Speaker 1: It was the night before their wedding.
Speaker 2: This is Tobin.
Speaker 1: And so we got there and mary Anne is in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, kneeling down with her head in the oven
Speaker 1: and her hair all rolled up in minute made orange
Speaker 1: juice cans that she had been saving. Her whole head
Speaker 1: was wrapped up in these orange juice cans and she
Speaker 1: was trying.
Speaker 3: To dry her here and Sarah and I go to
Speaker 3: the fabric store down in Chinatown.
Speaker 2: Mary Anne hughes my mother.
Speaker 3: We buy twenty five dollars worth of Irish linen and
Speaker 3: some lace that went like square neck, little empire waist
Speaker 3: came out and then there was a ruffle down the
Speaker 3: bottom and lace around the sleeves and some lining and
Speaker 3: it was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was so simple,
Speaker 3: It was so beautiful. It was twenty five dollars.
Speaker 2: Sarah Tosi was one of the bride'smaids.
Speaker 3: Sarah but tablecloths and made their gowns out of the table.
Speaker 4: But they looked right.
Speaker 2: When Sarah came home with the tablecloths, she called mary Anne.
Speaker 3: To say, look, I don't think the its maids are
Speaker 3: going to outshine the breath.
Speaker 2: After Patrick made his announcement at the Paula Center. There
Speaker 2: were a lot of fireworks.
Speaker 5: Patrick announced it he was going to get married Christine Truffant,
Speaker 5: one of the ogs of the Paula Center and my godmother.
Speaker 5: I think if probably there was a challenge in community.
Speaker 2: Emotional meetings were held outside the Paulist Center.
Speaker 5: We had a meeting. There was so much he generated
Speaker 5: by the discussion too, that it was clear that people
Speaker 5: were there that were not happy with this change, and
Speaker 5: that they weren't going to go along with it, and
Speaker 5: that there would be some kind of schism.
Speaker 2: The community Patrick had built began to split apart between
Speaker 2: people who wanted him to be a married priest and
Speaker 2: people who just couldn't hang with that level of radicalism.
Speaker 6: But the community saw itself.
Speaker 2: As the church Patrick sister, my aunt Joann, and.
Speaker 6: So they felt that they had the power to call
Speaker 6: on him to be the priest. That's what makes liberation
Speaker 6: theology so threatening, I think, is the people get to
Speaker 6: call on the leaders, do you know. I mean, that's
Speaker 6: the evolution of it where you say that the leader
Speaker 6: is organic, grows out of the community and is chosen
Speaker 6: by the community, not from you know, the hierarchy.
Speaker 2: But they knew this would mean leaving the Catholic Church.
Speaker 5: But everyone probably knew. I think certainly I knew if
Speaker 5: we presented that we wanted a married priest and that
Speaker 5: we were willing to kind of go with that, that
Speaker 5: no hierarchy was ever going to go with that. At
Speaker 5: that time was kind of time that you think, well,
Speaker 5: things are never going to be quite the same anymore,
Speaker 5: and they weren't.
Speaker 2: Soon. Half the group that decided to leave with Patrick
Speaker 2: named itself the People of Hope, and they moved across
Speaker 2: Boston Common to a colonial meeting house.
Speaker 7: So that then they agreed that.
Speaker 2: We would move Floyd McManus.
Speaker 7: They would move with Pat to Charles Street.
Speaker 2: Antobin had been so embroiled in the turmoil surrounding the
Speaker 2: Paula Center community she was basically done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't go with either group. I kind of
Speaker 1: had had it.
Speaker 2: So Patrick and the People of Hope walked out of
Speaker 2: the red double doors on Park Street, leaving everything they
Speaker 2: had built behind. But he still had a two thousand
Speaker 2: year old religious organization to contend with.
Speaker 6: He tried to get leaoisized because he wanted to get
Speaker 6: married in the church and he couldn't get married as
Speaker 6: a priest but the archbishop refused to lasize him. So
Speaker 6: therefore Patrick never got leaosized. He was still a priest,
Speaker 6: and so therefore that became an issue with getting married,
Speaker 6: because then if anyone married them, then they would be
Speaker 6: in heresy or something.
