Speaker 1: So wanted me to start very simple in to sort
Speaker 1: because you say your name and where you're from.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, my name's Paul Koming. I'm from Rochester, mass
Speaker 2: originally great okay, so I made some of those nuts.
Speaker 3: So little.
Speaker 1: What did you want to talk about to start off
Speaker 1: the end?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Kind of my how it was. I came to be
Speaker 2: the kind of person I was outspoken from a rather
Speaker 2: quiet person because I never usually spoke out about much
Speaker 2: of anything when I.
Speaker 4: Was a kid.
Speaker 1: Two miles before you get to downtown Boston on the
Speaker 1: Southeast Expressway, you pass a giant gas tank right at
Speaker 1: the edge of Boston Harbor, covered in a rainbow of
Speaker 1: colorful stripes. Seeing this gas tank means you're passing the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Dorchester, where much of our story takes place,
Speaker 1: or at least where most of the characters seem to
Speaker 1: have apartments. It's the largest neighborhood in Boston, making up
Speaker 1: the southern half of the city. For a brief period
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, it had a bookstore and a
Speaker 1: movie theater, but unfortunately they didn't last. It is perpetually
Speaker 1: right on the verge of gentrifying, but fortunately it never does.
Speaker 1: I'm your host. Brendan Patrick Hughes. I grew up there,
Speaker 1: and so did Rose Kennedy, eighty percent of new kids
Speaker 1: on the Block, John King, who does the Magic Wall
Speaker 1: on CNN, and Iowa Debris from the Bear. Dorchester is
Speaker 1: where Boston has its morning. The sun is too bright,
Speaker 1: the wind is too strong, the trees never have leaves,
Speaker 1: and describe crooked witch finger silhouettes against Newport meantal billboards
Speaker 1: featuring laughing people who'd never set foot here, and they're
Speaker 1: slush on the floor of Dunkin Donuts. Dorchester has four
Speaker 1: subway stations, all on the Red Line, far more than
Speaker 1: its share of break service and autobody shops, triple deckers,
Speaker 1: package stores, burgeoning Vietnamese and Cape Verdean commune these African Americans,
Speaker 1: Irish Catholics, and a long history of apartments full of activists,
Speaker 1: Activists like Paul Komick. Paul was born in the salad
Speaker 1: days of post World War two.
Speaker 2: I was born in forty eight. So the war ended,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot more opportunities there, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot more hope in the nation as a whole. Dad
Speaker 2: went a lot to what kind of person I became
Speaker 2: you know, and I was quiet, but I was very
Speaker 2: open to the things being hopeful.
Speaker 1: Okay, before I unleash all these accents on you. Something
Speaker 1: that's always driven me crazy. When you see a movie
Speaker 1: about Boston, there's always some character walking around being like kid.
Speaker 1: If you see Tommy Sullivan at Doyle's, tell that chuckle, fuck,
Speaker 1: I need a ride back to Revere. These ridiculous accents.
Speaker 1: We're not all hit in the package store for fat
Speaker 1: mouth makys and scratch tickets. It's not really like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it is kind of sometimes a
Speaker 1: little bit in some places. Yes, in Dorchester, certain pockets,
Speaker 1: but there's also everything else. Everyone I grew up with
Speaker 1: became a teacher who worked in a nonprofit nonprofit. The
Speaker 1: point being the image of Boston in the American imagination
Speaker 1: is incomplete, but I will say there is something strange
Speaker 1: about the city and the overly colorful people it relentlessly produces.
Speaker 1: Take that giant gas tank with the colorful stripes out
Speaker 1: on ninety three. You can't miss it. It's a huge,
Speaker 1: kind of half of a pill capsule dome top cylinder
Speaker 1: tank thing, fourteen stories tall in brilliant blazing white with
Speaker 1: these incredibly dramatic hand painted splashes in rainbow colors running
Speaker 1: over the top. And it turns out it has a name,
Speaker 1: Rainbow Swash. It was created in nineteen seventy one by
Speaker 1: Sister Karita Kent, and when it was painted, it was
Speaker 1: the world's largest copyrighted piece of art. Sister Kurita was
Speaker 1: a peace activist, a Roman Catholic nun, and a prolific
Speaker 1: abstract painter. In nineteen seventy one, she was commissioned to
Speaker 1: brighten up this giant industrial behemoth of a gas tank
Speaker 1: that would block the view of the harbor for miles around.
Speaker 1: Like some Catholics, she strongly opposed the war in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and she would later deny that she had secretly painted
Speaker 1: Ho Chi Min's profile into the left side of the
Speaker 1: blue stripe as a protest and at the risk of
Speaker 1: conveying too cute a metaphor too early in a podcast,
Speaker 1: There's something I really love about Dorchester's largest monument being
Speaker 1: an explosive cauldron of colorful subversion. This is divine intervention.
Speaker 1: This is a story about radical nuns and combat boots
Speaker 1: and wild haired priests trading blows with j Edgar Hoover's
Speaker 1: FBI in a hell bent effort to sabotage a war.
Speaker 1: It's got heist's tragedy, a trial of the century, and
Speaker 1: the god damnedest love story you've ever heard. When Paul
Speaker 1: was growing up, his family had a strong tradition of
Speaker 1: caring for the welfare of people you didn't know. Beginning
Speaker 1: with his grandmother.
