I stepped into the priest’s office. It was a dim room. Lots of woodwork. Lots of books.

The old man welcomed me into his office. White hair. Black suit. Collar. He was a slender guy who could have passed for a vegetarian.

I sat in an overstuffed chair that was a little too comfortable. There was a painting of a famous Nazarene on the wall.

I had this looming feeling I was going to be struck dead by a bolt of electricity because I did something wrong.

“Thanks for fitting me in on such short notice,” I said.

He smiled, waiting for me to begin. You could tell he’d done a few confessions in his day.

So I told him I had a problem.

“What kind of problem?”

I told him I was baptized as a Catholic as an infant, although I grew up Protestant after my father converted to Oral-Robertsism. Recently, I attended my first Mass, to honor my ancestral roots. Then I took communion. I wrote about it.

Which was why I apologized to the priest for taking communion.

He laughed. “Why are you apologizing?”

“Didn’t I commit a sin?”

“Who told you that?”

“People on Facebook.”

He sighed.

“You were baptized Catholic?”

“Yes.”

“Any baptized person can and must be admitted to receive Holy Communion.”

So we had a long talk. He asked why I was so curious about the Catholic tradition.

I confessed that after my father’s suicide, when I was a boy, my father’s Catholic family disowned us. We were cut off from all family, in the name of righteousness.

My father’s parents shunned us. I never knew his siblings. I never knew his cousins. I was adrift in the world. I was alone. We ate Thanksgivings at Waffle Houses.

Once, on my 17th birthday, I called my grandparents just so I could know what their voices sounded like. They were unable to remember my name. The call lasted maybe 30 seconds. They said they were in a hurry. They had to get to church.

The problem was, of course, many Catholics believe suicides go to hell. There is no gray area for this. It’s an automatic thing. You take your own life; you wake up with Satan grinning at you.

For years, I’ve tried to reconcile the beliefs of the Catholic tradition with my own. Namely, because I have never been hurt as badly as I have by the devout.

“I see your problem,” the priest said.

That’s when I noticed the moisture in his eyes. This man was weeping.

We were quiet for a few minutes. I didn’t mean to start crying, but if you can’t beat them…

“Take it from me, son,” he said, wiping his face. “Nobody can wound you the way a Catholic can.”

I asked him whether my father was in hell.

The old cleric just looked at me.

Nobody said anything for a few moments.

Finally, he adjusted himself in his chair and replied. “Let me ask you. If you were a parent, would you send your mentally ill child to be burned alive?”

It was all he said. And it was all he needed to say.

We ended our conversation on good terms. We hugged. We laughed. Our meeting should’ve been sponsored by Kleenex®. He told me a few religious jokes I’d never heard before. I told him about the difference between Baptists and Methodists—Methodists wave at you in the liquor store.

I asked the Padre if I could write about our conversation. He told me I needed to be keenly aware of something before I wrote anything.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He smiled. “All the Facebook people will get pissed.”

So what’s new.