- Father Rentería also remembers the day Miguel died.
- He starts recollecting all the different confessions he had to hear as priest from women in the town, all with the same sin: sleeping with Pedro Páramo, having Pedro's baby, giving their daughters to Pedro Páramo so he could sleep with them. Pedro Páramo: dirtbag supreme.
- He has a flashback to the day that Miguel was born.
- The mother, one of Pedro's many lovers, died in childbirth, so the priest took the baby up to the Media Luna.
- Pedro tries to get the priest to take the baby, but he won't because he thinks he has bad blood.
- So Pedro accepts his son, and gives him to Damiana to raise. He and the priest have a drink together, in honor of the dead mother and the new baby.
- The priest feels ashamed of himself, and wants to hide, but all of the townspeople greet him when they see him.
- His niece, Ana, tells him that the women have lined up to confess, but he doesn't want to hear their sins.
- He had gone to the next town over that day to talk to another priest about his own sins: namely, having let Pedro destroy his religious integrity.
- The other priest won't pardon him, though, just like Father Rentería won't pardon so many of the poor people in Comala.
- The priests talk about how all the fruit and flowers that grow in the land are either bitter or die out, because the earth of Comala is no good.
- All the land in Comala happens to all belong to Pedro Páramo. The townspeople seem to think that it's God's will that Pedro has everything and they have nothing.
- Instead of going to listen to confession, Father Rentería walks up to Media Luna to gives his condolences to Pedro for the loss of his son.
- Finally he gets back to the church, and the first woman waiting to confess is Dorotea.
- She smells like she's been drinking, so the priest gives her a hard time about that. He tells her that she couldn't sin even if she tried, probably because she's a little bit cuckoo.
- But then she tells him that she was the one who used to get girls for Miguel Páramo—that's the deal they made that day outside the kitchen.
- Dorotea used to either set up dates between Miguel and the girls, or she'd just tell him when they'd be alone so he could catch them and do what he wanted with them.
- After she leaves, the priest gets so overwhelmed by all the misfortune surrounding him that he abandons his post and leaves all the people lined up, waiting to confess their sins.