Speaker 2: She went overboard. No matter who came to the back door,
Speaker 2: people would come, She'd always have it open and serve
Speaker 2: them sup.
Speaker 5: Their strongest beliefe.
Speaker 2: Were to help other people. My father worked as a
Speaker 2: janitor in a housing project at Columbia Point. He's saw
Speaker 2: it as a pleasure to serve the poor. He's sorry
Speaker 2: as a Christian honor to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Like many Catholics of the fifties and sixties, the church
Speaker 1: was the centripetal force in their lives.
Speaker 2: One of the things about living right next to the
Speaker 2: church that we open up our kitchen to anybody from
Speaker 2: the church who want to come over, and we had
Speaker 2: this big urn of coffee, and we'd have coffee and
Speaker 2: donuts for anybody that wanted to command. And they used
Speaker 2: to be a crowd of twenty twenty five people who
Speaker 2: would come over every Sunday after the church, and that
Speaker 2: would be the more progressive wing of the parishioners.
Speaker 1: Paul grew up in the Franklin Hill housing projects near
Speaker 1: Bluehill Avenue.
Speaker 2: I was very much going to join the Marines and
Speaker 2: fight for freedom.
Speaker 5: I was religiously.
Speaker 2: I would always put the American flag out.
Speaker 1: By the time he was in his early twenties, the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War had hit Dorchester hard. A mile north of
Speaker 1: the gas tank on Morrisey Boulevard, a memorial stands for
Speaker 1: the eighty Dorchester servicemen that were killed in Vietnam in
Speaker 1: our neighborhood. By nineteen seventy one, the once innocuous act
Speaker 1: of checking your mailbox had become a game of Russian
Speaker 1: Roulette for mothers and sons from Ashmont to Savin Hill
Speaker 1: for going on seven years, and more draft notices were
Speaker 1: landing in Dorchester mailboxes than in the wealthy suburbs surrounding Boston,
Speaker 1: whisking young men to what felt like certain death in
Speaker 1: an unfamiliar hemisphere. And sure enough, every few months for
Speaker 1: the last five years, another body bag had landed at
Speaker 1: Logan on its way to another devastated Dorchester family, and
Speaker 1: those families, like families all across America, were watching a
Speaker 1: war broadcast on their TV screens for the first time
Speaker 1: in history.
Speaker 5: Casualty figures to a new high.
Speaker 1: Every night Americans received horrifying images of the government's vain
Speaker 1: attempt to pound a tiny agrarian nation into submission. And
Speaker 1: as these nights drew on into weeks and months and years,
Speaker 1: and as veterans came home and broken states of sorrow,
Speaker 1: Americans like Paul began to wonder why the hell are
Speaker 1: we doing this? And the funny thing is, if Paul
Speaker 1: hadn't grown up Catholic, he might never have ended up
Speaker 1: resisting the war and wanted by the FBI, which is
Speaker 1: particularly strange because Catholics are known for their love of authority,
Speaker 1: so much so that j Edgar Hoover, then the director
Speaker 1: of the FBI, would regularly recruit new agents from Catholic
Speaker 1: universities like Notre Dame in Boston College. Yet when Paul
Speaker 1: found himself progressing from finding the war troubling to feeling
Speaker 1: genuine dissent to finally committing active forms of resistance, there
Speaker 1: were other young Catholics ready to welcome him in the movement.
Speaker 1: Paul would eventually become known as Little Big Man, owing
Speaker 1: to the combination of his height and his utter disregard
Speaker 1: for his own safety. And in nineteen seventy one, as
Speaker 1: Rainbow Swash was being painted onto the gas tank, Paul
Speaker 1: was on the run from the FBI, and he was
Speaker 1: hiding out and he already very full Dorchester apartment of
Speaker 1: a young woman named mary Anne.
Speaker 4: Paul comes to Florida Street with me and Sarah and
Speaker 4: the kids.
Speaker 1: If it's five am in Dorchester, where she still lives
Speaker 1: with Prince by sister Careita hanging in her pantry. Mary
Speaker 1: Anne is sitting in her living room reading books about
Speaker 1: spirituality and leadership. In January of nineteen seventy one, however,
Speaker 1: she had just left her first husband and was living
Speaker 1: on welfare with her best friend Sarah and her two children,
Speaker 1: Chrissy and Jojo. Chrissy was four.
Speaker 6: Paul, I remember, like I thought Paul was mine, Like
Speaker 6: I thought he was like my friend, so funny, so
Speaker 6: fun the most outrageous laugh. I can't even describe to
Speaker 6: you how bizarre his laugh was.
