WEBVTT - Chapter 2: The Drunken Banjo Player 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Evolution and war have both been described the exact same way, 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:09.560 endless periods of supreme boredom punctuated by brief periods of 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:17.440 abject terror. Change when it comes, comes in loud, sudden bursts. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.640 One such burst, the subject of our show, happened between 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.760 nineteen sixty five and nineteen seventy three to a country, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.920 to a church, and to a bunch of young Catholics. 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.000 But when it comes to change, there always lurks the 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:39.080 revolutionary's dilemma. Do you change things incrementally from the inside 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:44.760 or do you agitate from outside and smash institutions? Do 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.360 you be the change, as Gandhi said, or if this 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.519 were pro wrestling, do you pull a reverse Gandhi and 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.680 force the change? This show will explore both sides of 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.440 this dilemma, two sides which faithfully came together in a 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:07.160 rare dis unified strength to protect Paul Kome So dig 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:12.039 if you will the picture. We last left Paul standing 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.840 agog in the Brigham's Diner, next to Marianne and Sarah 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.160 helplessly looking on as Anne, Walsh and Tobin led the 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.360 marchers down Tremont Street toward the waiting Feds in front 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.800 of the Paulist Center. They were on the verge of 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.000 the first political sanctuary in a Catholic church in four 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:35.560 hundred years. To do this, to find a Catholic church 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.080 that would be willing to thrust itself between the anti 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.320 war resistance and the federal government, they would need a 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.920 man on the inside. These outside agitators needed to find 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:50.480 a Roman Catholic priest, an inside incrementalist, crazy enough to 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.440 take on the Archdiocese of Boston, the federal government, and 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.200 his own Holy Order. No priest in his right mind 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.559 would do this, except that is for Patrick, their man 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.520 on the inside, on that morning of the sanctuary, as 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.920 he stood behind the red double doors of the Polist 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.040 Center waiting for Paul and the others, Patrick was a 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.560 wild haired Gonzo priest who had decided to stake his 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:24.600 church on a crazy bet to sabotage a war. However, 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.040 only two years prior to him standing there in that foyer, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.400 the Polis Center in downtown Boston had been just another musty, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.000 old smells and bells echo chamber of a stolid Catholic past, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.519 the kind where you'd go to church on Sunday, here, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.560 quiet organ music as you shuffled in and a single 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:48.600 cough would reverberate for days. You remember what Jim Carroll, 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.320 the author from the last episode said about the place. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.720 And it was also a famously establishment, and it was 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:55.880 full of old guys. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.440 But Patrick, in the two years since his ordination and 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.400 subsequent assignment to the Paula Center, had somehow transformed it 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.560 into a vibrating beehive of subversive madness and progressive ideas. 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.840 The Catholic Church was going through a revolution and the 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.800 paul Center was a main place of revolutionary firment. 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.480 So who the hell was Patrick and how the hell 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:33.600 did he get this way? This divine intervention Chapter two, 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:58.920 The drunken banjo player. This cat scandalized his entire order 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.080 on a national scale and basically detonated what it means 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.920 to be a priest. But he began like they all did, 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.200 a conformist, apple cheeked nineteen fifties kid with cuffs in 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.000 his jeans and an all shocks attitude. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.520 Patrick was, of course an altiboy. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.760 Patrick's sister Joanne, he. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:22.359 Was a prized Alta boy. Everyone wanted Patrick to be 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.400 the altiboy at their weddings because he was so cute. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.960 Joanne is a painter and retired therapist. Soft spoken yet 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.240 ferociously passionate, she has spent many years trying to reclaim 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.360 the term hag as a thing of power, even printing 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:37.640 t shirts and toad bags. 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.000 And he had this toussled, blonde, curly hair because he 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.080 was just so there, and so he would be the 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.840 altiboy at weddings and he'd get tipps and he thought 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:48.880 that was fantastic. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.599 Patrick was the second youngest of seven children. 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:53.599 Some people call us Irish trains. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.000 Joanne was the youngest. Patrick grew up in Quincy, which 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:02.240 locals pronounced with a z quinn. It's next to Dorchester 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.640 on the water, which makes it sound a little fancier 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.560 than its. Patrick's father was an Irish immigrant who worked 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.440 as a machinist at the local navy yard. 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.360 My father and Patrick built a boat in our basement. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.720 They worked on it night after night after night, and 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.159 it turned into the most beautiful sailboat you could just imagine. 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.000 And then Patrick set it out in the water and 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.240 he just sailed all over the place with that boat. