© 2005 UrbisMedia
One second, two seconds, three . . . a blackish smoke curled up from Fr. Fahey’s index finger. Four seconds! Five seconds! Oh, Jesus !
Fahey was trembling now, beads of sweat jumped out on his brow. Still he kept the match there. Six seconds, seven seconds—long, excruuuuuciating seconds. Some of us cringed, nearly everybody was empathically rubbing his own index finger, but nobody looked away. A couple of guys looked faint.
Finally , Fahey whipped the spent match to the floor. Still he said nothing; his smoldering digit, blackened and trembling, still pointing. Every eye was riveted on that finger. He let the suspense build a few seconds longer, or maybe he couldn’t speak. At last, he spoke.
“THE FIRES OF HELL!” he bellowed, as much to release the pent-up pain as for emphasis. Everyone jumped. “THE FIRES OF HELL!” now even louder, echoed out in amplification from the stone apse of the chapel. Then, pointing the finger upward beside his face in a gesture of admonishment, in a softer voice, “That match was nothing . . . nothing . . NOTHING compared to the white-hot fires of hell. Think about that, young men; the WHITE-HOT fires of hell, not just on your finger, but licking at every square inch of your body, . . . licking at your eyes, your hair, your torso, your genitalia (emphasis his, Latin apt, pause pregnant).
He continued. “Pain beyond your imagination, compared to which that match would be a blessed relief. Pain only exceeded by Christ’s pain on the cross because He felt the pain of your sins as well, but more pain than you ever believed possible.”
Nobody moved. Fahey’s lips glistened from the saliva expelled by the force of his speech. We noticed that he hadn’t touched that finger yet. We were unable to understand how he could resist rubbing it. Fahey just waited, wanting us to try to comprehend the incomprehensible pain we could only imagine. Our evil-doing digits flexed and twitched.
Fahey soon brought us out of our imaginations. “And no death!” Fahey shouted out, “No DEATH! You want to die to escape the pain of the fire, but you can’t, young men. You’re ALREADY dead! Your flesh sizzles and sizzles, but it doesn’t stop. You scream for it to stop, but it just goes on. You scream to God for it to stop, the God you turned away from when you committed your filthy mortal sins. But it’s too late now. You had your chance buddy . . . and you blew it. This is for ETERNITY!” He poked his scorched finger into the air to stress the syllables: “EEE-TER-NIT-TEEE! The syllables spilled over each other as the echoed around the vault of the chapel. I can hear its reverberations still. “EEE-TER-NIT-TEEE! “EEE-TER-nit-teee! “EEE-ter-nit-teeeeeeee!
This was the clincher lecture at my retreat (three days of prayer, reflection and penance) at my high school. It was designed to scare the hell out of you, literally. Fr. Fahey would go on, demonstrating how long eternity would be with various metaphors. Scary stuff; you could tell from the number of guys lined up for confession when the lecture was over.
The operative term here is “mortal” sin. Die with one of those on your soul, young man – like the young Catholic couple who were having sex in a parked car that was hit by a speeding truck—and it’s the fires of hell for EEE-TER-NIT-TEEE! Fahey relished telling that story about the young couple, otherwise good Catholics, who made one mistake, died with a mortal sin on their souls and are condemned forever to hell. Every retreat had an apocryphal story about a nice, devout young couple who made that one mistake. They were the Ken and Barbie dolls of retreat lore.
But if the Jesuits taught us to fear hell, they also taught us to be “Jesuitical,” to be rhetorically slicker than a Michael Jackson lawyer basted with Johnson’s Baby Lotion. The Jebbies were the Church’s shock troops during the Counter Reformation. Get on the other end of an argument with a Jesuit and you will not only renounce and recant, you will donate your rent to some scheme they have for teaching Latin to pagan babies..
We learned from the best. So we needed to look up the “requirements” for a Mortal Sin. And here’s what the Church says they are. To commit a “mortal” sin you must have: 1. Grievous Matter; 2. Sufficient Reflection, and; 3. Full and Free Consent of the Will . The Church says that one has to fulfill all three requirements to commit a mortal sin and, then, if you don’t get to a confessional for absolution, run the risk of going to the Devil’s barbeque . . . for Eternity .
So, let’s get to work on a defense for Fahey’s fabled Catholic couple making out in the back seat of a car and hit by truck, and see if we can keep them out of hell.
Grievous Matter : First, your honor, we concede that making out in a car is a grievous matter for an un-married couple. But, Fr. Fahey never does specify the level to which this “making out” was taking place at the time the truck arrived. Were they simply engaging in some “petting,” or were they, ah . . . you know . . . “doing it.” Would a little “exploration” meet the Church’s test of grievous matter? Just asking. (By the way, your honor, we would like to know if the truck driver had been drinking, or was perhaps “possessed” by the Devil; in which case we feel the couple was the victim of negligence or “entrapment” by evil forces.)
Sufficient Reflection: Your, honor, we allege that our clients did not have time to give the matter, grievous or not, sufficient reflection. They had to be on the lookout for the police who are always rapping on steamy windows of parked cars, not to mention the mental distraction of looking out for speeding trucks being driven by drivers possessed by the Devil. (Notice how we are getting the possession thing established as “fact”). Moreover, how long must reflection be to be regarded as “sufficient”? One minute? Five minutes? And must the “reflection” bemutual in such cases? The Church does not specify a time period or whether there must be reciprocity of reflection when a sin is committed by two persons.
Was Fr. Fahey keeping time? Of course, not; he was not there. He was likely somewhere else,drunk as a Irishman with a winning lottery ticket, and God knows, doing what with that charred finger of his . . . Sorry, your honor, I will try to restrain myself in the future. (But notice how we got the possibility that Fr. Fahey has a drinking problem, and maybe more, into the “record”)
Full and Free Consent of the Will: We submit, your honor, that our clients did not, could not, give their full and free consent to their actions in the car. Our clients have testified that they kept saying during their, ah . . . activities: “We shouldn’t be doing this. We really shouldn’t be doing this.” Such ambivalence cannot be considered full consent of their wills. They were consumed with passion, with all the pent up carnal urgings of youth and the Senior Prom. How could their consent be considered a free act of their wills? No, your honor, they were full of doubt as well as passion, and therefore, they are not culpable of commission of a mortal sinaccording to the very requirements of Holy Mother Church.
We therefore request a reduction of their “sin” to category venial , and a Purgatorial sentence of three to five years, with time off for good behavior (if they can be kept apart during that time) before being re-eternalized to heaven, where, we would hope, they can mess around to their heart’s content without consequence. The defense rests.
Now who could not agree with that defense. OK, so what if it sounds a little like it was written by some guy who has some residual guilt over having spent too much time with girls in parked cars and . . . Whoa, baby! That truck was really close!
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©2005, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 10.6.2005)