Speaker 1: Paul's laughs. Okay, that brings up an important point and
Speaker 1: we have to stop ever everything right here and get
Speaker 1: something out of the way. I listen to serious podcasts
Speaker 1: all the time. I listened to NPR. I know how
Speaker 1: this is supposed to go. I put my mouth really
Speaker 1: close to an expensive microphone and speak softly, with hushed
Speaker 1: patrician enthusiasm about lofty things. But it's really hard to
Speaker 1: do that if you're talking about Irish Catholics, especially if
Speaker 1: culturally you are one as well. I'm not per se Catholic,
Speaker 1: but every single one of my ancestors was, going back
Speaker 1: to the fifth century. I won't insert myself much in
Speaker 1: this story, but very quickly, half of my family is
Speaker 1: from Scranton, the other half is from Dorchester. So you
Speaker 1: know the whole Joe Biden thing they used to make
Speaker 1: fun of him for about being too close and hugging
Speaker 1: people and stuff like that. That makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1: When I went to my grandfather's wake in Scranton, I
Speaker 1: could barely hear myself think over the backslapping. And I
Speaker 1: will do my best to deliver for you a serious
Speaker 1: podcast where yes, everything is thoughtful and considered and pairs
Speaker 1: well with a gluten free brand muffin and the Sunday
Speaker 1: New York Times. But I grew up knowing all these people,
Speaker 1: and it's important for you to understand that. Throughout every
Speaker 1: ordeal I'm about to share with you, they all roared
Speaker 1: with laughter and slapped each other's backs and grabbed each
Speaker 1: other's cheeks, and they were thrilled to see each other
Speaker 1: and yelled their greetings too loud. For instance, here's Marianne
Speaker 1: again on speakerphone, talking about her friendship with her roommate, Sarah.
Speaker 3: You have no idea how I wish, Oh my god,
Speaker 3: because we were both really funny. I mean we would
Speaker 3: scream laughing, scream laughing. I remember one time we're walking
Speaker 3: down to the Newman Center and we're laughing so damn hard.
Speaker 3: We're like like literally bending over, and Mike Hunt yelled.
Speaker 7: On the street.
Speaker 8: Do you two know wars going on?
Speaker 1: Legend has it? Sigmund Freud once said of the Irish
Speaker 1: that they are the the only people in the world
Speaker 1: completely impenetrable to psychoanalysis. So with that caveat out of
Speaker 1: the way, that this is going to be a fucking
Speaker 1: mess because Catholics are involved, let's continue with Chrissy describing Paul.
Speaker 6: And I remember like everybody whenever he would let would
Speaker 6: stop whatever they were doing, like in a restaurant or
Speaker 6: at the Paula Center, or just like walking down the street.
Speaker 6: He just was special. He was really special and small
Speaker 6: and elfin and always had rosy cheeks.
Speaker 1: So why did sweet little Paul, he of the world's
Speaker 1: most wholesome upbringing, have to go under ground in the
Speaker 1: first place? And by that I mean hide from the
Speaker 1: FBI by moving into a one bedroom apartment that already
Speaker 1: had four people in it.
Speaker 7: Paul Koombing had signed up as a conscientious objector.
Speaker 1: This is Anne Walsh, who at the time was a
Speaker 1: nun living on Claiborne Street in Dorchester. In those days,
Speaker 1: she was known as pretty h core and was often
Speaker 1: seen wearing combat boots and rocking up Pat bennetts ar haircut.
Speaker 1: She had just rebelled against her mother's superior and was
Speaker 1: in the midst of starting a renegade order of nuns
Speaker 1: in Dorchester. When Anne met Paul, he'd already gone before
Speaker 1: the Selective Service Board and been given conscientious objector status.
Speaker 1: This was a rare designation, reserved for someone who could
Speaker 1: not fight in a war on religious grounds.
Speaker 2: They grilled me on whether I would defend my mother
Speaker 2: she was being attacked on the street. I said, I
Speaker 2: would do everything in my power to stop that from happening,
Speaker 2: but I would not kill the person trying to do it.
Speaker 1: If you're granted conscientious objector status, you still have to
Speaker 1: perform some sort of alternative service during the time you
Speaker 1: would have been in the army.
Speaker 7: And he was assigned for alternative service to be an
Speaker 7: orderly at the Newton Wellesley Hospital.
Speaker 1: But Newton and Wellesley are fancy suburbs full of rich people,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to get to on the tee.
Speaker 7: And this is Paul Combing grew up in Dorchester between
Speaker 7: the Franklin Hill Project and Saint Leo's Parish, and so
Speaker 7: he said, you know, I'll go to City Hospital if
Speaker 7: you want, where poor people would be served. But I'm
Speaker 7: sure I'm not going to go to Wellesley. So they said, no,
Speaker 7: you're going to go to Wellesley. You don't get any choice.
Speaker 1: So Paul never showed up in Newton, which people in
Speaker 1: Dorchester call Snewton, and in doing so forfeited his sought
Speaker 1: after CEO status. And then he took it one step further.
Speaker 2: Filar at the time said that you had to carry
Speaker 2: your classification card and your registration card on your person
Speaker 2: at all times if you were over the age of eighteen.
Speaker 1: Not satisfied with merely flouting his orderly assignment, Paul wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure he was in direct violation of federal law.
Speaker 2: I took my cards and put him in an envelope
Speaker 2: and mailed them back to the Draft for telling them
Speaker 2: to do was against my religion to continue to hold
Speaker 2: these cards to participate in the draft. So I sent
Speaker 2: them back with the statements similar to that, and they
Speaker 2: kept them.
Speaker 1: He was basically jumping up and down and waving his arms,
Speaker 1: yelling at the government to come get him, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: the long arm of the law eventually did.
Speaker 2: A few years later, they charged me with not having
Speaker 2: them on person. Yeah, I got a summons from the
Speaker 2: court that I was being charged with three counts of
Speaker 2: violation of Select Service Act.
Speaker 1: Paul was facing fifteen years for not carrying his draft
Speaker 1: papers on his person.