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.800 Eventually the neighborhood kids got jealous, so Patrick and his 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.520 father built nine more boats and then they began having 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.680 races on Boston Harbor. This kid had a unique trust 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.560 in himself, a love of charting his own course into 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.159 the unknown, and yet somehow he ended up going into 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:57.520 the priesthood, entering a global religious hierarchy that demanded submission 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:06.120 to authority. I did Patrick choose the priesthood. Maybe like 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.160 a lot of other parochial school kids, it was the 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.560 nuns took a shine to him, and they pulled him 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.240 aside and told him he had that priestly X factor. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:15.599 Or maybe it was his parents. 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.920 I think that it was sort of an inevitable path 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.440 given the context of our family, the Irish Catholic, the 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.760 reverence for priests. It was the highest calling that you 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.960 could ever respond to as far as my parents were concerned. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.200 Okay, so maybe his parents had their thumb on the scale. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.480 But the question I'm still left with is what in 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.159 the crap would make someone want to become a priest 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.240 in the first place. I mean, I grew up, you know, 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.000 sort of Catholic. I was Catholic when I visited my 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.920 elderly aunt Mimian Scranton for the summer, Catholic enough to 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.040 know it was a really big deal. When the parish 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.240 priest was in your house, it felt like a celebrity 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.080 was in your dining room. Of all the houses, of 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.200 all the people, all the pews. On Sunday, here was 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:07.640 Father McGillicutty eating corn on the cob in hours. Of course, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.640 now looking back, it's like you let a priest into 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:15.400 your house Jesus. But this was before all the scandals, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:20.640 so you just felt anointed. But even with that rock 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.320 star status at awkward family dinners, there are still the 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.560 endless wakes and funerals and multiple masses a week. What 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:34.360 is the draw? This is Floyd McManus. He just sighed 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.840 because I asked him why he became a priest. He 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:38.640 and Jim Carroll were seminarians. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.440 With Patrick, I guess the notion of service. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.640 Not many priests nor former priests have a really solid 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.160 answer to that question, And as you've gathered by now, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.840 Patrick's not around anymore. So unfortunately, we can only guess 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.160 at Patrick's true motivation to become a priest beyond pleasing 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.800 his parents. What we do know is the succession of 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.760 world events that surrounded his decision making. We know Patrick 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.440 came of age on the cusp of the nineteen sixties. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.440 We also know this was the era of the two Johns, 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:20.560 and not John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President not 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.920 to mention Irish Catholic was sitting in the Oval Office 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.960 after being a shot upon immigrant group for over a century. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.480 It's impossible to overstate the significance of one of us 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:37.320 in the White House. And it's equally impossible to overstate 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.680 the significance of that one sentence on an entire generation 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.960 of young people like Patrick. But John F. Kennedy was 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.160 only one John, and maybe not even the most important 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.520 John to Patrick at the time. There was also the 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:56.280 other John, the newly appointed John, the twenty third, raising 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.280 hell in the Vatican, and that John may have had 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.520 something to do with how Patrick turned out to be 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:07.040 a gonzo, wild haired priest. Okay, and since this is 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.080 a show about Catholics, before we go on, here's one 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.800 of the weirder things you need to know about them 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.240 as you listen to this. Over a billion of these 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.320 specimens are groping around the crust of this planet, participating 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.800 in a global religious hierarchy that answers ultimately to one 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.320 guy wearing a dress who lives in his own miniature 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:33.880 country in the middle of downtown Rome, and this man, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.280 known as the Pope, is the ultimate intermediary between a 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.600 billion people, the world they live in, and their godhead. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:50.120 Popes have a metric crap ton of executive power, so 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.400 naming a new one is really a gamble because you 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.840 really never know who you're going to get until a 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:05.280 funny hat goes on. When Patrick was nineteen years old, 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.640 Pope Pius the Twelfth, who'd been pope since the week 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.800 Patrick was born, died and the cardinals of the world 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:19.679 dashed to Rome to choose the successor. A large crowd 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.640 of Catholics gathered in Saint Peter's Square and Vatican City 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.680 to wait for news of a new pope, And after 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.079 eleven days of waiting, white smoke puffed from the chimney 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:34.719 over the Sistine Chapel. How about us, pop, 'm we 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.199 had a new Pope. I was there. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.480 I was there. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.360 It's very funny. 