Speaker 2: The archbishop told him that anyone who performed the ceremony
Speaker 2: would be summarily excommunicated, so he had to get a
Speaker 2: little creative.
Speaker 3: The wedding was pot luck. Again.
Speaker 1: Let me remind you of the nobody, all the fabulous food.
Speaker 1: Everybody brought everything. A few things were laced with a
Speaker 1: little bit of magic oregano.
Speaker 2: Patrick and Marianne invited everyone from both communities, unsure of
Speaker 2: how many would show.
Speaker 8: I remember parts of the wedding.
Speaker 2: This is Chrissy or Kristen Hughes, my sister.
Speaker 8: I remember being completely overwhelmed with how many people were there.
Speaker 3: I remember walking into the church with people carrying wedding cakes,
Speaker 3: homemade wedding cakes up the steps in big jugs of
Speaker 3: wine and cases of beer and big hams. I mean
Speaker 3: they estimated maybe seven or eight hundred people there, because
Speaker 3: the whole community showed up, everybody.
Speaker 2: Directing everyone from both sides of the Great Schism came
Speaker 2: to celebrate Patrick and Mary Anne.
Speaker 3: Was the first time I met his parents was at
Speaker 3: the wedding, and you can imagine. I mean, they were
Speaker 3: already in their seventies. He was the golden haired boy.
Speaker 3: He was the youngest son of seven children of Irish
Speaker 3: parents who go in the priesthood, and he's getting married.
Speaker 3: They were such I don't know, they were so incredible
Speaker 3: to be able to embrace it the way they did.
Speaker 3: I remember walking down the aisle and they were to
Speaker 3: my right, and I remember catching their eye and just
Speaker 3: giving them the biggest smile.
Speaker 2: Marianne's own family boycott at the wedding. Her father, her brother,
Speaker 2: her wicked stepmother. None of them could bear witnessing her
Speaker 2: marry a priest. It was just too much for them.
Speaker 3: And during the kiss of peace, Patrick's father came up
Speaker 3: to me and said, meet your new grandpa. And that
Speaker 3: was the relationship that he and I had, like for
Speaker 3: the rest of our lives.
Speaker 2: Patrick made the ceremony his ultimate multimedia extravaganza, and it
Speaker 2: was just an act.
Speaker 3: It was our act of creation. It was our active celebration.
Speaker 3: Putting that together. The music was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Then he kicked things off, let's see.
Speaker 9: Hello and welcome to the wedding celebration. My name is Patrick.
Speaker 3: Hughes and.
Speaker 9: We're very very happy that you hear. And as usual,
Speaker 9: there's a little bit of confusion because it's kind of
Speaker 9: multimedia thing and Floyd isn't around, you know, to keep
Speaker 9: us pushing, but he's here tonight. But the big thing
Speaker 9: is that, you know, we want it to just kind
Speaker 9: of relax and enjoy ourselves and.
Speaker 10: You can.
Speaker 9: We're going to do a little slide show which well
Speaker 9: you'll see what it's like when you see it. All right,
Speaker 9: Well we're going to start now, so just relax and see.
Speaker 4: Would someone please say that to me?
Speaker 3: The entrance song was Here Comes the Sun, and Patrick
Speaker 3: and I put together this slide show. It was us
Speaker 3: from birth until we met, and it was two pictures
Speaker 3: of us growing up side by side. I think the
Speaker 3: last slide of that song was Patrick in a cassock
Speaker 3: at the seminary and me holding a brand new baby Kristen.
Speaker 3: Those were side by side and everybody cracked up laughing.
Speaker 2: This would clearly be no ordinary wedding.
Speaker 3: And then the next the next song was in My
Speaker 3: Life by the Beatles, and I cannot hear that song
Speaker 3: and not cry ever. And that song then was when
Speaker 3: we met. And then those photographs were all of him
Speaker 3: and me and Kristen and Joe and friends from the
Speaker 3: Paul Center community.
