- Priest: What is the point in forcing me to agree with your views?
- The Confessor: I am forcing you to be honest. I want you to dig deep down in your heart, Father, and be honest with yourself. Have you ever thought someone deserved to die?
- [getting no response]
- The Confessor: Father, I'm gonna ask you one last time. Have you *ever* thought someone deserved to die? Say it!
- Priest: Yes. God forgive me. There have been people that I felt deserved to die.
- The Confessor: There have even been people that you wished would die because you saw them harm others, isn't that right?
- Priest: Yes.
- The Confessor: That's not evil, Father. That's being human.
- Priest: What is your point?
- The Confessor: My point is that there is darkness in all of us.
- Priest: What on Earth makes you think that I would watch you kill someone?
- The Confessor: I could make you watch.
- Priest: But why would you subject me to that?
- The Confessor: Have you ever seen anyone die, Father?
- Priest: Well, yes, of course. I've administered the last rites several times and I've sat with the family members to give them comfort.
- The Confessor: Have you ever thought that some of those people deserve to die more than others?
- Priest: No.
- The Confessor: You've never thought someone deserved to die?
- Priest: No.
- The Confessor: Lie to me again, Father, and I will walk out of this confessional and I will kill everyone in your church, and there will be *nothing* you can say to stop me this time.
- Priest: What makes you imagine that I could ever understand someone like you? Yes, I am a man, and as such, I have made certain judgments in my life, and I have had thoughts that are against God's teaching, but I have never intentionally caused harm to another.
- The Confessor: Well, that's just simply not true.
- Priest: How would you know?
- The Confessor: You'd have to be a saint. Are you a saint? Do you honestly expect me to believe that over the course of your entire life, you have never harmed another human being?
- Priest: We're not here to talk about me.
- The Confessor: We're here to talk about whatever I want to talk about.
- Priest: Tell me why this person you're going to kill tonight must die.
- The Confessor: Because he deserves to die.
- Priest: You're being paid for it?
- The Confessor: Hmm. I'm getting a kind of reward.
- Priest: But you could choose not to do it.
- The Confessor: Yes, I suppose so.
- Priest: Then why?
- The Confessor: If you knew this man, Father, like I do... the pain and suffering he caused.
- Priest: You think I'd give you my blessing?
- The Confessor: No. I'm sure you think I should let him be judged by God in the afterlife.
- Priest: Of course.
- The Confessor: What if there is no afterlife? What if everything that you believe in is wrong? Then this man gets away with everything that he's done without ever being punished.
- Priest: It is not for you to decide who lives or dies.
- The Confessor: No, Father. That's where you're so very wrong.
- Priest: A thought is not a deed. I am not the cause of their deaths.
- The Confessor: I could also say that a thought is a wish, and a wish is a prayer. By that accord, you called upon God to take another life.
- Priest: No.
- The Confessor: No? Are you saying that God doesn't hear all of our thoughts, our wishes, our prayers?
- Priest: Oh, yes, he does.
- The Confessor: So what's the difference between me pulling the trigger to take a life and you asking God to do it for you?
- Priest: A thought is not always a prayer, and a prayer is not always answered, but I really don't understand the purpose of this conversation.
- The Confessor: The purpose of this conversation is that you and I both agree that certain people deserve to die.
- Priest: I have never said that.
- The Confessor: No, you just thought it.
- Priest: Why is that important to you?
- The Confessor: Because I want you to understand me, and in order to do that, we need to start from a point of mutual agreement.