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.960 This is Bob Knnane. He was a young priest in 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:46.600 Rome back in nineteen fifty eight. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.000 We ran out of it to Saint Peter's Square when 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:50.920 we found out the pope. You know, the white smoke 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.320 and all that kind of stuff. Was very exciting. We 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.280 all got in the square and they said the new 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.160 Pope is John the twenty three, and everybody looked at 0:10:58.160 --> 0:10:59.400 one another saying what. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.520 He was a total surprise. It turns out the pope 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.320 they chose, John the twenty third was a surprise even 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.440 to himself. In fact, he had bought a round trip 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.600 train ticket to Rome, fully expecting to return to his 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.720 duties as the Patriarch of Venice. 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.680 Nobody expected anything from him, and of course totally he 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.719 changed the whole atmosphere. 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.160 There were early signs for anyone paying attention that this 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.640 pope was going to be trouble. Jim Carroll describes John 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.840 as a big eared bear, hug of a man, and 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.320 a roly poly peasant pope. In one story, John the 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.760 twenty third was once asked by a child how do 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:43.280 people work at the Vatican and his answer was eh, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.200 about half. He also said it often happens I wake 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.320 up at night and begin to think about the serious 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.680 problems afflicting the world, and I tell myself I must 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.680 talk to the Pope about this. Then the next day, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.280 when I wake up, I remember that I'm the Pope. 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.800 This guy was a strange bird compared to every other pope, 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.680 Patrick and his generation had ever beheld as their leader, 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.680 and it was becoming clear that he had big plans. 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.600 One of his first acts as pope was to deliver 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.400 an appeal for world peace. 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.480 I mean, we were used to popes going watch yourself now, 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.640 you know you sort of like that head the recruiters. Instead, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:24.840 he opened the windows and he said, do you know 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:26.760 he kind of he changed things. 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.200 Suddenly, this pope, the Italian son of an impoverished peasant farmer, 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.800 had entered the world stage, and his appeal for world 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.120 peace began to ring like a clarion bell for a 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.000 generation of young people like Patrick. 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.079 He was an you might say, an oddity. He was different. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.559 He was not like the other popes. 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.320 This is noted American historian Howard Zinn, whom I interviewed 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.240 in two thousand and nine, a few months before he 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:51.839 passed away. 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.400 He was a rebel in many ways, and I think 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.640 he became a hero to many of the people on 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.640 the Catholic left. I know Jim carl my friend Jim Carroll, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.480 who has written so much about the Catholic Church, looks 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.960 to John twenty third as a very special historic period 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.400 in the history of the paper sit. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.280 The Catholic Church was going through a revolutionary and this 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:19.840 whole revolutionary process was just beginning in the mid to 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:21.319 late nineteen sixties. 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.720 Young Catholics everywhere, Young Catholics like Patrick, were enthralled by 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.400 this new pope and his peculiar radical style. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:38.800 He opened the doors. He was a modern contemporary theologian 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.440 and thinker, and he knew the church needed to get 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.120 into the modern age. 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.840 This is Mary Anne who he last left standing next 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:48.440 to Paul at the Brighams. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.400 And he changed it dramatically. And it was at the 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.400 same time that John Kennedy became President of the United States. 0:13:55.679 --> 0:14:01.760 Those two hugely symbolic transformational figures came on to the 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:02.959 world stage. 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.080 And it's as if they just. 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:16.600 Try these incredible doors open, and a whole generation just. 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:23.160 Poured through like crazy torrents of water poured through. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.040 What we know is that Patrick saw a fellow Irish 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.600 Catholic Bostonian in the Oval office and a mischievous change 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:37.000 maker in Saint Peter's Basilica. Maybe it was his natural leadership, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.080 or the nuns at school, or his parents, or the 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.800 two Johns, or simply a sense of adventure, but whatever 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.640 it was, it propelled Patrick into a life of the cloth. 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.400 Patrick's next move after deciding to become a priest was 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.840 to choose the right order. If Patrick chose the wrong order, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.760 while the only risk winding up permanently unfulfilled and misspending 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:08.520 his eternity. As for the priest orders, the Dominicans are 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.760 the accountant types. The Franciscans are the tree hugging hippies. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.720 The Jesuits are the cool professors doing bong rips at 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.560 frat parties. The Benedictines are the nerd bomb librarians. The 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.800 Carmelites are the mystics. The Vincentians worked with the poor, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.080 and the Poulis are kind of the ones who end 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.440 up in the av club, you know, pouches of dice, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.680 model rockets, you know what I'm talking about. 