Speaker 2: When the slide show ended, it was Chrissie's cue as flower.
Speaker 8: Girl, and I remember being at the end of the
Speaker 8: aisle and my one job as a flower girl was
Speaker 8: to bring the flowers up, and I just dropped him
Speaker 8: and ran because I think I was supposed to go
Speaker 8: out front. I think Paul was at the end. I
Speaker 8: think I just ran to him, like I just was like,
Speaker 8: this is insane, Like if this is so many people,
Speaker 8: it was overwhelming to me to see how many people
Speaker 8: had come to be there for them. I don't think
Speaker 8: I understood until that moment what a big deal it
Speaker 8: was that they were getting married.
Speaker 1: So Chrissy was very scared and nervous and she wouldn't
Speaker 1: come down the aisle. But Joe ran right down the
Speaker 1: aisle as fast as he could, and Patrick was at
Speaker 1: the end and he just caught him up.
Speaker 3: And you can hear Joe. You can hear him on
Speaker 3: the tape of the wedding.
Speaker 5: Same Mommy, there's.
Speaker 3: A great picture of Patrick kneeling down waiting for Joe
Speaker 3: to come down.
Speaker 2: It was so great.
Speaker 3: And then Patrick came back up the aisle to get me,
Speaker 3: and then he and I walked down together.
Speaker 2: Their friend Michael Hunt gave the homily.
Speaker 11: Even on this night of unimaginable war, when our planes
Speaker 11: destroy Asian brothers and sisters, Mary Anne and Patrick have
Speaker 11: the courage, maybe the foolish courage, to tell us that
Speaker 11: their love for each other extends to all of us
Speaker 11: and beyond.
Speaker 3: And in the middle of mike Hans homily, someone had
Speaker 3: wandered in from the street, I think, one of the
Speaker 3: homeless men that used to hang out outside. And as
Speaker 3: Mike is speaking, he yells from the audience, how would
Speaker 3: you like to be a Communist?
Speaker 11: Could I just finish?
Speaker 12: Old?
Speaker 3: Place goes silent, and Patrick and I lean over and
Speaker 3: say perfect.
Speaker 7: I even I think did a reading at the at
Speaker 7: the wedding Floyd that was as very happy. Mary Anne
Speaker 7: seemed very happy, just a very happy occasion. I was happy.
Speaker 7: I was happy for them.
Speaker 13: But I think that was the first time I met
Speaker 13: with Bob Kane, and it was all very kind of
Speaker 13: lovey dovey at that time.
Speaker 12: You know, and Patrick looked rapturously happy, and Walsh it
Speaker 12: was just very unifying.
Speaker 3: Jim wrote the most beautiful poem, as only Jim could, a.
Speaker 14: Wedding poem for Marianne and Patrick. Jim Carroll, you were
Speaker 14: wondering why the spring is not here by now? What
Speaker 14: is the warm weather waiting for? The warm weather waits
Speaker 14: for a wedding, but not yours. If the gods must
Speaker 14: ache their ways through this long age, when the hovering
Speaker 14: birds of death fly north with numbers, why should you
Speaker 14: go easy? You are children of the war. This most
Speaker 14: beautiful poem, face of dawn.
Speaker 3: About what was happening about the other bride and girl Vietnam.
Speaker 3: But I remember the repeating stanza in the poem and
Speaker 3: the end of it, because when Patrick and I went
Speaker 3: on our honeymoon, wo went skiing and we used to
Speaker 3: yell to each other up and down the ski slope.
Speaker 3: You rainbow, you wiper.
Speaker 14: Cynical ideas, you laughers, you lovers, you small words of God,
Speaker 14: you bodies of Christ.
Speaker 15: Amen.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sarah sang bridge over troubled water when.
Speaker 8: You but Sarah, I remember her at the wedding. I
Speaker 8: remember her singing and just feeling kind of proud of her,
Speaker 8: like because she was so talented. You know when you
Speaker 8: see somebody that you love from a distance doing something amazing.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I sang my guts out to Federal ears. Was
Speaker 15: it a wedding? Was it tiny?
