“I have devoted my life to God!” the man was exclaiming in exasperation.

“But not your whole life,” came the answer.

“I have experienced God many times,” the man countered.

“It is not enough to save you.”

“I did not marry. I did not divide my interests!” the man rejoined.

“You did not marry, but you did not give up women. See here. Here is the record of every lustful thought that you have had. You’ll note that here is where you became a priest, and yet a record of such thoughts continues until your death.”

“But those— what man can control his thoughts with such skill? You’re being unreasonable. I did not act on those thoughts, did I?” the man asserted with all confidence. The man had taken the tone of a defense attorney, expecting the rhetoric to take effect.

“Of course you acted on those thoughts. Here are seventy thousand, six hundred and fifty two times recorded where you turned your head to gaze on a woman,” the other returned.

“Well that is nonsense,” the man cried out. Then he continued, “I turned my head a few times. But I have not looked at pornography. Surely that counts for something.”

“It does. But see here. Here are thirty-three times you have looked upon such material,” the other replied.

The man blurted out in exasperation, “Those were in movies! Look. See here in this one, how was I to know they were going to put that scene in?”

“It is not enough to save you,” the other responded with all finality.

And then there was silence. The great waiting hall shook with the trembling of those waiting in it. Teresa wiped her eyes. At last, the interview continued.

“Have I nothing? Is it all nothing? What was the point?” the man inquired. Though it was still loudly shouted, there was clearly a wavering in the man’s voice.

“No one is saying it is nothing. It is not enough. The things are different.”

“I was a professor of theology. I taught thousands the pure doctrine of the church,” the man cried out, gaining new strength.

“Your doctrine was not pure. See, here is the record of your errors, some deliberate and defiant, others sincere but mistaken, and some wrong though you did not know it.”

In this silence Teresa presumed the man was looking at the record. Sure enough, the man spoke up to protest.

“Why, some of these are so nuanced. You say this one is wrong, here? I think I know my Scriptures well enough to know that a better interpretation is not possible. These are so nitpicky. Where is the harm? It seems to me that it was good enough.”

“Behold the consequences of the doctrinal deviations you taught to others,” the other declared.

The man began making all sorts of noises. Apparently here he was not just reading the record because he started making comments as though he were seeing the consequences with his own eyes.

“No! Please stop! How was I to know? How can I be responsible? I gave them the doctrine, perhaps it was slightly off, but they put it into action! Oh my. No, how could this have led to that? My God, that was fifteen generations later!” And so it went on for what seemed like a long time with the man getting increasingly desperate. At last the man blurted out, “Didn’t I get anything right?”

“One, perhaps. More or less.”

There was the sound of muffled weeping, and Teresa guessed that the man had inquired as to which one, because the other replied,

“The one you need now.”

“Which, which is it? Surely if I got the one doctrine right that I need right now that is enough to save me?”

“Here it will help you not to have it, but to do it,” the other responded with earnestness.

“But it follows still that I would have taught this one, too!” the man blurted out, nearly broken.

“It is not enough to save you.”