A priest hears a criminal's confession and is faced with an ethical dilemma
My heart dropped. My jaw opened. I was momentarily speechless. How could I handle this situation? What could I say that would help?
There he was on the other side of the window, the current day self-proclaimed Robin Hood, dubbed the Gentleman Robber by the press. He only robbed the wealthy, and he never physically hurt anyone.
Now, he was confessing his sins to me. After a few seconds, I found my voice and urged him to turn himself in, to face justice. I offered to go with him, but he refused. Also, I realized he hadn’t sounded at all remorseful in recounting his heists. I withheld absolution, but my priestly vows didn’t allow me to do anything else.
Soon I heard the door on the other side of the confessional open and shut. I heard him swear a little as he dropped his keys on his way out. After giving him enough time to leave, I locked the doors and sat there thinking
I knew things revealed during the sacrament of penance could never be revealed to anyone, not even another priest. I couldn’t even leave hints or signs. But this didn’t sit easy with me.
I would not break the seal of the confessional, but I was upset I hadn’t been able to get him to turn himself in or even promise never to rob again. The more I thought about him, the more upset I got. Maybe he never physically struck his victims, but he left them feeling violated and vulnerable. They would probably never feel completely safe again. Also, while he didn’t leave them penniless or starving, he did steal irreplaceable family heirlooms along with the memories they evoked. My heart ached, picturing the pain of someone losing their dead mother’s locket, or the wedding ring set they first put on 50 years ago.
Yes, I decided, he really was a danger to society and needed to be stopped. But I wasn’t going to be the one to stop him. When I thought about it, I realized there wasn’t much I could do even if I were able to talk to the cops. I didn’t know who he was. All I knew was he was a middle age white male who spoke with an Eastern European accent. Several victims had already reported that. Still, I felt powerless and confused.
I finally left the confessional, my head bowed in prayer as I walked slowly to the exit. If I hadn’t had my head down, I probably wouldn’t have seen it on the floor - a key to a safe deposit box. This created a strong ethical dilemma. What should I do?
If it were anything else, I would have picked it up, announced it from the pulpit, put it in the newsletter and held it in loss and found. However, there are procedures and rules to be followed when turning a safe deposit key over to someone.
My choices were limited. I could leave it there hoping someone else would find it and turn it into the police. I could pick it up and dispose of it, or I could pick it up and deliver it to the police without saying a word. The only thing I knew for sure was I wasn’t going to dispose of it because that felt like aiding a nd abetting. So I debated just leaving it or turning it over to the police. At first, I thought I would just leave it, but that pricked on my conscience. I spent hours praying for guidance.
Finally, I rationalized that I didn’t know if the key belonged to the Gentleman Robber. While it was a long shot, it could have been laying there for hours or days. I told myself if it hadn’t been for the confession, I wouldn’t have thought anything of turning the key over to the law. Thinking of it this way, it became my civic duty to try to return the key to its rightful owner, and the only way to do that was to turn the key over to the police.
I took off my Roman collar, picked up the key, drove to the nearest police station, and wordlessly turned it over to the desk Sargent.
The police located the correct bank and were given the box owner’s name and contact information. They called the owner to reclaim the key. He first sent an uber driver, but the police would only hand it to the owner and only after seeing photo id. I don’t know what ran through the burglar’s head, but he decided to retrieve the key. At this point, he wasn’t under any suspicion and could have waltzed into the station, picked up his key and went on his merry way.
Instead, he walked in wearing sunglasses, and an Orioles cap. One cop casually noticed the Orioles cop, the same one th Gentleman Robber wore. This would have been written off as a coincidence. After all, an awful lot of Baltimoreans wear Orioles hats. A sop’s instinct caused him to look closer and notice the man tapping his thigh with his fingertips, shifting his eyes from side to side, and otherwise showing signs of nervousness. Suspicious now, the officer decided to engage the citizen in casual chit chat. Sure enough, the key owner had an accent which made him an immediate person of interest.
Police surveillance on the first day was routine. As expected, the man went to the bank but otherwise hung around home. The second night was a very different story. He was caught attempting to rob a couple leaving an expensive restaurant, was jailed, subsequently found guilty of several crimes and imprisoned for a long time.
While I only had a small part, I had set the wheels turning for his capture. While I convinced myself I had not broken the confessional seal, I felt I had stretched it. I still pray for forgiveness nightly and know my actions will haunt me for the rest of my days.
PI novel set in Manhattan during the 1980s when art galleries and model agencies were the two most glamorous businesses in the world. Dangerously well written.
Read Chapter 1 here: https://www.lit4u.com/art-and-beauty-chapter-1/
Literary Titan
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