Speaker 2: Chris and Joe?
Speaker 3: It just was?
Speaker 8: It just felt at once overwhelming and I felt proud
Speaker 8: like I was. I maybe even thought like, waiter, are
Speaker 8: we famous? Because I think we live in a basement apartment?
Speaker 8: Is this what fame looks like?
Speaker 2: The hall was covered in their signature felt banners, these.
Speaker 3: Beautiful handmade banners that would go on the front of
Speaker 3: the altar. This beautiful banner which I actually still have,
Speaker 3: and it says, if I truly love one person, I
Speaker 3: love the world. I love life. And that was really
Speaker 3: truly so emblematic of how we felt that by learning
Speaker 3: to love one person, deeply love one person, you learned
Speaker 3: to love the world and you learned to love life.
Speaker 3: We had had, all of us, this incredibly intensive experience
Speaker 3: of community and new church and radical politics and living
Speaker 3: the social gospel. The whole community came together around this wedding,
Speaker 3: around the celebration of unbelievable love. We were creatures of
Speaker 3: the community. We came out of the community. We were
Speaker 3: part of it, but we were because of it in
Speaker 3: so many ways.
Speaker 2: But then they got to the part of the ceremony
Speaker 2: where they.
Speaker 3: Would be wet, and we had written our own vows
Speaker 3: that were really, really beautiful. We wrote them together.
Speaker 2: Patrick by this point had married plenty of couples, and
Speaker 2: in his last act as a Roman Catholic priest, he
Speaker 2: married himself to my mother. And he did so with
Speaker 2: a little help from Walt Woodman.
Speaker 9: The road is before us. Let the paper remain on
Speaker 9: the desk, unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopened.
Speaker 9: That the tools remain in the workshop, That the money
Speaker 9: remain unearned. That the school stand mind not the cry
Speaker 9: of the teacher, that the preacher preach in the pulpit,
Speaker 9: that the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge.
Speaker 2: Expound the law.
Speaker 9: I give you my hand, I give you my love,
Speaker 9: more precious than money. I give you myself before preaching
Speaker 9: our law. Will you give me yourself? Will you come
Speaker 9: travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as
Speaker 9: long as we live?
Speaker 10: Marianne, will you be my wife? Yes, Marianne, my friend,
Speaker 10: be my wife, and marry.
Speaker 2: Me because I love you.
Speaker 10: And it's as simple as that and as profound as that.
Speaker 3: Patrick, will you be my husband?
Speaker 16: Yes, I will promise to love you and believe in
Speaker 16: you with simplicity and tenderness, to put my trust in
Speaker 16: you forever, and to comfort you and body and soul.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: And then they kissed, and then there was a confused.
Speaker 3: Pause, and then I remember Patrick turning around saying, we're married.
Speaker 9: We're married, and.
Speaker 3: The place went, you know, the place went wild.
Speaker 2: But Patrick wasn't quite done being a wild haired priest.
Speaker 3: And then Patrick said the mess after we were married,
Speaker 3: but immediately after we were married. My last memory of
Speaker 3: the wedding is, We've got suitcases, umbrella's slide projectors. I'm
Speaker 3: in a wedding down marching down Charles marching down Charles Street.
Speaker 3: It was just the greatest it had to have than
Speaker 3: the greatest scene to see. It was hysterical.
Speaker 2: Two Boston Irish Catholics on Charles Street in the rain,
Speaker 2: a defrocked priest and a divorce a having detonated their
Speaker 2: lives into something entirely new upon the earth. While it
Speaker 2: can often be said that Irish Catholics are shame based
Speaker 2: life forms. God help anyone that gets in the way
Speaker 2: of our good time. We are, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day still mud savages, stomping through a hard scrabble landscape,
Speaker 2: surviving on seaweed and poetry. Brian Denahey is said to
Speaker 2: have said of growing up Irish Catholic that it taught
Speaker 2: him how to raise Hell. And that's the funny thing
Speaker 2: about this bizarre haplow group of hapless human specimens. We
Speaker 2: revere what we have decided is sacred, and we detonate
Speaker 2: everything else. I'm Brendan Patrick Hughes. This is Divine intervention,
Speaker 2: Chapter ten. The winds, the tides, and gravity.