Speaker 2: They knew I didn't have mommy, because they had them
Speaker 2: in their hands.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, he found this pretty depressing.
Speaker 2: I was just going to end up going to jail
Speaker 2: for a while, and I was really just bummed out
Speaker 2: about the whole process.
Speaker 1: He started looking at every option.
Speaker 2: My brothers all three years I mentioned were in the service.
Speaker 2: We're all trying to convince me to go to Canada.
Speaker 1: But Paul knew he only had one choice to stand
Speaker 1: up to the government when he knew it was wrong,
Speaker 1: because sometimes the only way to be a good citizen
Speaker 1: is to do something illegal. Then a Kakamami idea developed
Speaker 1: among the Catholic activists in the Dorchester Resistance.
Speaker 4: There was some tauk Mary Anne amongst the community Claiborne Street.
Speaker 2: Kind of action around on my refusing to carry my
Speaker 2: draft cards in my trial.
Speaker 4: That Paul wanted to take this action that he wasn't going.
Speaker 2: To show up for Corey Ann Walsh grabbed me by
Speaker 2: the call of one day and said, look, I want
Speaker 2: you to go down to the Poula Center. I want
Speaker 2: you to meet some people.
Speaker 1: The Paulist Center was a church in downtown Boston that
Speaker 1: was beginning to make a name for itself as a
Speaker 1: hotbed for a very new kind of youthful Catholic unrest.
Speaker 2: And talk to them about your situation.
Speaker 7: I don't know who came up.
Speaker 8: With the idea.
Speaker 1: Anne Walsh.
Speaker 8: What we came up with this idea.
Speaker 7: We were hoping that the Paulist Center community would put
Speaker 7: Paul in sanctuary.
Speaker 1: Sanctuary meaning Paul would turn himself over to the authority
Speaker 1: of the religious leaders inside a church instead of federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement. The Catholic Church had adopted this practice at
Speaker 1: the First Council of Orleans in five eleven AD for thieves, adulterers,
Speaker 1: and fugitive slaves to seek refuge in churches from capital
Speaker 1: punishment until an oath was sworn to do them no harm.
Speaker 1: But it had long since been abandoned.
Speaker 4: So the question was could they find a Catholic church
Speaker 4: in which to take sanctuary. So Anne Walsh approached an
Speaker 4: Tobin at the Paula Center.
Speaker 1: So now we have an Ann, an Ann, and a Marianne.
Speaker 1: This is, as I warned you, a story about Catholics.
Speaker 1: Here's an Tobin who everyone called Tobin.
Speaker 9: I would meet people and they would say, oh, what
Speaker 9: are you studying. I'd say, oh, theology, and they oh,
Speaker 9: geology or isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1: I say no not. Rocks Tobin was diminutive like Paul.
Speaker 1: She had a master's degree in theology and its great
Speaker 1: at keeping housecats. Alive well into their twenties. Tobin had
Speaker 1: recently and controversially been named female lay minister at the
Speaker 1: Poula Center. Once she got a call from Anne Walsh.
Speaker 9: And she called me one day and said, could you
Speaker 9: come and meet me. I have somebody I want to
Speaker 9: introduce you to and we want to discuss something with you.
Speaker 1: That night, Anne Walsh, Paul Cooming and a Tobin met
Speaker 1: at a Peter Pan restaurant near Boston University.
Speaker 9: She had this young man with her. She introduced me
Speaker 9: to him and she said, this is Paul Cooming. He's
Speaker 9: been drafted and he's not going to go. He's going
Speaker 9: to resist. And she said, we want to know if
Speaker 9: we could have a sanctuary at the Paula Center. And
Speaker 9: I said, well, yeah, sure, why not? And she said,
Speaker 9: well clearly, she said, you don't know much about sanctuaries.
Speaker 9: She said, there have been several sanctuaries in Boston and
Speaker 9: they have been very violent situations because of the police
Speaker 9: in the National Guard, and so she gave me an example.
Speaker 1: Anne Walsh then explained to Tobin that there had recently been
Speaker 1: a sanctuary at a Protestant church across Boston Common from
Speaker 1: the Paulist Center. Here's how Tobin and Paul remembered it.
Speaker 9: Federal marshalls broke into the chapel and beat people up,
Speaker 9: and people were hurt, and there was a lot of
Speaker 9: damage done to the Arching Street. Church.
Speaker 2: Police had gone in a riker and smashed heads with
Speaker 2: billy clubs and drag the soldiers that were a wall
Speaker 2: basically out into the street and the rest. And there's
Speaker 2: a lot of injuries.
Speaker 8: Is it all? I see? Well, that's okay.
Speaker 9: We'll do it anyway, you know, we'll do it.
Speaker 8: We'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: The thinking was that maybe in a Catholic town like Boston,
Speaker 1: where the police force was filled with Irish Catholics just
Speaker 1: like them, they could avoid a visit from the goon squad.
Speaker 2: The sanctity of the Catholic church was just a much
Speaker 2: more really you know, chose of prejudice against other religions,
Speaker 2: I guess, but it was much more secure than any
Speaker 2: other church that would offered.
Speaker 1: Or at least the action would create a pr nightmare
Speaker 1: for the authorities.
Speaker 2: We felt that for sure the FBI would want to
Speaker 2: try to stop me from going into the church, rather
Speaker 2: than having to dragged me out of the church.
