The Perfect Confession
The priest was an old brawler. His face was a doughy, misshapen mess. There was something about him that attracted similar souls — those angry old men with chips on their shoulders who hated their mothers and hated liberals in their Mother Church.
The good Sisters of Charity taught my second grade class. I became familiar with original sin and in my young formidable mind, postulated that my sins were no more egregious than the old priest’s. He didn’t trust the Sisters of Charity, who were responsible for training my class in the art of the examination of conscience. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession,” my class repeated in unison as we prepared for that fateful day.
“Did you lie? Did you cheat? Did you steal? Did you get into fights? Did you disobey your parents? Did you commit adultery?” The old priest itched for answers.
The priest was friendly with Walter, the church janitor. They got together every Wednesday night for card games. They sang songs and sipped Jameson’s in the dinning room of the rectory. “I kicked Tommy McIlney’s ass. My friends and I ambushed him by the town dump. Being the youngest of the gang, they made me beat him as my initiation. I beat him with an oak tree branch until part of his ear came off. It started raining and I ran until I vomited. The police never showed-up. They never asked any questions. My old man found out and beat me until I was almost unconscious. My mother hid me at her sister’s house and I lived there for three months. I moved to America with my cousins when I was fourteen and got into boxing. I was a super flyweight — saved enough to go to the Catholic high school in Brooklyn, and then I got a scholarship to seminary. The rest, as they say, is history.” Walter heard it a hundred times from the old priest. Walter didn’t go to anyone for confession except the old brawler. He couldn’t talk to no one like he could talk to the brawler priest, and knew that anything he said would be as sacred as the sacramental seal of the confessional.
I was afraid of the old priest and prayed that the younger one would hear my confessions after my first one. Saturday afternoons there was one line that ran down the main aisle of the church. There were two confessionals at the back of the church, and you took your chances with the old priest or the younger, friendly one. I got the old priest this one time, and he bawled me out cause he said he couldn’t hear me. I was afraid to speak-up in case the people standing in line could hear my sins. So, finally the old priest just started in with his questions, “Did you lie? Did you cheat? Did you steal? Did you get into fights? Did you disobey your parents? Did you commit adultery?” I knew I had to admit to something, so I said ‘yes’ to his last question.“How many times? With who?” he demanded. I answered in cautious tones, “Three times, Father.” The old priest repeated loudly, “With who?” I said the first thing that came into my head, “with my sister, Father.” Dead silence and then I heard the old priest grunting and moving around and his door open. He opened my door and in a voice that boomed for the entire church to hear, he shouted, “Who’s in there?” When he saw me, he shook his wizened head, “Get out!”
The old priest always held his cigarette in his left hand. He didn’t want to defile the hand that held the consecrated host — the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus according to the good Sisters. Even with this precaution, the host always smelled like cigarettes. I thought that my Dad must have been close to God cause he always smelled like Jesus.
“Sex and young people today. That’s what is wrong with Mother Church. No respect for the authority of the Church. No respect for priests and religious who work for the Church. Some people in this parish have asked for a school board. Well, I am the school board. Some have asked for a church council. Well, I am the church council. As a matter of fact, I’m also the president of the school board, the president of the church council, and the chief bottle-washer.If anyone has any objections, they can see me after mass this morning!” The old brawler finished his favorite homily.
The Bishop was concerned that the old priest had taken too many jabs to the head and forced him to retire. The parish put together a party. The old priest refused to attend and said it was a waste of money. He left quietly and as his last homily, he spoke of his accomplishments. “I paid-off the mortgage on this church and made sure the bills got paid. I don’t want no tears on my account. I did my job serving God. It’s now time for me to move on.” That was it. After thirty-two years, that’s how it ended. The Bishop couldn’t have been happier. Walter the janitor was devastated and died shortly after the old priest retired. When the old priest was gone, Jesus smelled like Old Spice, and I continued to struggle with the art of the examination of conscience. I concluded that I was a reprobate, destined for burial on the north side of some overgrown churchyard. I just couldn’t get it right — all those sins and long lines on Saturday afternoons.
End
