Priest Checks Fingerprints For Mass Attendance

mytrip writes "A Polish priest has installed an electronic reader in his church for schoolchildren to leave their fingerprints in order to monitor their attendance at mass. The pupils in the southern town of Gryfow Slaski told the daily they liked the idea and also the priest, Grzegorz Sowa, who invented it. 'This is comfortable. We don't have to stand in a line to get the priest's signature (confirming our presence at the mass) in our confirmation notebooks,' said one pupil, who gave her name as Karolina."

RFID cards?

[coolsnowmen]

I think RFID cards would be less intrusive than getting all the kids finger prints.

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[paxcoder]

Aren't as reliable though.

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[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

On the plus side, they'd work well for ninja star fights during mass.

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[paxcoder]

Yes that's definitely a plus side: "Sure they can cheat with cards, Father, but on the plus side, they can throw them at each other during mass"
Somehow I don't think you got all your signatures.

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

They should really just place a mark of some sort, either on the back of the hand or the forehead, for the purpose...

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[geekprime]

I can't believe no one bit on that one paxcoder...

But...

[overkill1024]

Couldn't the church just have faith in the pupils' attendance instead of requiring notebooks with evidence? I mean, that is how this works, right?

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[Ihmhi]

No, they're not a cult. A cult is just a small religion. As I've found its most common use is as a derogatory term used by larger religions to belittle any upstarts that might hurt their power base.

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[pydev]

Cult: "a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader." (dictionary.com)

As far as I'm concerned, Catholicism is false, extremist, and it has a "charismatic leader" (to its members, not to me). Many of its most devoted members live outside conventional society. Hence, I would call it a cult, even if you might not.

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[Qzukk]

I'm sure they put plenty of faith in God. A bunch of schoolkids? Not so much.

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[ZorbaTHut]

Faith is unChristian.

Wait, something about that sounds wrong

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[quadelirus]

Not if its a church school and a requirement of the school. Have you ever taught young boys in school?

This is...

[sznupi]

...what I have to put up with on a daily basis.

Oh well, not for very long anymore.

Fingerprinting by a *Church*?

[Xeleema]

I've heard of "art imitating life imitating art" (and vice versa), but what do you call it when a church starts collecting fingerprints?

If this sort of thing becomes the standard, I can only imagine the kinds of abuses that will pop up...not that the actual church would abuse anyone

Oh well, at least the Church of Satan [churchofsatan.com] doesn't fingerprint...and they're recruiting at my college!!

for better or worse, bio works

[h00manist]

bio-identification, like it or not, works great. can't lose it or fake it easily. fast and convenient. all the usual problems, of privacy vs anonymity vs rights vs security vs abuse of power, apply. those are perhaps mostly social quandaries, which can't be solved with this or that technology at all. the evolution of technology follows ahead, but socially we're really not advancing anywhere near as fast.

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[Secret Rabbit]

Exactly. If we were advancing instead of regressing socially, then we wouldn't have even thought about such applications of this technology. Or if we did, we'd be repulsed by it.