Joseph Towle Quotations

So I advised him then that if he had the courage and the heart to do it that he should go to the court and should reveal in detail, just as he had done to me, ... His purpose in having this conversation with me was to decide what he could do publicly to exonerate these two boys who were accused in his place.

I did bless him at the end of our conversation. I said to him, 'Do you want the forgiveness of God?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'You have to ask for it.' I gave him absolution and said, 'Now go to the court and tell them everything that you've told me.' And that is exactly what he did. He made a public declaration of everything he said to me,

From beginning to end this situation is a tragedy, and it remains a tragedy. There is a man murdered brutally in a park -- that's a tragedy. His family, the Rivera family, are the forgotten ones now.

If it was a formal confession, I would not be able to say a single word,

He was asking me what he should do, and at that time I told him that if he had the courage and the heart to do it, that he should go to the court and that he should acknowledge that he was responsible and the others were not,

He was crestfallen and guilt-ridden, because he was allowing at that point two boys in his group who had not been present and were not responsible for the murder to take the blame for something he had done,

He was suffering deeply inside himself. He came to me, not in a confessional situation, but to me as a friend,

pardon in the name of God for the things that he had done wrong.

went publicly and conveyed this material to the lawyers. At this point the seal of confession is not in play.

There is nothing, first of all, nothing more sacred then the seal of confession, ... I did not consider this to fall under that precise seal of confession because he had not come to me explicitly seeking absolution, but to find a solution on how he could help his friends.

Far from feeling in giving this testimony that I was doing harm to him, I was revealing to the court and the people around that this was the most redeeming moment of his life and probably the most heroic moment of his life,

I used to insinuate myself into the lives of many people on the street,

a formal confession to begin with, but an appeal to me for advice, followed by a blessing.

It was a heart-to-heart talk where he was feeling very badly that two of his friends had been accused and convicted of something which he had done, and it was his desire to do something to make the truth appear and he wanted to make public the fact that he was responsible and they were not,

Go to the court and tell them everything that you've told me, ... And that is exactly what he did. He made a public declaration of everything he said to me.