway, confessing, for instance, to three No.7s and a No.4.

Fr Maguire proposed the coded response was meant to maintain confidentiality.

A more permanent set-up should be in place by Easter and Fr Maguire is hoping for a sponsor to cover set-up costs.

He said some overseas churches had confessional sponsors. At least one had a bookmaker as the backer. "They called it O'Flaherty's sin bin or something," he said.

The elaborate joke was also set to include a phone app, "sourced from the US" that would let drivers select deadly sins from a list and which would appear in front of the priest on a screen when the car pulls up.

Fr McGuire tried to hint at the joke when he suggested he ran a trial of drive-by prayer three weeks ago, on Ash Wednesday, but gave it up for Lent.

Originally published as Fooled? You're forgiven