by SARAH MUSGRAVE

We all know the church is hurting for parishioners, but could it be that another force besides religious apathy and perverted priests is at work putting the clergy out of business? That just might be notproud.com, online confessional based here in Montreal. And if founders Scott Huot and Gary Brazier have their way, the best sinful submissions from around the world will soon be available in book form.

The two tech-savvy friends came up with the concept for the site one night over beer - the grease in the gears of many a good idea, except that this one actually saw the light of day. Brazier says they were initially fuelled by simple curiosity: “What do people consider taboo in the 21st century? What are the boundaries of sin? How has the world’s moral barometer changed since the collapse of communism and the rise of Britney Spears?”

Not Proud was launched on September 10, 2000 and its popularity was kickstarted when it was featured on Yahoo. It has since received more than 10,000 confessions, which have been viewed millions of times. Submissions - poetic, pathetic and just plain bizarre - fall into categories like Pride, Envy, Sloth and Gluttony. Some are rather innocent blemishes on the soul: “One time my grandmother got up from her chair and I smelled the cushions.” Or this one: “One time I farted in a jar of pennies. I placed the lid back on and waited a few minutes. Then I took the lid off and inhaled deeply. It smelled like fart mixed with metal. I giggled for close to five minutes. I’m 25 years old and possess a high degree of intelligence.”

Others are more weighty, involving philandering with best friends’ husbands (“his wedding ring has been inside me”) or even murder, like the anonymous poster who admits to killing his father at the age of 13, as the result of experimenting with putting traces of mercury in his food.

Using “sincerity, hilarity and tragedy” as their guidelines, the duo has culled more than 200 confessions into a manuscript titled Murder, Incest and Catfood Sandwiches: The Best of Not Proud, which they’re currently shopping around. “Bad behaviour makes for good reading,” Huot says. “When you distill thousands of confessions into a compact testament of human behaviour you wind up with an extremely addictive read. I have a vision of it being in bathrooms all across the world.”

So what about their sins? “Like most Montrealers I hold a lot of Lust in my heart,” Huot admits, while Brazier prefers to keep his roads to hell open. “I like a little variety in my vice,” he says. :

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