Speaker 17: The wedding was sweet and lovely.
Speaker 2: This is Jim Carroll, who's always been like an uncle
Speaker 2: to me, and who has written several fascinating books on
Speaker 2: the fate of the Catholic Church. I mean, there were.
Speaker 17: Lots of flowers, lots of happiness, lots of joy, even
Speaker 17: though it was complicated, complicated for me. I was still
Speaker 17: a priest at the time, still feeling grief that Patrick
Speaker 17: had left the priesthood. He may have had harbored the
Speaker 17: fantasy that he could still somehow be a priest, but
Speaker 17: it was clear that Immusily wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be Patrick's days saying Mass as a renegade priest were numbered,
Speaker 2: whether he knew it or not.
Speaker 7: After a year's experience of being married, I knew that
Speaker 7: he was going to be in a better situation or
Speaker 7: going to be in a good situation.
Speaker 2: Floyd, who became a high school principal after leaving the church, So.
Speaker 7: I didn't feel quite so guilty after that.
Speaker 2: This church Patrick had devoted his life to changing would
Speaker 2: now move on without him. Without Patrick, the team experiment
Speaker 2: at the Paula Center was over, but the Paula Center
Speaker 2: would never be the same. The church would be another matter.
Speaker 3: Are you a.
Speaker 2: Practice of Catholic man?
Speaker 7: That's all in the definition, isn't it. So for my definition,
Speaker 7: I'll say yes, I'm not a practicing.
Speaker 2: Catholic Antobin in two thousand and nine who lived up
Speaker 2: the hill from my childhood home and drove a La car.
Speaker 1: I don't think things have progressed very far in terms
Speaker 1: of the Vatican. I mean, I think they actually have
Speaker 1: regressed since John the twenty third. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's just the water. It was like the water opened
Speaker 1: for a period of opportunity, and now has closed over.
Speaker 6: No, No, I am not a practicing Catholic.
Speaker 2: Joanne Hughes my aunt.
Speaker 6: It just represented something that I couldn't hold any longer.
Speaker 6: I couldn't stand with the church anymore because I found
Speaker 6: the church to be so really destructive in the formation
Speaker 6: of women, girls and who they are and how they
Speaker 6: understand themselves, and the fact that it continues that even
Speaker 6: now politically, socially, personally, the justice is not there. So
Speaker 6: I have to stand away from it. But I can
Speaker 6: take from the Gospel the idea of God as love,
Speaker 6: and I can believe in love.
Speaker 12: I feel like I have stayed and none An Walsh.
Speaker 12: I feel like I am a noun in so many
Speaker 12: important ways. And that's because I left because I couldn't
Speaker 12: be who I needed to be in that time.
Speaker 2: But and feels differently about the church itself.
Speaker 18: You know, I go by church just now and I
Speaker 18: say that would make a great laundromat.
Speaker 2: And in the time since these young radicals left the church,
Speaker 2: the institution has to say the absolute least, continued down
Speaker 2: a very dark path.
Speaker 18: The abuse of sexuality by the institution of the church
Speaker 18: is so shameful. I mean, it's just so shameful, and
Speaker 18: it was so pervasive, and I think it will be
Speaker 18: the end of the church. I think it's how the
Speaker 18: church will end, because it hasn't gone away and.
Speaker 2: Then and of course it's all changed.
Speaker 13: Like Anne says to me, now, if you ever said
Speaker 13: to some of you are priests and you in jail,
Speaker 13: that I think you're a pedophile or something.
Speaker 2: Now, the scandal the church brought upon itself with predatory
Speaker 2: priests destroying the lives of children and being protected by
Speaker 2: their archbishops can never be forgiven to me for our purposes.