Speaker 1: But their other problem was that this would put the
Speaker 1: Police Center at odds with the Catholic Church at large, and.
Speaker 2: A Catholic Church had not done that during the Vietnam
Speaker 2: Antaiwan movement as far as I know at that time, because.
Speaker 10: It really a Catholic Church had never had a sanctuary
Speaker 10: for a conscientious subjector ever in the history of the
Speaker 10: Catholic Church ever anywhere in the world before. It was
Speaker 10: a first, like all through World War Two, no nothing, zero, zippo.
Speaker 1: It won't generally sound like it because a lot of
Speaker 1: what I'm going to tell you is hard to believe.
Speaker 1: But this show is in fact fact checked and we
Speaker 1: found nothing to disprove this claim. In fact, there hadn't
Speaker 1: been any instance of political sanctuary in a Catholic Church
Speaker 1: since the sixteenth century, and for that matter, the American
Speaker 1: Catholic bishops, led by Cardinal Spelman of New York, were
Speaker 1: staunch supporters of the war in Vietnam. But Tobin's church,
Speaker 1: the Polish Center, was a huge flagship chapel for the
Speaker 1: Order of the Polish Fathers. It was the perfect place
Speaker 1: for this crazy scheme because it had just fallen into
Speaker 1: the hands of two young priests who had transformed it
Speaker 1: into a headquarters of do gooding and hell raising. The
Speaker 1: police Center sits right below the Golden Dome of the
Speaker 1: State House at number five Park Street, smack in the
Speaker 1: middle of downtown Boston. Park Street is the shortest side
Speaker 1: of the confusingly five sided Boston Common, and it's where
Speaker 1: you'll find two sets of red double doors that mark
Speaker 1: the entrance to the Paulis Center Chapel. It was dedicated
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty seven, but because of anti Catholic prejudice
Speaker 1: in Boston at the time, Cardinal Cushing had to have
Speaker 1: a Protestant friend by the building and then turn it
Speaker 1: over to the Polists. The Polices are one of many
Speaker 1: orders in the Catholic Church, like the Jesuits, the Benedictines,
Speaker 1: the Josephites, and the Dominicans. They were the first order
Speaker 1: formed in the United States, and they have a uniquely
Speaker 1: American focus. The mission of the Polis is outreach to
Speaker 1: non Catholic.
Speaker 5: I remember being overjoyed that I was assigned to Boston.
Speaker 1: That's Jim Carroll, who at the time was a Polis
Speaker 1: priest working at BA You with Anne Walsh. He's also
Speaker 1: the author of several books, including Practicing Catholic Prince of
Speaker 1: Peace and an American Requiem God, My Father and the
Speaker 1: War that Came Between Us, which won the National Book Award.
Speaker 5: And I was assigned to Boston University, which also pleased me.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to go to the Paula Center. Why not, Well,
Speaker 5: it was a church, and it was also a famously establishment,
Speaker 5: and it was full of old guys, and it was
Speaker 5: going to be hearing confessions and saying masks. But it
Speaker 5: was a church.
Speaker 1: Two of jim seminary brothers, Patrick and Floyd, had been
Speaker 1: assigned to the Paula Center when they were all ordained.
Speaker 1: Patrick was a wild man. Electric shocks of curly hair
Speaker 1: flew from his head as he merrily kreemed down the
Speaker 1: halls of the place from one urgent meeting to the next.
Speaker 8: And he never wore his caller.
Speaker 1: This was a Roman Catholic priest, the ones that wear
Speaker 1: the all black habit with a cardboard collar, putting a
Speaker 1: telltale white square at their Adams apple to signal to
Speaker 1: the world. I am a man of the cloth. But
Speaker 1: Patrick just wasn't into it because it.
Speaker 8: Was the new church. And they never did I think,
Speaker 8: he said. He wore it three times in his whole
Speaker 8: time he was a priest.
Speaker 1: Patrick was a kook and a revolutionary. He was on
Speaker 1: a mission to reinvent what it meant to be a
Speaker 1: priest in the world, starting with not taking himself so
Speaker 1: goddamn seriously all the time.
Speaker 11: He would come really through a doorway and he would
Speaker 11: take one foot and put it in front of the
Speaker 11: other and cause himself to trip, like just to make
Speaker 11: people laugh, like he was a natural clown or something
Speaker 11: like that, and he had the ability to do that,
Speaker 11: and everybody.
Speaker 8: Would laugh, and he would laugh too. He just thought
Speaker 8: it was hysterical. Every time.
Speaker 11: He thought it was as funny as the time before,
Speaker 11: and it really was.
Speaker 1: Patrick had only been ordained two years prior, and he
Speaker 1: and Floyd had spent those two years trying to drag
Speaker 1: the Poulas Center kicking and screaming into the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and through a bizarre series of events which we'll soon
Speaker 1: learn about, Patrick had been placed in charge of this
Speaker 1: entire place at only thirty years old. He was the
Speaker 1: one that appointed Ann Tobin to be female lay minister,
Speaker 1: something in the Catholic Church at large found absolutely scandalous.
Speaker 1: But hell or high water. Patrick and Floyd were going
Speaker 1: to make changes.
