Liam Neeson may have grown up Catholic, but he admits there was one sacrament he stopped participating in after he was shamed by a priest.
During a recent appearance on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, Neeson shared the slightly embarrassing story about why he stopped going to confession when he was a teenager.
The 71-year-old actor recalled a missionary visiting his Irish church from Africa when he was about 15 years old.
“It was a great event when you had a missionary visiting from Africa. And he’d be there for a week and you’d go to Mass every night. And as an altar boy, I’d be serving at Mass, but to hear your confession from him it was like a big deal.”
While the priest was there, Neeson remembered doing a confession with him.
He confessed to little things like arguing with his mother and fighting with his sister before asking for absolution from something he recently learned how to do.
“I had learned how to pleasure myself at home, onto the sheets, right? I had looked up the appropriate word. I remember that… ‘Masturbate’? ‘Masturbation’? Okay. That seems harmless enough,” he remembered.
When he admitted to masturbating the priest reacted in such a way that turned Neeson off forever.
“‘You what?!’ This guy, literally, I mean, he almost said things like, ‘The grass will grow over the palm of your hand before you’re 21! Stop that evil practice!'” the actor recalled the priest shouting at him.
“That was the last time I ever went,” he told O’Brien.
READ MORE:
- Liam Neeson almost played James Bond — but turned it down to marry Natasha Richardson
- Liam Neeson criticizes ‘The View’ after ’embarrassing’ segment left him feeling ‘uncomfortable’
