“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned…”

If you are Catholic, and there had ever been a time when you were itching to make a confession but for some reason could not easily locate a church or priest, and so you had to carry all that baggage of sin around … A Scottish Archbishop just may have solved that problem and more.

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016, Archbishop Leo Cushley of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in Scotland, announced the launch of a new smartphone and tablet app called ‘The Catholic App’.

Already dubbed “Sindr”, the app helps users find the nearest and soonest confessional, Holy Mass, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. According to Archbishop Cushley, the idea for the app was inspired by Pope Francis, who had called on the church at the start of the just concluded Jubilee of Mercy, to bring the mercy of God to modern society by means of modern communications.

“He (Pope Francis) said to be imaginative about what to do for the Holy Year of Mercy,” Cushley told the Vatican Radio. The app which is expected to go live in early 2017, will be launched in conjunction with Musemantik, a tech company in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Cushley hopes that the app would impact how the Catholic Church delivers the mercy of God and the joy of the gospel to the contemporary world.

Here are some of the ways the app is set to benefit the Catholic church and its members:

• Increase attendance of mass, and confession in a diocese.
• Guides users to the nearest and soonest holy mass and confession with the tap of a button
• Help younger Catholics, particularly age 18 to 55, to be more engaged in a local diocese, as they most utilise smartphones and tablets.
• Users can plan their visit to mass or confession days beforehand
• Get local diocesan news on the app.
• Provides users with valuable statistics about when and where confession and mass are needed most across a diocese
• Find a local parish and view all other local parishes on an interactive map.

Watch demo video below: