The Confessions of Friar Killian, O.S.O.

Friar Killian Jennings, O.S.O., is an unusual monk and priest with a challenging erotic spirituality based upon "Sin boldly!" This was his spiritual quest. While this wasn’t the quest of all who had heard the Sisters lecture from the Catechism, it was what Killian intuited must be. For it was starkly evident that the gruesome suffering of Jesus - so gorily depicted on crucifixes in every room in school and at home – was warranted only because of the equally gory and foul nature of sin. Before his powers of logical reasoning first blossomed, the innocent lad had already silently deduced that Christ’s Salvation was for naught unless there were terrible and powerful sinners to be saved. Becoming a potent sinner was the first task – a bold step! - on the spiritual path. With great relief and comfort he heard this simple psychoanalytical truth. That he liked to talk dirty. “What?” But consider, they said, Who could talk more dirty than a priest? Who heard and discussed more dirty talking and thinking and wishing than a priest? This was his shamanic insight. That for the Confessor hearing dirty talk is a sacred duty! More, for his self-actualization, his individuation, his liberation - “heroic journey” - he had to become a Confessor! More, that this also meant that it was his sacred duty to teach penitent souls to “talk dirty”. “Talking dirty,” then, was a mark of his Calling to be a Great Confessor. A Calling which required that he school his penitents so that they could accurately and fully describe and detail their sins, obvious and hidden. For if they did not confess all, would he not be remiss in his sacred duty of purifying them so that they could die in grace? Yes, he had to take them down the path of impurity, guide them into its alley-ways of filth, direct them towards roads which plunged into the muck and ooze of depravities. Depravities which their bodies would eagerly embrace but for which their minds lacked words and images to recount and so repent. "Sin boldly!"