Speaker 2: It symbolizes two things. One that power will come to
Speaker 2: destroy innocence for sport. And two, after that generation of
Speaker 2: radical young Catholics was squeezed out of the organization in
Speaker 2: favor of companymen who would go on to commit and
Speaker 2: be complicit in atrocities, it feels like that might have
Speaker 2: been the last chance for this church to become a
Speaker 2: change making force for good in the world, and the
Speaker 2: Church blew it by letting these people go. In my
Speaker 2: humble and uninformed of opinion, the Church needs to terminate
Speaker 2: priesthoods for two generations and just turn over the whole
Speaker 2: organization to the nuns.
Speaker 17: One of the reasons the church has been able to
Speaker 17: stand against feminism, to stand against the demands of liberals,
Speaker 17: has been because the demands haven't been made from inside.
Speaker 17: Jim Carroll, that's where the power structure has to be
Speaker 17: fought and changed. That's my view, and that's that's not
Speaker 17: a revolutionary view.
Speaker 2: I admit that that's the age old question we've been
Speaker 2: grappling with for ten episodes. Do you change things from
Speaker 2: the inside as a stalwart incrementalist like Patrick and Floyd
Speaker 2: at the Paulice Center, or do you change things from
Speaker 2: without as a renegade agitator like Anne and Cookie and Paul.
Speaker 2: The answer I think is we need both and both
Speaker 2: need to work together, as they did so well in
Speaker 2: Paul Cooming's Sanctuary. Inside incrementalists are always desperate for pressure
Speaker 2: from without to help them tip the scales, and if
Speaker 2: each side didn't look at each other through squinted eyes,
Speaker 2: we might actually get somewhere. Sociologist Carl Mannheim wrote that
Speaker 2: all change is generational change, and if anyone could have
Speaker 2: changed things, it would have been these whipper snappers, because
Speaker 2: civil disobedience is sometimes the only mechanism we as a
Speaker 2: people have, and Anyone who is unsettled or judgmental about
Speaker 2: civil disobedience doesn't realize what country they're living in.
Speaker 19: Although the government is always saying, oh, we don't pay
Speaker 19: attention to protesters, they pay attention.
Speaker 2: Howard Zinn, whose son Jeff is one of my dearest friends.
Speaker 19: They're they're effected. No matter how they claim that they're
Speaker 19: oblivious to opposition. That Nixon became very agitated and worried,
Speaker 19: troubled by this out of protest works. Yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 19: works in ways that we very often don't understand at
Speaker 19: the time because at the time we don't see anything
Speaker 19: happening in the government immediately. In fact, this is a
Speaker 19: very important characteristic of movements. You do something dramatic, you
Speaker 19: have a huge rally, you have three hundred thousand people
Speaker 19: go to Washington, DC, and then nothing happens. You don't
Speaker 19: see the results, but you don't realize that very often
Speaker 19: the results come later. The results are embedded in that
Speaker 19: historic moment, in the minds of people and the minds
Speaker 19: of decision makers, every protest has an effect.
Speaker 2: These Zany Catholic radicals are outside agitators and inside incrementalists
Speaker 2: who decided to historically and faithfully work together, did everything
Speaker 2: they could to sabotage the draft becoming accomplished cat burglars
Speaker 2: going to jail for what they believed, putting their parents
Speaker 2: through the hell of FBI screw me, pitting the church
Speaker 2: against the justice departments. And they made it clear to
Speaker 2: the US government that on their watch, to quote Jeff
Speaker 2: the Dude Lebowski, this aggression will not stand. Man, and I,
Speaker 2: for one, can't think of a clearer form of patriotism.
Speaker 13: Institutions to the church among them, they always block change.
Speaker 13: I always feel like it's like an image of a
Speaker 13: guy sitting in a room with a locked door in
Speaker 13: sixteen padlocks, you know, Bob Knaane, And then change comes
Speaker 13: along on bad is the door bad? As the door
Speaker 13: breaks all locks and goes in, and the guy says welcome.
Speaker 13: I know that change never is welcome in the beginning,
Speaker 13: and after everybody sees how great it is, then it's welcome.
Speaker 13: But it almost has to batter its way in.