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.600 And so he joined the Paul's Fathers and then spent 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.480 it's eight years in the seminary. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.960 I mean, it's the huge commitment. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.480 Different orders have different missions, and for the Paulus, their 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.480 mission was North America, and the Pause were. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.120 Really known for communication, and you know they had TV 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:53.880 and radio. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.280 And then he went into the Paulis and vishit. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.960 So Patrick told his family, I'm off to the seminar. 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.440 I'm going to set out on this path. I don't 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.640 know how far I can go, but this is what 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.320 I'm aiming toward. And everyone was so happy and supportive 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.360 and just thought, oh, this is right, this seems so right. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.720 Patrick's choice to join the Paulists, obsessed as they were 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.560 with communication, suggested that at this point he felt, I 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.240 have something I want to say to this world, and 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.960 I want to say it loud and clear. Now I 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:37.000 have to figure out what the hell it is. In 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.920 the fall of nineteen sixty two, Patrick, Floyd, and Jim 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.360 turned up at a place called Mount Paul Novitiate in 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.760 Jefferson Township, New Jersey to begin their journey towards ordination. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.280 They arrived on a crisp September morning, driving down the 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.720 tree lined mile long driveway off Ridge Road to reach 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:04.159 a former hunting lodge with a little pond in several outbuildings. There, 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.840 they were each given a black cassock as a uniform 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.879 for their stay. As young men who'd grown accustomed to 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.679 wearing pants in public their entire lives, this would have 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.440 felt very unsettling for them. The boys were then told 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:19.720 they would live here for one year and one day 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.439 as novices to decide if they wanted to spend the 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.399 following seven years in seminary. They were told the rules 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.320 were strict and they'd have to learn the stern and 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:34.000 disciplined life of a would be priest. Television and phone 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.520 calls were things of the past. They were told they 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:39.880 weren't allowed to leave campus on their own for the 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.359 entire time they were there, And finally, they were left 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.600 to ponder the question that would haunt the rest of 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.840 their time as priests. Are you in this world to 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:55.640 participate in this vocation or are you in this vocation 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:02.040 to participate in the world. Boys, struck dumb by this decision, 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.520 which would determine who they would be as priests, would 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.960 then stroll around the grounds until they felt at home 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:17.480 and not like they'd made a terrible mistake. But Patrick 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.080 was not so easily daunted. By all accounts, he was 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.640 an irrepressible, a brilliant character from the moment he arrived. 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:29.400 He was roughly five to eight, stocky, warm, friendly and confident, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.639 with a bit of a trickster's gleam in his eye, 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:32.920 and you. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:34.800 Know they tell the story about Patrick, of course, who 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:36.400 could not sit spiled for five minutes. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.240 I mean he got to the seminary and said. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.560 Oh, my wife to do something about this. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:43.880 So I think the first thing he did was literally 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:44.480 build a boat. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:49.360 He wants to build a boat. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.199 Floyd had grown up a Canadian farm boy and was 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:53.600 assigned to run the wood shop. 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.119 And he needs some way by my equipment. I was 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.399 not very happy. But before long, not all only is 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.120 he using my but he's using me too to help him. See, 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.280 we weren't allowed out of that place. But by getting 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.120 involved in building this boat, he would have to go 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.920 out to get materials and that kind of things, which 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:24.840 took him out. Really, it seemed to be somewhat of 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:29.320 a consistent pattern. He would somehow be able to expand 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.760 the box that he would find himself in. 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.480 Of Patrick, Jim Harrell would later write in his books, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.719 this is a man I want to be with. Patrick 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.960 had a particularly hard time saying goodbye to civilian life. 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.720 In the summers prior, he had been a cape caught 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.040 milkman by day, even delivering to the Kennedy compound and 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.720 getting pinches on the cheek from Rose by night. He 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.600 played banjo at a high Enda's honky tonk and caroused 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.240 to his heart's content. The night before he left a seminary, 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.800 he was dumped on the lawn by his friends, where 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.760 his parents found him. The following morning, he was shall 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.760 we say a party in. 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.960 This is another paragraph? Thank god, the summer is almost over. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.440 A letter from Patrick to the Quincy Heights. