compelling insights unpredictable conversations encouragement for your day it's the patrick madridrid show

on relevant radio welcome back this email comes in from robert listening in the bay area he's listening

on our 1260 a m signal. signal up there. Thanks,

Robert. He says, during the second hour of one of your shows, you shared about a Chinese saint

who was addicted to opium and whom a priest refused to give absolution because of his repeated

use of the drug. During the discussion with your guest, I don't have guests on the program, so I'm not sure what you mean.

Maybe you're thinking about a caller, but in any case, we don't have guests, we don't do interviews on this program.

But in any case, he says during the discussion, he brought up that he had heard of priests refusing confession to people who had repeatedly committed adultery. You agreed that these

priests' decision concerning this sin. I'm sorry. You agreed with this priest's decision concerning sin.

Your discussion concerning adultery and the sacrament of reconciliation brought a memory to mind

of a discussion I had with an inmate on my crew while I was working as a baker

in a county jail. During the 12 years I worked in jail, I had a number of deep and revealing

conversations with men on my crews. In this particular discussion, this man and I talked of

addiction. He shared that he had been addicted to both heroin and to sex. I asked him, which is worse?

He stated emphatically sex.

I mentioned this later conversation to an administrative assistant who I worked with

after leaving the job in the jail.

I did not know this woman's history except that she had a troubled past.

When I shared the inmate's response to my question,

she also emphatically affirmed his answer. I bring these two persons' responses up to related

to the extreme difficulty of breaking an addiction. Moreover, a person's addiction does not

negate true sorrow and repentance. Thus, repeated confessions of sin, connected to addiction,

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