SINNERS' blushes be spared, writes Ian Traynor in Bonn. After the drive in church and the telly evangelist, Roman Catholics less than eager to come clean with their parish priest can now confess their transgressions on screen at their home terminal, tally up their misdemeanours via a points system, collect their penance, and wander off to say their Hail Marys.
All for a price of DM78 (about £34).
Thanks to Cologne's Roman Catholic Lazarus Society, buying and going "on line with Jesus" - a CD Rom every one of which, the society insists, has been blessed by a Catholic priest - enables Catholics to turn their computer terminals into instant confessional boxes.
A menu of some 200 offences against the Ten Commandments appears and sinners can click off on their guilty consciences.
Lustful glances are penalised seven times more heavily than using a condom (22 points against three), while marital infidelity and taking drugs are ranked as equally bad (10 points).
Having completed your confession, the computer reckons up the bill and doles out the penance depending on the points total. Murder merits a penance of 50 Our Fathers and 50 Hail Marys.
Other services on the CD Rom include a Mass celebration, recitation of the Ten Commandments, and a version of the Rosary.
The canonical jury is still out on whether the transgressor is absolved of his sins after saying his computer administered penance.
A spokesman for the Cologne archdiocese insists it takes two to confess and that the on line service was a poor substitute for the sacrament.