Speaker 2: Our friends, Bob Kaine, Ann Walsh, Paul Cooming, Cookie Ridolphie, Sarahtosi,
Speaker 2: Howard Zinn, Jim Carroll, Kip Tiernan, Keith forsythe Bob Weed
Speaker 2: ex Williamson, Ted Glick, Leanne Mosha, and Patrick and Mary
Speaker 2: Anne Hughes were so heartsick for the country they loved,
Speaker 2: for the church they loved, and for their fellow man
Speaker 2: that they were compelled to put their bodies where their
Speaker 2: mouths were. But when it was all over and Sagon
Speaker 2: fell and the soldiers came home, they all had to
Speaker 2: figure out how life would now have meaning and where
Speaker 2: they would find it.
Speaker 20: I had no plans, because I didn't think I could
Speaker 20: make plans.
Speaker 2: After her acquittal, Cookie Ridolfie had a new lease on life.
Speaker 20: I wrote to the State of New Jersey and I
Speaker 20: told him I was a defendant in the case, and
Speaker 20: I said, you know, and I was trying to change
Speaker 20: the world by breaking the law. And I've learned so
Speaker 20: much from this case, and I still want to make
Speaker 20: a difference in the world justice blah blah blah, but
Speaker 20: I want to do it now the right way, with
Speaker 20: an education, And would you give me a scholarship? And
Speaker 20: they did. They paid my school.
Speaker 2: Cookie ended up going to Rutgers in Camden, which had
Speaker 2: been under construction next to the Camden Courthouse when they
Speaker 2: did the action, and she even used the construction site
Speaker 2: to case the Federal Building, and soon she graduated college.
Speaker 20: I only had one skill when I was acquitted, and
Speaker 20: that was a jury work. I became part of the
Speaker 20: National Jury Project. At some point I realized I'd been
Speaker 20: a defendant, I'd been an investigator in at private Investkuge,
Speaker 20: I'd been a jury worker. I had so many jobs,
Speaker 20: and I had ever had the power of a lawyer.
Speaker 20: And so I decided to go to law school.
Speaker 2: Back to Rutgers for law school.
Speaker 20: So then I became a public defender. Then I met
Speaker 20: my current wife.
Speaker 2: Cookie went on to co found the Innocence Network, which
Speaker 2: sought exonerations for wrongful convictions. Eventually she taught at Santa
Speaker 2: Clara University Law School, and this former South Philly near
Speaker 2: Dowell Street tough shaped justice for a generation. She also
Speaker 2: stayed close to Sarah Tosi.
Speaker 15: Quiet, rainy evening and courage revered. Hoping flows not easily.
Speaker 3: But it flows.
Speaker 15: When are you coming down? My heart is so full
Speaker 15: you could say I've jumped off a cliff, beating the air,
Speaker 15: almost defiant, stomping in my hiking boots. What it means,
Speaker 15: I don't know where it goes. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Finally, glad.
Speaker 20: Every year on the anniversary of the action, she would
Speaker 20: call me, So even if we didn't talk all year,
Speaker 20: she'd definitely called me that day and we'd talk anyway.
Speaker 20: I don't know what to say about her except that,
Speaker 20: you know, like she was really a gift to this
Speaker 20: earth and a great loss for me.
Speaker 2: After the acquittal, Sarah returned to Boston and eventually married
Speaker 2: before settling on Cape Cod.
Speaker 20: After the actions, she just really withdrew because she married
Speaker 20: someone who was not who was very unkind to her,
Speaker 20: and she had this beautiful boy, Owen, who I'm still
Speaker 20: in touch with.
Speaker 21: Cookie RIDOLFI was on Cookie.
Speaker 2: I went out to the Cape to meet Sarah's son, Owen,
Speaker 2: in the house where she raised him.
Speaker 21: Yeah, I have the I have my.
Speaker 14: Mom's guitar on my back here.
Speaker 21: Oh wow, the dings and dongs like you've got like
Speaker 21: this big depth and that has been repaired, which she
Speaker 21: predated me.
Speaker 2: I think that then this this guitar was in my
Speaker 2: in the apartment that they had shared. Must have been
Speaker 2: after her divorce. She worked in construction.