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.480 It's been quite hairy at times. On our Thursday hikes, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.200 I sometimes see a group of guys drive by, drinking beer, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.800 singing and raising hell. In general, you can imagine where 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:30.800 my mind wanders. 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.320 He sent several sprightly letters to his sister Joanne, with 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.800 graffiti all over the envelopes, vandalizing the return address to 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.200 read call Mount Paul Novigiat for the latest in seminary. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.040 Ins received your letter. Very good letter. Please mail about 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.440 five a day, just kidding, four will do. I'm beginning 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.879 to get accustomed to this crazy life again. Pray, pray, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.600 pray if some of those people at Charlie's could see 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.680 the banjo player now. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.919 In her reading, Joanne left out the word drunken. He 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.119 had written drunken bancho player. 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:08.480 This one he signs mister O'Toole. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.120 He signed early letters to Joanne things like Friar Tuck, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:16.240 Uncle Charlie, Billy the Kid, Lord Chesterfield, Charlie Brown and 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.520 Lee Bear Archie love, prayers, trees, houses, cows and all that. 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:25.919 Pat I'm gradually becoming an introvert, and that scares the 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:26.800 hell out of me. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:30.960 It seems like one challenge of the seminary is to 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:34.359 keep the old you alive as long as possible, but 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.760 it's a losing battle. In the margins of one letter, 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.359 he added editor's note on first writing this letter, the 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.760 author was obviously disturbed, but he feels better now, so 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.000 he shall make corrections. And then he proceeded to pick 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.760 apart his own letter with little jokes, doing things like 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:55.080 circling all the eye pronouns and remarking too many eyes. 0:21:55.160 --> 0:22:01.600 I simply adore myself. Patrick was chipper, boisterous, self effacing, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.200 and had not an ounce of what the Germans called 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.720 Veltschmertz or world pain. 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.000 Right at this moment, I'm a bit lonely, melancholy, nostalgic, 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.760 but still a very content and happy guy. On the back. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.880 He wants me to send him newspaper reports of Boston 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.800 college's hockey team. 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:25.760 Try as he might to keep up with the old 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.720 world he left behind. The seminary walls were closing in, 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.119 and the untroubled world he left behind in Quinsy seemed 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.119 farther away. With each new letter. 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.720 As part of preparing to be a celibate priest, he 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:44.000 was always trying to get rid of those feelings that 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:44.480 he had. 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.880 In one letter, he described the torment he felt about 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.120 one of his ex girlfriends who moved west. Of course, 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.800 I realized, he wrote, that if things were different and 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.000 we were both around Boston, we probably would have broken 0:22:57.080 --> 0:22:59.800 up anyway, seeing as I hate to be tied down. 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.280 Then he continued, aware of the irony of his chosen profession. 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.440 This I think will be a problem that the Paulists 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.360 are going to have with Father Pat if he makes it. 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.399 Even Patrick knew the self described drunken banjo player had 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.639 a certain amount of growing up to do. Tradition is 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.639 meant to tame the heart from its desires. But the 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:28.879 heart is always a threat to tradition. But Catholic tradition 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:34.000 was about to be absolutely detonated in Rome by one 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:36.120 Pope John the twenty. 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:48.440 Third, Well Pope John undoubtedly this is the greatest day 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.040 of his pumpaving hid the convening of this General Assembly 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:54.240 of the Roman Catholic Church. 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:58.640 On October eleventh, nineteen sixty two, only a month after 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.359 Patrick's arrival at Mount Pin, Pope John the twenty third 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:08.600 upended centuries of church dogma by convocating the Second Vatican Council. 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.600 This is the first ecumenical council in ninety two years, 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:14.880 and only the second in four hundred years. It as 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:17.600 solemnly opened this Pope John twenty third is carried into 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:19.560 Saint Peter's on his portable throne. 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:22.439 All the Church's bishops from all over the world headed 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:25.480 for Rome in a once in a century convening to 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:31.480 decide on major church business. This was a huge ecumenical council. 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:34.480 There have been about twenty in all of history, and 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:37.000 from your tenth grade World history class you might vaguely 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:40.119 recall the Council of Nicea, or maybe the Council of 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.560 Trent if you were in ap history. This one was 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:45.840 called the Second Vatican Council because there had been a 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:49.720 first Vatican Council in eighteen seventy and at that one 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:52.920 you may remember if you took religious studies. They defined 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:58.680 papal infallibility. Anything in everything the Pope decreed was automatically 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:02.639 perfect by virtue of the Hope having decreed it. After 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:06.480 the First Vatican Council, popes now had supreme executive power, 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:09.760 and no pope in their right mind would possibly give 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:15.399