Kiefer Sutherland: The Confessor

Quotes 

• Priest : I think you came here because you don't want to kill again tonight.

  The Confessor : Oh, no, Father, I do. I really, really do. Have you taken a look at the world around you lately? It's a cesspool. Dirty little people living their dirty little lives. Drug dealers, rapists, child molesters. We've become so accustomed to it that we accept it as a normal part of life as long as it doesn't touch us. Only in a world this screwed up can we think that people like that deserve to live, people that have built a life on the pain and suffering of others. They're aware of the consequences of their actions, but they just don't care. Do they ever show compassion? No.

  Priest : It's still wrong.

  The Confessor : How could ridding the world of people who harm others be wrong, Father? You know what? Forget it. You don't understand a single thing I'm trying to tell you.

  Priest : I don't need to understand it to know that it is wrong. What you do is wrong.

  The Confessor : You think this is the life I want? Do you think if I could feel like a normal human being, I wouldn't want that? Life doesn't give a shit about what we want. For some of us, the chance at a normal life was ripped away from us when we were very, very young.

  Priest : My God, what happened to you?

  The Confessor : You wouldn't understand.

  Priest : You don't know that.

  The Confessor : Father, you wouldn't understand what it is like to suffer, to truly suffer, and to cause suffering and not care.

  Priest : You don't know that, either.

• Priest : I wasn't always who I am. There was a time in my life when I was filled with rage, but I changed.

  The Confessor : What changed you?

  Priest : I can't.

  The Confessor : You mean you won't.

  Priest : Oh, all right, I won't!

  The Confessor : Even if you hold a man's life in your hands?

  Priest : No, no, no, life is in your hands.

  The Confessor : Not anymore, Father. What you decide right now determines whether or not he will live or die.

  Priest : Why are you doing this to me?

  The Confessor : Because I want you to understand that we are all hypocrites. You preach compassion, where is it now? You have the opportunity to save a man's life, but you won't, because your pride is greater than your love.

  Priest : [the Confessor moves to leave]  No, wait!

  The Confessor : [sitting back down]  Go on.

• Priest : That's two people you've let live.

  The Confessor : So?

  Priest : Each time, you made a choice.

  The Confessor : Hoffman wasn't a choice.

  Priest : You knew he'd kill himself?

  The Confessor : Yes.

  Priest : How?

  The Confessor : The look on his face. I've seen that before.

• Priest : I was married once, and I drank too much and I did horrible things to my wife and child.

  The Confessor : What kind of things?

  [getting no response] 

  The Confessor : *What kind of things*?

  Priest : I beat them. Oh, God forgive me. God forgive me. I was filled with anger. So, so, so, so, so much anger. And I convinced myself that they deserved it. And with every drink I took, they deserved it more. I was empty inside and the only way that I felt better was by making others suffer more. I thought of no one but myself, and when my wife died... I left my son. I just walked out of the house one day and I never went back, so don't tell me that I don't understand you. I *was* you! I may not have killed, but I have harmed. I know what it is to be a monster. I know what it is to shatter lives. I know what it is to terrorize an eight-year-old boy who's never done me any harm. As I... as I look at myself now, I wonder how I could ever have been that man, the man that slapped his son in the face when he woke me when I was drunkenly napping. The man who locked him in a closet because... he said he was afraid of the dark. The man who... the man who...

  The Confessor : What did you do? Tell me.

  Priest : No.

  The Confessor : *Tell me*!

  Priest : He ran into the kitchen one night when I was cooking, bumped into the table and my bottle of whiskey smashed on the floor. Oh, God forgive me. God forgive me. God forgive me. I held his hand over the flame. I burned him. Scarred him. Inside and out.

  The Confessor : Yes, I know.

  [showing him a burn mark on his hand] 

  The Confessor : Father.

• The Confessor : What's the worst thing you've ever done, Father? Steal a little money from the collection plate? Sneak sips of sacrificial wine between services? Did you have impure thoughts about members of your congregation?

  Priest : I have sinned.

  The Confessor : What's your darkest sin, Father?

  Priest : That is between me and God.

  The Confessor : Prove to me you understand my pain and I won't kill tonight. And I'm not talking about petty little sins, Father. I want you to prove to me that you understand what it is like to truly harm another human being, to do something horrible and not care. There is something, isn't there? Is that why you became a priest?

  Priest : I became a priest to share God's love.

  The Confessor : What about before you were a priest?