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Life & Mortality Quote by Fulton J. Sheen

"Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn"

About this Quote

A clergyman comparing confession to a snack-food execution is the kind of blasphemously funny line that works precisely because it doesn’t blink. Fulton J. Sheen isn’t mocking the sacrament; he’s puncturing the sentimental idea that clerical work is endlessly dramatic, spiritually cinematic. In his hands, the confessional becomes a place where the “heavy” part of religion - sin, guilt, transformation - is often replaced by the clerical reality of routine, repetition, and small-scale scrupulosity.

The joke hinges on mismatched stakes. “Stoned to death” evokes martyrdom, the grand narrative of suffering for truth. “Popcorn” is harmless, even cozy. Put together, the image captures a peculiar kind of attrition: not pain that ennobles you, but annoyance that erodes you. It suggests the slow grind of listening to faults that are minor, habitual, and endlessly rewrapped - less Dante than reruns. The subtext is pastoral fatigue: holiness as customer service, where the “customers” are sincere, anxious, and stuck in the same loops.

The line also carries a subtle compliment to nuns and a mild jab at a certain religious temperament. Nuns, trained in discipline and self-examination, can also be trained in hyper-attentiveness to tiny moral deviations. Sheen’s humor acknowledges their earnestness while hinting at how convent culture can turn conscience into a microscope.

Context matters: Sheen was a media-savvy American Catholic voice in a mid-century culture that prized polish and piety. This is his way of letting the air out of clerical mythmaking - a priest admitting, with comedic precision, that sanctity can be exhausting in the most boring possible way.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
Source
Later attribution: Fulton J. Sheen (Fulton J. Sheen) modern compilation
Text match: 34.57%   Provider: Wikiquote
Evidence:
takes a long drink to forget his railroading and on sunday ponders why people are
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Sheen, Fulton J. (2026, January 13). Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hearing-nuns-confessions-is-like-being-stoned-to-54223/

Chicago Style
Sheen, Fulton J. "Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn." FixQuotes. January 13, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hearing-nuns-confessions-is-like-being-stoned-to-54223/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn." FixQuotes, 13 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hearing-nuns-confessions-is-like-being-stoned-to-54223/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.

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Hearing Nuns Confessions: Like Stoned with Popcorn
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About the Author

Fulton J. Sheen

Fulton J. Sheen (May 8, 1895 - December 9, 1979) was a Clergyman from USA.

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