Speaker 4: They were going to do it by renewing the church
Speaker 4: from head to foot, including Floyd getting a screwdriver and
Speaker 4: going into the chapel and literally starting to unscrew all
Speaker 4: the mealers because that was ridiculous.
Speaker 8: That was part of the old church.
Speaker 1: And now Patrick, Floyd and Tobin were running the place
Speaker 1: in an avant garde, non hierarchical Berkeley food co op structure.
Speaker 1: So of all the Catholic churches in all of Boston,
Speaker 1: this was the one that could wedge itself between the
Speaker 1: anti war movement and the Department of Justice. And so
Speaker 1: Tobin started putting the wheels in motion.
Speaker 4: And Tobin calls me and Sarah and says, you're not
Speaker 4: going to believe.
Speaker 1: This is Mari Anne, what just happened.
Speaker 4: So we were beside ourselves with excitement about the possibility
Speaker 4: of doing this because it would be so powerful, and
Speaker 4: Tobin had to bring it to the team.
Speaker 9: The only problem was when I went back to the
Speaker 9: Paula Center.
Speaker 1: That night Tobin after her meeting with Anne Walsh and
Speaker 1: Paul Cooming, I.
Speaker 9: Ran into Patrick and I got off the elevator upstairs
Speaker 9: and I said Oh, Patrick, this is the most exciting thing.
Speaker 9: I said, We're going to have a sanctuary that. Don't
Speaker 9: say anything else about it. I don't want to know.
Speaker 9: He said, don't tell me anything else about it. I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 1: When this conversation happened, Patrick was going through some serious
Speaker 1: shit with the Paula's Brass, so basically the last thing
Speaker 1: he could think about was unilaterally pitting the might of
Speaker 1: the church against the might of the federal government. So
Speaker 1: Patrick wanted to help paul at the Paula Center on
Speaker 1: Park Street at the behest of Anne Anne and Mary Anne.
Speaker 1: But he was frankly pretty slammed.
Speaker 9: That was really kind of shocking to me. So I
Speaker 9: called Anne and I said, well, there's a little bit
Speaker 9: of a problem. I said, Patrick is probably the most
Speaker 9: liberal person on the team, and so I'm not sure
Speaker 9: about the reaction of the others.
Speaker 1: What were the stakes, though, would it be could they.
Speaker 10: Have been maybe they shut down that, Yeah, Mary Anne,
Speaker 10: they could have maybe shut down the follow Center or whatever.
Speaker 5: Did Rome have that authority to do that?
Speaker 10: Well, Boston archdioceis could have Yeah, they could have said
Speaker 10: you're no longer welcome in the Boston Archdioces.
Speaker 1: Patrick had only taken over the Paula Center about eight
Speaker 1: months prior and was in the middle of trying to
Speaker 1: rescue the church at large from itself. He was an innovator,
Speaker 1: holding crazy multimedia liturgies that bore no resemblance to the
Speaker 1: Catholic Mass one thinks of today. But he had thus
Speaker 1: far avoided too much direct anti war activity, focusing instead
Speaker 1: on issues of hunger and justice. Staging the first political
Speaker 1: sanctuary in a Catholic church in four hundred years and
Speaker 1: thrusting the Polist Center directly into conflict with the government
Speaker 1: would threaten the existence of everything he had built in
Speaker 1: that short amount of time. But Tobin, Paul and Marianne
Speaker 1: and her roommate Sarah pressed their case to Patrick and Floyd.
Speaker 2: The group came around to it. I think it probably
Speaker 2: took quite a few conversations.
Speaker 1: Somehow they managed to convince Patrick and Floyd that it
Speaker 1: was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, that if
Speaker 1: you play two behemoth institutions like these against one another,
Speaker 1: it can create enough confusion to get away with anything.
Speaker 8: And they said yes, so, oh God, that was bad.
Speaker 7: Although I loved him to death, I feared the ramifications
Speaker 7: of it, like the federal agents, you know, bashing people.
Speaker 4: So the decision was made amongst all of us that
Speaker 4: we were going to do it.
Speaker 1: And so they began making preparations.
Speaker 4: And there were hundreds of people involved in this, from
Speaker 4: the whole community. The Newman House would be you all
Speaker 4: of us at the Paula Center, the whole Catholic left
Speaker 4: community up and down the East coast.
Speaker 8: There were hundreds of people involved.
Speaker 2: We were planning us for about a month. I believe
Speaker 2: the peace community within the Poula Senate was so advanced.
Speaker 4: The groundwork that had happened prior to this was getting
Speaker 4: the church ready for sanctuary because we knew, you know,
Speaker 4: there would be many people who would stay inside the
Speaker 4: church with Paul, including me, the two kids, Sarah, and
Speaker 4: one hundred other people.
Speaker 2: We were sure that the word had gotten out that
Speaker 2: this sanctuary was going to happen.
Speaker 1: By this point, j Edgar Hoover's FBI was being incredibly
Speaker 1: aggressive with the anti war movement following Paul and his friends,
Speaker 1: harassing everyone's parents and even conspicuously searching through their parents'
Speaker 1: neighbors trash pins.
Speaker 4: Because the FBI was so vigilant. There was concern that
Speaker 4: Paul would be arrested.
Speaker 2: Because we knew that were parishionists who had brothers or
Speaker 2: relatives in the FBI.
Speaker 8: And that they would find out about this ahead of time.
Speaker 2: We fell for sure that they knew.
