Original subtitles

[Narrator] Previously on Forgive Me.

You need to go and seek some help

to conquer your demon.

You can not tell me that my faith is not enough

to guide me and to help me.

Your faith--

You can do your job.

You can't just walk into a confessional

and tell me that you're a pedophile

and then ooh baba boom, God's just gonna forgive you,

okay, that's not the way that it works.

It does work that way.

This is my friend Noelle.

Noelle, this is Granny.

Hi.

I want you to see a doctor.

What's the matter with him?

Nothing.

He's not sleeping.

I got a lot on my mind.

[animalistic grunting]

? Ave Maria

? Ave Maria

? Ave Maria

[singing in foreign language]

? Ave Maria

[people talking outside] [horse hooves clomping]

[bird chirping]

[liquid splashing]

[chattering]

They rezoned the voting districts again.

No more minority zones, and more like pieces of a pie

from downtown fanning out.

So we get urban voters

and country voters in each district.

But people were saying it's going to lead to

an all white English council

that doesn't represent anybody.

Yeah but if some people's vote counts for more

than others, that's not really a democracy.

So what do you think about the new council...

[dramatic chord]

It's not always better and certainly wasn't in this case

and there are gonna be fewer of those prima donnas

putting on these ridiculous performances.

Now politics is just like show business

look at Lady Gaga.

Oh please Lady Gaga owes a list of citations to Madonna.

Exactly it's a reference.

It's practically sampling.

It's an homage.

Okay, so what do you think of designated seats?

What?

Do you think there should be

a designated French representative?

I don't know.

He's really not a morning person.

Marilyn Monroe begat Deborah Harry begat Madonna

begat Lady Gaga.

So what else is in the paper?

[heavy footsteps]

Hello.

I just want to talk to you about something.

That's why I'm here.

Are you going to ask for forgiveness

or is this not a confession?

Forgiveness?

Forgiveness.

Not much forgiveness left in the world today is there?

Oh well we can look beyond the world, that's the point.

Oh a wise ass.

I get that a lot.

A little bit less since I became a priest

most people seem to not wanna go there.

You're Nova Lee's boy aren't you?

Her grandson.

Yeah.

I haven't seen you since you were in diapers.

We all lived in the same building

and I used to take you into my house

and wash you in the kitchen sink.

So you don't impress me at all.

So you're friends with my grandmother?

Yeah I was.

Until your mother managed to get everybody evicted.

And that was what?

20, 25 years ago.

Almost.

Was at your christening as well.

God you were a right little wailer.

But then you always were.

Cause you mother was a drunk.

Your mother drank while she was pregnant.

Did you know that?

Yes.

Do you still have those little problems?

No.

How about your brother?

I haven't seen my brother.

But he struggles yes.

Well it is actually a brain injury,

when a woman drinks alcohol while she's pregnant.

I know.

It was never the plan to tell you.

I remember that, your grandmother's plan.

Nobody told me.

My brother's fetal alcohol syndrome was kind of obvious.

I mean even to him, it was obvious to both of us

to all of our teachers.

What about you?

Why did you want me to know this?

Well I wanted to tell you something that I thought

you should know, that your family wouldn't tell you.

Why? To hurt me?

To trade.

To trade secrets.

Well you know something that I need to know.

What's that?

You were at school with my son.

He was older than you, he was probably graduating

by the time you started of.

At Holy Mother or Saint Germane?

Oh both, both.

They changed the name later to Holy Heart of Mary

then all the kids began to call it Hearty Hole of Mary.

Even the adults called it that.

That was a big mistake.

Big mistake to send my son to that school.

To a catholic school?

Where did you go to school?

I went to school in Ireland.

Obedience via fear.

God I hated it.

They teach everything through fear

and that's not the way you teach anything.

And this is while all those bastards

were out there raping children

and the nuns were beating the shyte out of everybody

and the other cowards were there covering it up.

Well that lowered our enthusiasm a little bit.

I agree.

[Woman] But not yours?

Mine too when it was first discovered

when it was reported.

How do you talk about that?

I mean amongst yourself are you with other priests,

how do you talk about that?

We don't talk about it.

You don't talk about the,

the biggest crisis in catholic faith and a whole lifetime.

We don't talk about it in the same way that you do.

So what did you, do you have to ignore the whole world

in order to remain a priest?

I mean how do you avoid the television, the news

the headlines, the world anger?

No I think you have to more fully engage

with all those things.

You need to try and understand.

To try and help people.

Do you ever feel trapped?

You're young.

You still can make choices.

And you can't?

Yeah well the capacity to choose can diminish.

I mean for example you grow old,

you can't choose where you live,

you can't choose how your limbs move

or how you want them to move

can't choose that they move at all sometimes.

