A Maryland priest appeared on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Friday night to talk about the drive-thru confessional he started as a way to serve his parishioners as America practices social distancing to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Father Scott Holmer of St. Edward the Confessor Parish has been offering “drive-through confessions at a socially distant safe distance in the parking lot on Sundays,” Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum said as the network showed a “beautiful picture” of the priest doing his work.
“How did you come up with this idea and what’s the response been? How is it going?” she asked.
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Holmer said he “just had the idea of getting some orange cones and putting them in the parking lot and then putting my chair over by the cones.”
“And then someone in the line must’ve taken a picture and it was that picture that went viral and now I’m on your show, so that’s kind of how it happened,” he described.
“Oh, yeah, they already have,” Holmer said when asked about the response so far, “and because of all the media attention there’s been a lot of people coming now because they’ve heard about it. If the people who are coming are incredibly grateful just for the opportunity to still receive the sacrament of reconciliation. So that’s been a real great joy to be able to offer it to those folks. It’s hard for a priest not to be able to see his people … Just being able to see some of my familiar faces is really good. They all stay in their cars, right, I’m really adamant about that. But it’s very good to see some friendly faces again in my community at St. Edwards.” (RELATED: ‘Why Is It A Racial Slur?’: Things Get Testy When Martha MacCallum Challenges Symone Sanders On ‘Chinese Coronavirus’)
The priest described an upside to the coronavirus social distancing as a time to be with family and loved ones.
“Historically, the response to a plague has always been deeper prayer, right, so there is an opportunity for that deeper silence and for folks to really deepen their relationships with each other as they spend more time with one another,” he said.