Volume > Issue > A Private's Affair

A Private’s Affair

OLD PRIEST, NEW PRIEST

By Brent T. Zeringue | February 2002
Brent T. Zeringue owns a hardware store in Destrehan, Louisiana, and is the founder and coordinator of KEPHA, an organization of fathers and sons promoting the Catholic faith through apologetics, brotherhood, charity, mortification, and prayer.

Yag Nam, a dyslexic soldier, is a man who never lived in a closet. Yag believes that a private’s private behavior is his own business (though he always expresses his behavior publicly on St. Patrick’s Day). But something is bothering Yag. He has approached young Fr. Logicus, the new priest assigned to Yag’s Bay Area church, to hear his confession. Let’s eavesdrop on the confession. (Ed. Note: In real life, revealing another’s confession constitutes an excommunicable offense. But this is only satire, not real life.)

Yag: (kneeling behind the screen) Bless me, father. I am Yag Nam. I have erred.

Fr. Logicus: You what?

Yag: I erred. Blundered. Okay, I had a behavioral miscalculation.

Fr. Logicus: You mean you sinned?

Yag: I suppose you could say that.

Fr. Logicus: It would help if you could say that.

Yag: Well…uh…it’s just that…um…the old pastor —

Fr. Logicus: You mean Fr. Harry See?

Yag: Yeah. Fr. See would never call it sin.

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

Archives

1983 1984 1985 1986 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

Topics
"Catholicism's Intellectual Prizefighter!"

- Karl Keating

Strengthen the Catholic cause.

SUPPORT NOR TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Socrates Meets the Modern World (or, the Myth of Progress)

Socrates stands on a street corner in Have It Square in Camp Rich, Massachusetts, looking…

Enlightenment?

(The following fiction is essentially factual. The essential plot of my story is based…

The Penitent Pigeon

Would a woman like Pelagia truly repent in public? Would she put aside her pride and status, all that she had lived for, to humble herself before the citizens of Antioch?