15 Quotes by Joseph Towle

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.