Six stories of sin
In all the years I have known all the priests I have ever known, not one has ever violated the sanctity of the confessional, to my knowledge; which is a remarkable and refreshing sentence, when you think about it, because privacy in matters of spiritual tumult is a basic and essential tenet of our faith.
Yet over the years I have heard many riveting stories of things said to priests while the priests and the tellers of the tales were not formally engaged in the sacrament of reconciliation, and I repeat some of these in amazement, because they are funny and poignant, and taken collectively they say something about how sweet and weird and complicated we are as a species. To wit:
• One stolen used tire immediately exploded upon first use by the thief, which he took to be a direct and unequivocal sign from the Mercy. The thief returned the tire to the original owner. The priest who told me this story said he had asked the man why he would return a ruined tire, and the thief had said, with some surprise, because it wasn’t my tire, Father—aren’t you paying attention?