Speaker 4: So the question was where could Paul go quote unquote underground?
Speaker 2: I and mary Anne and Sarah and others Anthobin and
Speaker 2: Patrick decided the idea.
Speaker 8: Was could he come and stay at Florida Street with.
Speaker 2: Us, pretty low income building that was not well kept up.
Speaker 8: Why we were thought to be underground? I have no idea,
Speaker 8: because maybe because of the kids.
Speaker 2: Okay, I had a crush on Sarah Toci, So I
Speaker 2: think I was the one that brought up the idea
Speaker 2: that a good place for me to hide out was
Speaker 2: their apartment. So Paul moves in with us, and the
Speaker 2: fact that there was no place other than a floor
Speaker 2: space for me to be didn't make any difference.
Speaker 8: You know, three rooms.
Speaker 2: Christy and Jojo.
Speaker 8: Had one bedroom, kids had the bedroom.
Speaker 2: There was a kitchen, and there was a living room
Speaker 2: and that's all there was to this apartment.
Speaker 8: Paul's got a bid roll. Sarah and I are on
Speaker 8: the day bed pullout.
Speaker 2: Coach on the flos and did that for two weeks.
Speaker 6: One thing I remember about Paul was sitting.
Speaker 1: On him Chrissy again, Mary Anne's daughter, who was four.
Speaker 6: He just loved him, sitting on his lap, holding his
Speaker 6: hand while he was doing his crazy laugh, feeling his
Speaker 6: body's shape.
Speaker 1: This was a group of people who knew first and
Speaker 1: foremost how to have a good time, a distant second
Speaker 1: how to be criminals. Mary Anne would come to refer
Speaker 1: to them all as the ganger couldn't shoot straight after
Speaker 1: a screwball Jerry Orbach gangster comedy running in cinemas at
Speaker 1: the time. They were about to break the law, they
Speaker 1: were about to take on the Department of Justice, they
Speaker 1: were about to throw a Catholic church into the anti
Speaker 1: war movement, and god damn it, they were going to
Speaker 1: have fun doing it soon enough, and too soon as
Speaker 1: far as they were concerned, Because time, as we all know,
Speaker 1: is a motherfucker. The day of the sanctuary arrived.
Speaker 4: Now we're all living together at Florida Street, and we're
Speaker 4: all involved in getting the sanctuary organized and then getting
Speaker 4: him in town without being seen. And I will never
Speaker 4: ever ever forget the morning we're going to go to
Speaker 4: take sanctuary. He's supposed to show up at court at
Speaker 4: nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: I had a quick date. I was supposed to show
Speaker 2: up for a trial to answer questions and ask questions
Speaker 2: because I was defending myself.
Speaker 1: But instead the plan was Mary Anne, Sarah and the
Speaker 1: kids would spirit Paul into the Paula Center while the
Speaker 1: trial was underway.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of pressure from my family not
Speaker 2: to do it this.
Speaker 1: Way, but despite their preference for Paul to escape to Canada,
Speaker 1: Paul's parents agreed to appear in his stead at the trial.
Speaker 1: Marianne and Sarah knew meanwhile that the FBI was on
Speaker 1: the lookout for Paul, and so they had to somehow
Speaker 1: go incognito.
Speaker 4: So the morning of the sanctuary we all get up
Speaker 4: at the crack of dawn.
Speaker 8: We had a long brown coat with a hood.
Speaker 6: I remember the cape. They had to dress him up
Speaker 6: in a costume, and I think it was like a
Speaker 6: cape with a hood. Again seventies.
Speaker 4: The styles of the winter coats at that time, they
Speaker 4: almost looked like monk's habits.
Speaker 2: I either looked like a woman or I look.
Speaker 5: Like a monk.
Speaker 6: I remember. I think it was my mom putting a
Speaker 6: little bit of makeup on him.
Speaker 2: I think I even put on a little bit of makeup,
Speaker 2: lipstick or something to emphasize the fact that I.
Speaker 5: Was a woman.
Speaker 6: Joe and I were part of the cover because we
Speaker 6: held his hands.
Speaker 4: And we have the kids. We've got Jojo in the carriage.
Speaker 4: We're carrying backpacks.
Speaker 8: Because we know we're going to stay.
Speaker 4: And Kristen and Sarah, Paul and I and Jojo all
Speaker 4: go to Ashmont station.
Speaker 8: It's snowing.
Speaker 6: I mostly remember the subway ride being anxious.
Speaker 4: When we get off at Park Street, we look up
Speaker 4: Park Street and we see that there's activity outside Park
Speaker 4: Street and it looks like the FBI.
Speaker 8: It looks like Park Street is being covered.
Speaker 6: When the sanctuary started, Paul was not in the Paula Center.
Speaker 6: The FBI got there before he did.
Speaker 8: And so we get ourselves into Brighams.
Speaker 1: Brighams, if you're not from Boston, was a ubiquitous chain
Speaker 1: of diners in the sixties and seventies, and their coffee
Speaker 1: tasted like payment.
Speaker 4: And we get ourselves a cup of coffee and we're stunned.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're flummoxed.
Speaker 8: What are we going to do?
Speaker 4: Were we going to make a break for it and
Speaker 4: just saunter up there Paul in his girl coat and
Speaker 4: get him in the door.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Paul's father was in the courthouse facing the judge
Speaker 1: in his son's place.
