by Bob Sullivan
When I was a student at UNL, I saw an ad for an opening at a Lincoln bar. They needed a bouncer. I applied and the manager called me in for an interview.
Everything was going well until he asked me how I would handle things if a fight broke out in the bar, and in the process of breaking it up, one of the patrons took a swing at me. Not thinking deeply, I said that I would pop the guy in the nose and throw him out the door. The manager’s face fell. “Thanks for coming, that’s all I need to know.”
I could immediately tell I wasn’t getting the job. I knew I had answered wrong, but I asked what mistake I had made in the interview. The manager said that he did not want employees who became part of the melee, he wanted employees who could diffuse tense situations as peacefully and professionally as possible, so people could get back to enjoying their time and he could continue making money.
A good bouncer does not join the fight, nor does he or she simply let patrons punch it out. He or she removes the cause or causes so that calmer heads can prevail and less damage is done. A really good bouncer learns to peacefully stop a fight before tensions boil over.
Jesus instructed the Apostles to go and make disciples, not to crack heads and throw people out or force people into compliance. Nor did He tell the Apostles to let everyone do as they pleased.
The right way is somewhere between these two extremes.
As sinners, we go to confession to receive mercy, but we must go with remorse, contrition, repentance, and humility.
There are two human beings in each confession. One of these human beings is ordained and clothed with the authority to forgive sins, and the other is in need of forgiveness. If I as the penitent, use the confessional to complain about others or the Church, I’m simply picking a fight with a person who is not there to fight. Instead of a sacrament, I try to turn confession into a counseling session, an opportunity to vent, or a bar fight.
Thankfully, most confessions are not like a bar fight.
Unfortunately, there have been occasions when it is the priest who takes on the role of the bad bouncer. I recall a confession of my own, again when I was in college. I knew I had sinned, and I knew it was a mortal sin. The priest disagreed. He justified and rationalized my serious sin, dismissing it as something which I could change if I wished, but I could keep doing it if I saw some good coming from it. Thankfully, this was not in the Lincoln Diocese, but it was in a Catholic Church. I remember leaving the confessional very conflicted that day. It would have been very easy for me (I was about 23 years old at the time) to accept that priest’s error and persist in the behavior I absolutely knew to be sinful. If I had done that, the priest would have my blood on his hands someday (Ezekiel 33:1-9).
I have also been told, first hand, of two situations where the priest has basically acted like the overaggressive bouncer. In these situations (as it was retold to me) the priest raised his voice, informed the penitent that he was going to Hell, and lectured the penitent at length about how awful their behavior had been. On one occasion, the priest proceeded to base his sermon on things strikingly similar to the confession. Both of these confessions were years ago.
I have never had a confession with an overaggressive bouncer-type, and my only negative experience with confession was the lukewarm priest when I was 23 years old. I suspect that seminaries are doing a much better job of teaching seminarians how to be conduits of mercy and grace in confession these days.
Nonetheless, we do hear of Catholics leaving the Church or refusing to go to confession because of a bad experience with one confession. In some cases, it only takes one humiliating experience. Should we ever give one person the power to sever or harm our relationship with Christ and His Church? Absolutely not. But how do we keep this from happening?
As Christians, we know that we cannot enter Heaven without forgiveness, but we sometimes overlook the fact that we are required to forgive in order to enter Heaven (Matt 18:21-35, Matt 6:12). Therefore, we need to forgive bad bouncer-type priests. Isn’t that interesting? You enter the confessional in need of forgiveness, and you leave with the need to forgive the priest to whom you just confessed. Talk about role reversals! But think about the grace in it, too.
Maybe the priest just lost a family member, or the last penitent lashed out at him, or maybe he was experiencing physical, mental, or spiritual health problems. Priests are human too. You never know why or what led a person do say or do something. Like everyone else, I have handled situations poorly in the past (too frequently), and need forgiveness for saying things I should have not said.
Forgiveness does not mean we have to chum up to someone or have nice feelings about them. And it certainly does not mean that they have to like you back. You can forgive someone without telling them that you forgive them, especially if they probably don’t even know they hurt you. This is forgiveness from the heart (not necessarily from your mouth). The important thing is to forgive, pray for them, and if you need to, go to a different priest for the sacraments.
