Excerpt: Good for the Soul

I have power. I can loose and bind. I can save or damn. When the penitent draw near, I can relieve their sorrow or harden it into sullen resentment, by a carefully-placed or poorly chosen word. In the dark of my confessional, I can raise my voice in anger and drive the penitent forever from Mother Church to the peril of his soul, or I can speak calm words of healing that draw him back in. And what I hear in that dark cubicle.... the secret sins, the innermost flaws, the depravity and the debauchery, pride and prejudice, lies and lusts.... it is my priestly duty to listen, and absolve, and then to forget. But like they who seek me out for the sacrament, I am but a fallen human, with my own faults and failings. May God have mercy on my soul.