And then you loose the clarity and you can't make a choice.

And then there's the worst of all

I mean you can't even remember if you have made a choice

or what the choice was.

I don't want my son to have any regrets.

[Priest] No mother does.

I want to help him.

[Priest] Of course.

And I want you to help me to help him.

I could speak with him.

Well you already have, that's why I'm here.

I spoke with your son.

Yes he came here to confessional, I saw him.

[Priest] Mrs?

O'Leary.

I don't recognize the name

but if he came into the confess

not everybody tells me their name.

Aye well physically he's about five 11, six foot tall.

He's losing his hair, he's a big lad,

built like a brick shit house

but you wouldn't have seen him around here

because he's only come back recently.

Came back very suddenly.

Smith.

When he came in to confess that's what he called himself.

Not a great disguise is it?

I don't think that it was something that I was supposed

to believe I think it was just something to call him.

What should I call you?

Mrs. Smith?

Does it count if you make a confession under a pseudonym?

God it must be really bad.

If he's making a confession under a fake name.

You must know it's bad

or else you wouldn't be here.

He had some serious things to say, yes.

About me?

Well if he did he was lying.

He didn't talk about his mother.

[O'Leary] Or his father?

He did not talk about his father.

What did he talk about?

I mean what makes a man who's nearly 40 years of age

just suddenly, suddenly make up his mind

to come back and live with his mother

without even packing a bag,

and leaving all his stuff and his rented house

across the harbor?

I mean he came back far to quick there's something

very wrong here.

I really want you to tell me what he told you.

I can't do that.

Well if I ask him, would he tell me the truth?

I mean is it something that you can tell your mother?

Is it something that you can only confess to a priest

under a fake name?

This is honestly the first time that I've ever

had somebody come into the confessional

and ask to hear someone else's sins.

That's not how it's done.

I know that's not how it's done.

But I'm here and I'm really worried.

And you can stop me worrying if you tell me

not to worry about my son and what he's doing

and what he's done, you can do that,

you can do that just by telling me what he told you.

And if you do that I'll go away

and I won't bother you anymore.

What did he confess to you?

The sanctity of this--

Don't throw the sanctity of the church at me please.

And don't go on about the crap

of breaking the confessional seal.

I know the rules

and I know that I'm asking you to break them.

You must be aware that I can't do that.

Did he commit a crime?

I think you love your son very much--

Don't patronize me.

I'm not patronizing, I am sympathizing.

I wish that I could tell you, I really do.

It's not pleasant carrying other peoples secrets around.

But if he has committed a crime has it occurred to you

that he might go straight out and commit it again?

And who would you be protecting then?

Come on.

Why are you so arrogant all of you?

You're all so pompous.

I mean you all think that you're just above the law,

that you don't even have to go out

and report a crime that you know has been committed.

You're mistaking the situation.

How?

Your son did not confess a crime.

Not to me.

He confessed sins, very serious sins.

You're right to be worried.

So why don't you tell me what you think your son is up to

and I will tell you what to do, I will give you council,

spiritual council on what you might do about it.

Well when he came home to stay with me a few weeks ago

he said that he was very, very depressed.

That he was thinking of killing himself.

So I thought he might have come here

to talk to you about that.

I'm not going to discuss what he said.

But that's not the crime that you came here to uncover.

That is the saddest thing that a mother can hear.

That her child is so unhappy.

Well you said he didn't commit a crime

and I've admitted that I was wrong

so that's enough for me.

No, no that's not enough.

Your son thinks of committing a crime.

He thinks?

He thinks about it long enough and hard enough

that he came here to confess to it.

But he didn't do it?

Not yet.

Well there were pictures, on his phone of girls.

Do you have evidence of a crime?

No they weren't those kind of pictures.

You can see in the photo how the person who took it

sees the person in it.

Does that make sense?

God I've nothing to go on.

I have nothing.

Nothing except a suspicion.

You need to talk to him.

You need to get him professional help.

Go somewhere safe with people around who can't hear you

unless you want them to and tell him your intuition.

You need to get him to a doctor.

So it's true.

Ask your son.

When he was small, I think something happened to him.

And what did you do about it then?

I sent the man who was doing it here to you.

Didn't I?

No you didn't send him to me I wasn't born yet.

Ah stop being petty, I sent him to the church to a priest.

Now that priest is very old now

but he was about your age when it happened.

What did the priest do?

Well I don't know do I?

Nobody knows what goes on in these confession boxes

and that's the bloody trouble.

There are reasons for that secrecy.

And you use that secrecy to frighten people

and to keep them under control.

I have no control over you.

No you haven't, you've no control over me.

[door thuds]

Mrs. Smith.

