"You are forgiven, my son"
Really it is that simple - leave a bag of money in there and get forgiveness.
Concept shown is erroneous - from both moral and theological point of view.
Otherwise, the movie is pretty much OK.
Seeing as the priest didn't know what was in the bag before he forgave Marcus it removes your reason for disliking it.
shareand yet this was the very first form of "forgiveness" practiced in churches. you still like your religion?
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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire
You may want to please consider indicating that your post contains a possible spoiler. I agree that the film was OK, not entirely great but certainly worth a view. Respectfully though, what you describe is not what's portrayed. The priest led Marcus in a prayer of forgivness long before Marcus got up and walked out leaving the bag. Ernie Hudson's character engaged Marcus with a sense of compassion prior to even being told the story.
The truth is, from a moral (if you consider morality comes from God) and theological viewpoint, the concept of Christian forgivness shown in the scene is among the most accurate portrayed in film. The Christian religion is the only major religion that offers spiritual redemption not thru good works and "earning" one's way into heaven (many world religions don't even believe in a heaven) but instead offers redemption, regardlesss of one's past, simply thru the belief and acceptence of Christ and true repentence.
As was said above, if you are going by the strict theology of Christianity, then Wesley Snipes is more than cleared of any "wrongdoing" that he may have done during the events of the film.
It is often shown in movies that "good guys forced to do bad deeds" (or bad guys reformed by the end of the film) will stuff a sh!tload of money into a collection envelope, pay $63,000 for a cookie at a church bake sale, or flatout hand over a bunch of money to a "holy man". This is not what happens in this movie. Here, Snipes does the whole "Christian confession" thing. (Sorry if I screw up the proper names; I'm trying to remember the correct "terms" from my Catholic School teachings). Anyway, Snipes confesses to the priest, the priest forgives him, and the priest gives Snipes an act of contrition (although that wasn't very specific - it was something like, "Let Jesus into your heart and do what you feel he would want you to do"). The money was an afterthought; Snipes would have been forgiven without it. [That's why I've always had a soft spot for "Reindeer Games" - Ben Affleck's character just randomly stuffs "Christmas Care Packages" of money into people's mailboxes, and I've always had a feeling that would do a LOT more good than giving a church some 30 million dollars! Did you SEE that church? They weren't hurting for money, friend!]
BTW - I think the church stuff (as well as the scene in the Psychiatric Ward) were leftovers from Abel Ferrara, because Abel is really into that "redemption" stuff (and the Psych Ward stuff was just hilarious!), while the rest of the movie was TERRIBLE! Guns with 10,000 round clips; trained assassins that can shoot at each other all day and hit no one... but when it counts they can outdraw and kill 10 people in a row; all the usual crap.
JMHO
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-ak