Speaker 2: There was probably one hundred people in the courtroom expecting
Speaker 2: me to be on trial then there to support me.
Speaker 2: But I wasn't there. But my father and mother were there.
Speaker 2: The judge, Charles e.
Speaker 5: Isisansky Jr.
Speaker 2: I remember his nigh very well. He was the chief
Speaker 2: goudge of the Federal District. He asked if there was
Speaker 2: anybody there that knew where Paul was.
Speaker 4: His father was going to be at the courtroom and
Speaker 4: read the statement to the judge.
Speaker 2: My fatherly gets up and says, your honor, Paul is
Speaker 2: not coming to trial today. Paul is being offered sanctuary
Speaker 2: in the church nearby and will stay there and is
Speaker 2: refusing to come to trial to participate in this process.
Speaker 2: I think he was shaking in his boots all the
Speaker 2: time he was talking. And the judge of journal meeting
Speaker 2: and he ordered the federal marshals to take every precaution
Speaker 2: not to disrupt the church. He ordered that from the bench.
Speaker 1: At that moment, the assembled supporters stood in Unison, began
Speaker 1: singing and marched towards the Paula Center.
Speaker 2: They walked from the courthouse, which was probably a good
Speaker 2: seven er or ten blocks away, somewhere in that vicinity,
Speaker 2: marching and singing all the way with my father and
Speaker 2: mother the parade, singing on anti wa songs. They did
Speaker 2: that for the several blocks, right through the streets of Austin.
Speaker 1: From where they stood at the window of Brigham's, Mary Anne, Paul,
Speaker 1: Sarah and the kids could see down Tremont Street that
Speaker 1: the singing marchers were headed straight for the Paula Center
Speaker 1: and they were going to go inside and start the
Speaker 1: sanctuary without Paul in the building.
Speaker 4: Now, our job had been to get Paul there before
Speaker 4: anybody else got there, but what with the FBI up
Speaker 4: and down the road, that wasn't working out.
Speaker 1: The marchers were about to round the corner onto Park
Speaker 1: Street and head straight for the FBI, with Paul trapped
Speaker 1: in Brighams watching on this season of Divine Intervention, a
Speaker 1: generation of young Catholic radicals enters the resistance.
Speaker 4: They just cried, these incredible doors open, and a whole
Speaker 4: generation just poured through.
Speaker 8: It was definitely our time.
Speaker 11: This kind of time that you think, well, things are
Speaker 11: never going to be quite the same anymore, and they weren't.
Speaker 12: Many of the things that we were about to do
Speaker 12: we're not considered legal or patriotic.
Speaker 1: And attempts to sabotage a war by any means necessary.
Speaker 8: It was a real comedy of eras that we pulled off.
Speaker 2: They've not committed just a crime that wasn't simply breaking
Speaker 2: an entry.
Speaker 1: They were committing acts of civil dish obedience. It took
Speaker 1: a lot of God.
Speaker 9: We had a very modest name. We called ourself the
Speaker 9: East Coast Conspiracy to.
Speaker 1: Save lives as they faced down j Edgar Hoover's FBI.
Speaker 1: Hoover was crazy about us.
Speaker 8: He wanted to have kind of dyed everybody.
Speaker 5: It was an agent behind them.
Speaker 2: Burn nailbox and when the verdict of the jury was announced,
Speaker 2: people stood up in the courtbrook and sang amazing grace,
Speaker 2: and the jury stood up.
Speaker 1: With and attempted to smash one institution after another.
Speaker 5: The Catholic Church was going through a revolution and the
Speaker 5: Paul Center was a main place of revolutionary firment.
Speaker 12: That's what makes liberation theologies so threatening, I think, is
Speaker 12: the people get to call on the leaders.
Speaker 11: It was more equal, and it was a new concept.
Speaker 1: While navigating the unbridled chaos of being young and in love.
Speaker 1: Those movements come out of love.
Speaker 2: They come out of people's love for their fellow men
Speaker 2: and women.
Speaker 4: Just throwing yourself on the mercy of the universe and
Speaker 4: just hope to Christ you're going to land on your feet.
Speaker 12: He wanted so much in his life that somehow the
Speaker 12: priesthood refused to alloe.
Speaker 8: I picked up the phone.
Speaker 4: And my thought was, this is the most important phone
Speaker 4: call I'll ever make in my life.
Speaker 8: I couldn't believe it. I mean, it was Divine Intervention.
Speaker 1: Divine Intervention is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Wonder Media Network. It was created and written by me,
Speaker 1: your host, Brendan Patrick Hughes. Our indefatigable producers Our Carmen
Speaker 1: Borca Correo, Abby Delk Palomo, Moreno, Jimenez, Grace Lynch, and myself.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Towering Figure of Strength Grace Lynch for
Speaker 1: Wonder Media Network. Our executive producers are Emily Rudder and
Speaker 1: Jenny Kaplan for iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producer is Christina
Speaker 1: Everett for Deuyt Street Book Club. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Rolin Jones. Vocal arrangements and special performance of We Shall
Speaker 1: Overcome by Morris Smiley, Kai Fukuda and friends. Our end
Speaker 1: music was composed and performed by Tanya Donnelly. This is
Speaker 1: Brendan Patrick Hughes. Thank you for listening to Divine Intervention.