Before you deluge the newsroom today demanding to know who wrote today’s headline, let me go into the confessional.

It was me.

Writing headlines is one of my passions. And it’s something of an art form, one that is slowly slipping away as more and more media slides into electronic forms.

The headlines we write for this Web site are different than those we use for print, especially ones that appear on the front page, the big lead head we refer to as our ‘Black Line.’

Here’s a little journalism inside baseball on the first day of the Grapefruit Season.

Yes, part of the function of that big P. 1 headline it to sell newspapers. You’re stunned, I know.

I was not looking to make light of the story, which today involved the theft of the funds from the collection basket last Sunday at St.
Andrew’s Church in Drexel Hill.

Call it Confessions of an Old Altar Boy.

As soon as I heard of the arrest, the first thing that popped into my head was that weekly trip to the confessional from my youth, where you would pour out your sins to the priest, who would then offer you a form of penance.

He would almost always begin the process by letting you know just how many How Marys your transgressions would cost you.

So if you want to castigate me for the headline, feel free.

Bless me father, for I have sinned ….