A new hotline inviting people to “confess their sins” is launching on Thursday, but it’s not backed by the Church. Instead, it’s the latest project by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, whose work often mixes religious imagery with controversy and dark humor.
As reported by The Guardian, the phone line is going live just ahead of Easter as part of a wider project marking 21 years since the death of Pope John Paul II. Alongside it, Cattelan is releasing a limited run of small-scale replicas of his 1999 sculpture The Ninth Hour, the piece that infamously shows the late pope knocked to the ground by a meteorite. At the same time, people around the world are being invited to submit their confessions via a free phone number or WhatsApp. Some self-described “sinners” will then be chosen to appear in a livestream on April 23, when Cattelan will take on a symbolic, priest-like role and offer a form of “absolution.”
Cattelan, though, is keen to downplay the idea that he’s trying to shock anyone. “I don’t see it as absolution,” he told the paper. “It’s not religious authority, it’s a shared gesture. Confession exists in different forms everywhere, even outside religion.”
When The Ninth Hour was first unveiled, it split opinion sharply. Its later display in Poland, a predominantly Catholic country, sparked particularly strong backlash, highlighting just how differently people interpreted the work.
That mix of humor, discomfort, and open-ended meaning has become a signature of Cattelan’s approach. Over the years, he has created deliberately simple but provocative pieces, from a fully functional gold toilet to a banana duct-taped to a wall. His work often resists a single clear interpretation, leaving viewers to decide whether they find it funny, unsettling, or offensive. As he put it: “If someone feels offended, it probably means the image is still alive.”
Despite earlier controversies, his relationship with the art world, and even the Vatican, has shifted over time. In 2024, the Holy See invited him to contribute to its exhibition at the Venice Biennale, where he painted a large mural on a prison wall. Pope Francis visited the work — a moment widely noted as a sign of growing openness to his practice.
The new sculptures are being released in an edition of 666, a number often linked with ominous or “evil” symbolism, and each will sell for €2,200. Organizers say the wider aim is to make contemporary art more accessible, both by offering collectible works and by inviting the public to take part directly.
