You know, when you go into a confessional, you have the option of walking around the divider and just talking to the priest directly. I feel the need to get that out there because movies and TV shows always go for the much more cinematic grill thing. It just looks cool. Catholicism in general has a lot of style, which is why you don’t see many spooky religious-themed horror movies about Protestants.
Except, of course, for The Rapture, featuring David…wait for it…Duchovny. Kismet!
This is the first episode of the X-Files I ever saw, and I have such a soft spot for it. That last panel is perfect.
This one was not my FIRST episode but it is the earliest-PRODUCED I saw (that is, I joined middle of Season 3 and caught this during a rerun week after seeing later episodes in the season). I think my actual first-VIEWED episode was Pusher.
Now wait a minute! I was raised Catholic. Before Vatican II, confessionals were like this one, a divided booth. Afterward, there were confessionals designed so you and the priest could sit face to face—it could even be in an ordinary room—although the booths didn’t disappear. But I never heard of anyone walking into the priest’s side of a traditional confessional, which wouldn’t have had enough room for two people. It almost sounds like the setup for a sex joke. Did I leave the Church too soon and miss the good stuff?
I think she’s saying exactly what you described. Most confessional rooms today set up a kneeler with a divider in the room by the door, so as you walk in you can either confess behind the divider or in a chair facing the priest. Most of the times in movies they seem to try and use a traditional confessional, since it is admittedly much cooler.
O tempora! O mores!
Mulder believes in egresses? Like… Djelibeybian waterbirds?
Or just… exits?
Or female egrets?
Wouldn’t a female egret be an egrette?
Not if there’s more than one?
Mulder saw an egress at Professor Monty Bladder’s three ring circus.
and once again you’ve made me tickled pink with the phrase “well DUH like a Protestant would manifest the Stigmata…”
THIS CATHOLIC geek thanks you Madame, yet AGAIN 🙂
The recycling symbol on the paper shredder is perfect. OH NO WAY
Also, I think this is the first time we’ve seen Scully’s cross in this comic… Just sayin’. 🙂
There’s a t-shirt motto somewhere in that last panel. “God and vampires are the two coolest things?” – Maybe under a picture of Kolchak because, well, why not?
No, wait: SCULLY dressed as Kolchak.
Entirely perfect!
That last panel was pure. gold.
I love “Offer it up,” because they always said that when they didn’t have an answer.
Plus, The Rapture is one of the best bad movies ever.
The Rapture is an awesome movie with naked David Duchovny in it that was nearly ruined for me by seeing it at an atheist film festival in a theater full of beardy guys who felt the need to periodically shout at the screen about how dumb Rapture mythology is.
I bet they all had YouTube channels.
…Why would people go to a movie in order to shout at the screen? Isn’t that one of the pleasures of watching it at home?
This is one of my favorite MOTW strips ever. And yes, God and vampires ARE the two coolest things.
As long as that list does not include SPARKLY vampires, I’m good
Sparkly vampires are the worst. (Unless God is smiting them, directly or by proxy.)
How could you do this episode and completely leave out Owen Jarvis? Scully flippin’ sniffs his corpse and says it smells floral; if that’s not MOTW material I don’t know what is.
I like how Scully doesn’t say that what the killer wants to do is wrong, just that it’s overcomplicated.
Aw man. This one’s not for sale? Scully’s first activation of her Catholicism is just too great here!
Sorry about that! Link button added!
“Well, duh. Like a Protestant would manifest the stigmata.”
YESSS, hahaha. This (and the religious episodes in general) bug me so much because of how little sense they make — and how totally in the dark they seem about it not making any sense. The only really decent (imaginatively/religiously) religious episode was “Signs and Wonders” in the 7th season, written by Jeffrey Bell, in homage to Flannery O’Connor. You really think the show would have made more use of Southern Gothic.
The worst part of this episode is when Mulder and Scully are in the motel room discussing bilocation. Scully: “How Kevin was able to be in two places at once … just like St. Ignatius was able to do in the Bible.” Mulder: “That was in the Bible. It’s a parable, it’s a metaphor for the truth, not the truth itself.”
Augggggghhhhh. There are two major St. Ignatius’s — St. Ignatius of Antioch lived in the 1st century and his letters are some of the first documents of the early Church in the first generation after the apostles, but he’s not in “the Bible.” And there’s no tradition of bilocation associated with him. St. Ignatius of Loyola (16th century) is so far from being “in the Bible” its not even funny! In any case there’s no tradition of him having bilocated, anyway. And Mulder — parables are the moralistic stories Jesus told. Nothing else in the Bible — whether you believe it’s true or not — is called a parable.
This whole exchange is so bad I don’t understand how it made it off the page. Didn’t they have any editors with even a modicum of religious literacy?
I love your work, and it’s so fun to see people experience and discuss the show again. Kudos!