Early nineteenth-century English anti-Catholic prejudice stressed the hierarchical
conformity of the Roman Church as against the individual self-witnessing or examination
of conscience that the growing evangelical movement especially emphasized. Yet if
this confessor is manipulative and reminds one of that staple of Gothic fiction, the
obdurate inquisitor, he seems to stand in contrast to the earlier confessor, who acted
as a kindly mender of family fences to convince her mother after the deaths of her
other children to take Justine back into her home (I:5:6). Of course, he could be
the same priest, only apparently kind in his offices, but essentially superstitious
in interpreting God's will and actively supporting firm social structures to curb
errant individual desire.