“It’s been years since my last confession, but I do feel sorrow,” said the penitent. A low voice, strained and hard to place.

“Yes, my child.”

“I’m not your child, and you sure as hell aren’t my father.”

Victor Armondo Moros sat up at the sharp tone. Here was something different to break up the hot afternoon. The intensity in the tightly controlled voice intrigued him. The passion of it.

“How can I help you?” he asked sincerely, in a less officious tone.

“I’m not real sure. See, I’m not what you’d call a good Catholic; I mean I’ve never done something like this before.”

“This?”

“You know, explain something like this.”

“I’m here to listen,” Moros said.

“First I need to go back over the rules. I mean if I tell you something, you keep it to yourself, right?”

“Of course.”

“Even if it could get somebody in trouble?” The tight voice rose, strained.

“I’m here as a minister of the church to hear your sins if you are sorry for what you’ve done,” Moros said.

“Yes, but you won’t tell anybody?” The voice rose again.

“I’m bound by the seal of confession to keep what we talk about in confidence. The seal of the confession is absolute.”

“Okay, the thing is, I feel real bad, but I don’t think I offended God. I think I pleased God. But there are parts to it that I don’t understand.”

“What parts?”

“Well, the basic part, like why does God permit evil? Why do children have to suffer? This stuff that’s been in the news-those priests and that cardinal in Boston-that really bothers me a lot.”

Moros took a deep contemplative breath as he scanned the agony of the Church. “It’s the mystery of evil.”

“You have to do better than that,” the voice parried sharply. “Like, I know this woman who has six kids, and she went to confessional and told the priest she’s gotta go on the birth control because her family was killing her, and the priest tells her birth control is a sin that will send her to hell. So you guys have quick answers for some stuff, don’t you?”