In this engaging clip, Cy Kellett speaks with Fr. Paul Keller O.P. about the complexities of confession when serious sins, like murder, are involved. Fr. Keller shares insights on how priests navigate these delicate situations, emphasizing the importance of understanding the context behind the sin to provide the best pastoral care.
Transcript:
Cy: What does a priest do? What happens in the confessional when someone confesses murder?
Fr. Paul: First of all, we get a bulletproof vest in case this is a habit. Is this a habit? How many times? Well, actually, how many times is important for any serious sin. And sometimes it’s very helpful to know how many times things are happening for a venial sin too. But that’s a whole other story.
But if someone confesses a murder, which, you know, all you have to do is look in the paper and realize this is not that uncommon in a certain sense, but you have. So you do have to ascertain several things. Okay, what happened? Was this, you know, was it so-called self-defense? Are you part of a gang? Are you part of the mafia? I mean, so you do have to get some information about what surrounds it in order to. And the reason you’re asking for that information is to find out how you’re going to best help this person, counsel this person.
And so, and as I didn’t, I was joking, but I wasn’t joking when I said, is this, are we talking about one murder? Are we talking more than one? Now, there are different types of murder too. Suppose someone came in and said, I’ve committed 100 murders. And so what do you mean? Tell me more. Well, I’m an abortionist. Okay, all right. So that person, that individual finally gets religion and understands or admits and understands that it’s murder.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. As opposed to someone who was driving and didn’t see a child run out in front of him and hits the child and the child dies. And so someone could confess murder. Or we might be in a prison situation where someone confesses that he’s there because he’s committed murder or murders, or she. It’s not just a he. And so you need to find out what are the circumstances.
You also need to know some of the circumstances can be really aggravating. Like suppose someone killed a priest in the church. So now we’ve desecrated holy ground. And that’s in itself another problem for the sin being confessed and then another part of it.
And I’m sure people want to know, do you withhold or give absolution? Well, it really depends. Is the person penitent? Do you plan to do this again? If you’re in the mafia, are you getting out of the mafia or is this something you intend to do again as opposed to, let’s say.
So let’s suppose someone has committed murder and is repentant, is not ever going to do this again. So I cannot, and this is where a lot of people, where even some priests get it wrong. You cannot demand that the person who’s committed murder turn himself or herself into the authorities before you give absolution. In other words, absolution is not conditional on whether or not they turn themselves in. It’s conditional on whether they are repentant.
Now, do I urge the penitent to turn himself in, turn herself in? Absolutely. Can I demand that? No. And part of the reason for that is I cannot demand that a person reveal his sin outside of the confession. I’m under the seal, and that person ought to show remorse by turning himself in.
What I do say to somebody, what I do tell people, is, you know, if you don’t turn yourself in, it’s very likely that someone else will be framed. If someone else is framed for the murder, or, you know, or not framed but accused, the authorities think that this other person did it and then pays the punishment, pays an undue punishment, then you’re liable for that too. And I think that that makes you unrepentant of your sin.
And therefore, even if I do give you absolution and you do the penance, it’s invalidated by the very fact that you refuse to take the fall when you need to, when someone else is taking the fall. I think it’s really important for murderers to. Taking the life of someone is vastly different, obviously, than any other sin, and so ought to reveal to the authorities that he has done this so that the case can be closed.
We’re also dealing with justice for the family or the loved ones of the one who was murdered. And they deserve a certain closure to know who did this and that he was caught or she was caught and so forth. Does that make sense?
Cy: It does make sense. I wonder how it makes me wonder this, though, because I think there might be some people, as a matter of fact, I have known people who thought of themselves as murderers, but they were not murderers. They had acted in war, but they were traumatized by it. And so I wonder how often someone might confess murder. And in the course of the interview, you might think, well, that was self-defense, or you were acting as a soldier.
And I’m not all soldiers have this, but some people, and I have met some who were convinced they were murderers when, if you heard what they did, it’s killing in wartime. It wasn’t illegal killing in wartime.
So does that happen?
Fr. Paul: Right. Yes. And so that’s another reason you want to know the circumstances. I have to ask questions. Certain sins demand that I ask questions so that I can help the penitent and decide what the proper penance is going to be and so forth.
So if someone’s confessing murder, and I didn’t ask any questions, but in fact it was a matter of self-defense or it was a matter of having been at war and so forth. Those are very different situations. Did people die? Yes, but there is a difference between killing and murdering. Murder is more or less equated with taking unjustly the life of an innocent person. But in war, we’re talking about a whole other set of circumstances and acts, actually.
Cy: Yeah, right.
Fr. Paul: And also those are excellent questions that you have.
Cy: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, the Internet wants to know. The Internet wants to know.
Fr. Paul: And I might add this. There is no book that a priest uses. There used to be a thing called the Manual. There were different manuals published by different. At different times. We no longer do that. So that you’re not sitting in. The priest is not sitting in the confessional looking up in a book or what do I say in this situation or what’s the penance in that situation. It’s much more personal these days than looking in a book. And a book is not always going to cover all the circumstances. There’s no way that you can detail every situation in a book.
But when you consider penance, you do consider the gravity of the sin.
Cy: So the priest must have, like I would think that murder is a sin that there would be a pretty serious penance for.
Fr. Paul: Yes, yes. You have to take a number of things into consideration. The ability of the person to carry out the penance based on age and place. So if I’m hearing a confession in the prison, there are certain things I’m not going to be able to assign as a penance, like having masses said for the repose of the soul, X number of times or so and so on. You know, the prisoner, an inmate doesn’t have access to a priest to be able to get that done.
So there. I have to. There are many. I have to really. The priest has to weigh a lot, a lot of information in a very short period of time. Because you don’t, you can’t say, well, you know, let me think about this and come back tomorrow sort of thing. Confession doesn’t work like that.
Cy: No, I guess not.
Fr. Paul: So here you have to be ready to go and you’re relying on the Holy Spirit. I will guarantee you that the Holy Spirit is the only one who has brought me through all the confessions that I’ve heard. Especially the most serious confessions.
Cy: Yeah, praise God for that. Well, I know sometimes our apologists, they’ll get to the end of the show and they’ll think of an answer they gave and occasionally they’ll be like, that’s not what I wish. I wouldn’t have said it that way. Do you feel that way in the confessional?
Fr. Paul: Sometimes that has happened, yes, that’s happened to me. Things I wish that I had not said or things that I wish I had said. But you can’t go even if you knew the person. Let’s say the person comes in and says, hi, Father, this is Joe Smith. And I know Joe pretty well, but here he is revealing himself in the confessional through the screen or even a face-to-face confession.
And then afterwards I think, oh, I missed. I should have told him about this one thing that he really needed to hear. I cannot go chase him down after the noon mass and say, oh, by the way, consider concerning that.
Cy: No, you just got to let it go.
Fr. Paul: You have to let it go.
Cy: Yeah, you can’t do anything about it.
Fr. Paul: You must let it go. That is exactly right.
Cy: Father Paul Jerome Keller is our guest. It’s Ask a Priest. All the lines are full, so we’ll take a, I don’t know, very short break and we’ll come right back and get right to the promise.