There were other ways for you

to find out what you wanted to know.

You could have talked to your son.

And you could have spoken to his neighbors

where he was living.

I know that there's a reason that you came

to the church today, into the confessional.

Yes there was.

If you miss the feeling of support,

you know if you miss the council,

if you miss belonging somewhere

I promise you we have a place for you here.

I will never come back to your church.

[Priest] I can help you.

But you didn't help me.

If you change your mind I will--

Yeah well I won't be changing my mind okay?

I mean why would I change my mind

and come back to a dictatorship?

Because that's what the catholic church is.

You give me your orders

and some bishop down the road gives you his orders

and then it goes right to the top, to the dictator.

I'm not even allowed to question you.

You've just proved that, I've just tried.

I just have to sit there

and listen while you examine

and judge every movement of mine.

I mean I call that an abusive relationship.

Of course you are allowed to question thin--

And then of course there's the money,

yes you're very happy to take the money

I mean I gave 10% of my earnings to the church

for half of my life

and my parents did the same before me

and what did you do with that money?

You said you were going to give it to the poor

so we waited and we watched and the poor stayed poor

and the poor got even poorer

and still in every single catholic village around the world

who has the biggest house in the village?

The priest.

And the pope probably got 10 new tiaras.

And you wonder why people are leaving?

That's why they're leaving.

I mean with a fraction of the wealth of the catholic church

you could have dug a well in every village in Africa.

But no, you didn't do that.

You kept the money because you needed the hush money

to pay the settlements for the poor children

who were raped and abused.

And you take tax exemption from the government

and then you stand there and tell me how to vote.

The church is flawed,

like every corner of society is flawed.

It shouldn't matter that we fail

it matters what we stand for.

But there's no evidence of what you stand for, none.

I mean your faith would be thrown out in any court,

in any country in the world.

And anybody for example, who hears voices in their heads,

they get put into a mental hospital

but I mean if you're a catholic and you hear voices

you turn them into saints.

And then you ask me to pray to them,

to pray to these schizophrenics up in the sky.

Oh but it's all changing now isn't it?

Not the science but the testifying.

The little kids who were raped and molested

they're growing up and they have the courage

to testify against you.

And all the cover ups and all that rubbish of

pedophile priests being moved from

one village to the next village.

And then you tell people who have diseases

or a deformed child, you tell them that that is God's will

or God's punishment.

Well to me, that really is, unspeakably, cruel.

It's hard being judged isn't it, Father?

[gentle music]

Oh I'm double booked on Thursday.

A wake and a funeral.

You want the funeral?

Let the kid take it.

What?

You're so busy?

No I'm not so busy, he needs to get out.

You take it.

Have any of you ever been asked to break the seal

of the confessional?

Somebody asked you to do that?

A cop?

[Priest] Does that happen?

Not often.

No it wasn't a cop just a person.

And?

Well, I mean I wanted to tell her that her suspicions

were right you know?

That she should turn her son in and get him some help

but it's a real situation.

Is that what you told her?

No I didn't tell her anything.

I mean maybe that much.

[priest] That's to much.

I'm worried about people getting hurt, badly.

Look I know it's hard to put your faith in the sacrament

100% but it is the sacrament.

You can never, ever tell what someone

confesses during penance.

Does everybody feel that way, no room to move there?

Okay well what if somebody comes in and confesses

to me that he's slowly poisoning his wife?

I mean I'm not supposed to say anything?

That's a little far fetched.

Okay well what if he confesses

that he's thinking about it?

I actually had that one once.

Well what'd you do?

People confess to all kinds of thoughts.

I mean maybe not so much nowadays

but we used to be pretty hard core

about not thinking bad thoughts.

Yeah there's not much you can do.

There's a difference between a crime and a sin.

Not when it comes to the sacrament.

Crime or sin doesn't leave the booth.

You warn people of the consequences

or you convince them to turn themselves in

if they've already done it.

You're not the police.

God's law isn't about man's law.

[Priest] Amen.

? Cold on the outside

? But inside we're God

? I don't need horses to ride into the sun

? I just wanna walk til tomorrow comes

? And maybe we'll drink from the river on the way

? And lethe will give me another day

? I don't need horses to ride into the sun

? I just wanna walk til tomorrow comes

? And maybe we'll drink from the river on the way

? And lethe will give me another day

[Narrator] Next time on Forgive Me.

[eerie music]

Forgive--

How do I know you?

I've seen you before.

Forgive me father.

Saint Sebastian attends our church.

He's a member of the congregation that's

that's gotta be where I saw his face

you know, what he looks like

but I just I don't remember seeing him before today.

It's like my brain picked his face

out of the crowd or something.

[eerie music]

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