You should know that I took my religion very seriously. The first serious crack in my religious belief happened when I was thirteen years old. On a Saturday morning, during the usual pushing and shoving to be the first one into the gym, I accidentally pushed a classmate down the stairs. Throughout the years, hundreds of students must have sailed down these stairs without any serious injuries. This time he was unlucky; he broke his ankle. I was punished with two hours of detention. I went to confession in the afternoon as I did every week, confessed what I did like a good boy, but I didn’t say anything about this incident at home because I didn't want to spoil Sunday for my parents. They would learn about it soon enough during the coming week.
That evening my confessor, who was a good friend of my father, was visiting at our house. The next morning my father scolded me about the pushing incident, and I was punished because I did not report it to him right away. I was devastated, not because of the punishment, but because of this unheard-of breach of confidence by my confessor. Wasn't it always taught that the secrecy of the confessional could not be broken? Even the most serious crimes that a person tells a priest in the holy confessional cannot be reported to the police. And now this priest, whom I trusted so deeply, who was my steady confessor and knew my whole little world of sins by heart, had broken the secrecy of the confessional for such a minor incident. Only he could have told my father.
Neither my father, mother, nor anyone else from our house had been in town that day. Our telephone was out of order, and none of my classmates lived in our neighborhood. No one had visited us except my confessor. For a long, long time, I checked all the details about this over and over because this was such a horrible thing to me. Then and even now I am firmly convinced that this priest had violated the secrecy of the confessional. My faith in the holy profession of the priesthood was smashed and doubts began to stir within me. I never went back to him for confession because I could no longer trust him. I told the priest that I was going to our religious instruction teacher in the church near my school because my father lectured me when he discovered I was no longer going to this priest. My father believed it, but I am convinced that the priest knew the real reason. He tried everything to win me back, but I just couldn't go back to him. In fact, I went even further. I didn't go to confession at all anymore if I could get away with it. After this incident I could no longer trust any priest.
In religious instruction we were told that if a person went to communion without confession, he would be severely punished by God. We were told that someone had done that and had dropped dead at the communion rail. With childish simplicity I begged God to be lenient because I could no longer confess faithfully and to forgive my sins, which I now recited directly to him. So I believed I was free of my sins. Full of doubt, I went trembling to the communion rail in a strange church. And nothing happened! So I, poor little earthworm, believed that God would hear my prayers and agree with what I was doing. The deep, true, childlike faith which so calmly and surely guided my soul until this time was smashed.
The following year my father died suddenly. I cannot remember if this loss affected me in any special way. I was still too young [fourteen years old] to understand the whole significance of this. Yet, the death of my father was to send my life in a totally different direction than he had wished.
World History
