The ex-nun, invited by the
pastor, spoke to his youth
group about the evils of Roman
Catholicism. He squirmed in

his seat. It just didn’t seem
right. It seemed like a betray-
al. That was back in the
day when Protestants and

Catholics could go to school
together and live in the same
neighborhoods but couldn’t
enter each other’s churches

for fear of eternal punish-
ment. He had a close friend in
grade school and high school
whose dad had died suddenly in

their freshman year. He attend-
ed his friend’s father’s funeral
mass. As he sat in the pew in
awe of all the beauty, bells,

whistles (or should he say
chimes?) and incense, he felt
viscerally sated. He wondered
why anyone could say that such

a place was of the devil. Years
later, he wrote his doctoral
dissertation on the relation-
ship between the pastoral care

function of reconciliation
and the observance of the
Eucharist. As he thought about
it, such a ministerial journey

started that sad day, in that
beautiful church, for that
funeral mass for the father
of his good friend.