Cleaning my desk this morning, I happened upon Paul Thigpen’s “Final Thoughts of Catholic Sinners & Saints.”

As Thigpen notes, last words assume a prominent place in popular imagination, so much so that when the infamous Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was ambushed an assassinated in 1923, he reportedly said “Don’t let it end like this; tell them I said something.”

It occurred to me that it might be fun to post these deathbed confessionals (in ye old sense) on the blog.

I’ll present them in the same order as the book. Here’s the first, from Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), who addresses the Eucharist he received on his deathbed.

“I have preached you and taught you. Never had I said anything against you. If anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance … I submit all to the judgement and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now leave this world.”