Speaker 21: I didn't know much of the history until close to
Speaker 21: the time of her passing, when Marianne and a lot
Speaker 21: of other folks came around and I got to hear
Speaker 21: more of their stories through through an effort to kind
Speaker 21: of help my mom remember as well. You know, no
Speaker 21: matter what, my mom always believed in doing what was right.
Speaker 21: And you know, she always she always stood by her
Speaker 21: beliefs and was willing to act on her beliefs and
Speaker 21: defend defend people who need to be defended.
Speaker 2: At one point, Owen pulled out a letter that had
Speaker 2: been written to her by Bob Weed Ex Williamson.
Speaker 21: This is a letter from Bob Williamson to my mother,
Speaker 21: and he sent a few months before she passed. And
Speaker 21: among the amazing things he wrote, he said, and if
Speaker 21: I could sum up the gifts you have given me,
Speaker 21: it is that you showed me, by.
Speaker 4: Your example, how to be funny and how to be fierce.
Speaker 22: Funny and fierce are such perfect partners. They balance and
Speaker 22: bring out the best in each other. Being funny makes
Speaker 22: people want to be around you, and being fierce means
Speaker 22: they'll always remember what you stand for. If you're funny
Speaker 22: and not fierce, no one takes you seriously and you
Speaker 22: don't make a difference in this world.
Speaker 2: And if you're.
Speaker 22: Fierce but not funny, you'll burn out from the intensity
Speaker 22: long before you reach the finish line. Sarah, you are
Speaker 22: a shining example to me of fierce and funny imperfect balance.
Speaker 21: That example has saved me many many times.
Speaker 2: Sarah Tosi died on April fifteenth, two thousand and six.
Speaker 23: Much love to you all in the words in the
Speaker 23: work Sarah.
Speaker 2: As for Anne Walsh, she took her case against the
Speaker 2: DOJ all the way to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 18: I won a Supreme Court superseding indictment the United States
Speaker 18: of America versus the Elizabeth Walsh, and it came out
Speaker 18: in my favor. I have it right over there in
Speaker 18: that bookcase.
Speaker 2: So Anne and Bob could finally tie the knot. Marian.
Speaker 12: Anne and Patrick got married I think in April, and
Speaker 12: then the following June we got married.
Speaker 2: They got married at a communal living cooperative called Packard Mants,
Speaker 2: about twenty miles south of Dorchester, where Bob had been
Speaker 2: living with some fellow clerk.
Speaker 12: It's the first time my family had ever been to
Speaker 12: a wedding where we had meatless meatballs and varieties of
Speaker 12: pumpkin zucchini bread for the wedding.
Speaker 2: Anne's family living in the Legacy of her war hero father,
Speaker 2: where they're celebrating Anne on her terms.
Speaker 13: And then finally, you know, again a big wedding, a
Speaker 13: big like your father and mother's wedding, big wedding, all
Speaker 13: sorts of people.
Speaker 19: They had pot luck, you know.
Speaker 2: That was that was the time their wedding had a
Speaker 2: puppet show and an element of protest towards a defense
Speaker 2: contractor Honeywell in the next town.
Speaker 13: And then of course when we got married, the big
Speaker 13: deal was that the Canmon people had just quit and
Speaker 13: they all came to the wedding. Yeah, and they all celebrated,
Speaker 13: and so its a very happy time. There were about
Speaker 13: five hundred people.
Speaker 2: And moved in with Bob at packard Man's and then
Speaker 2: having never dated anyone, they figured out how to make
Speaker 2: up for lost romantic time.
Speaker 12: So as I see it now, it's just like a
Speaker 12: very quid period of time. And then the other part
Speaker 12: was like a thrilling, hilarious and wonderful, passionate, idealistic you know.
Speaker 12: And I think down all the years you sort of
Speaker 12: sorted out.
Speaker 2: The war in Vietnam was coming to a close, but
Speaker 2: Anne and Bob felt a strong commitment to continue to
Speaker 2: burn with the spirit of their times.
Speaker 13: I can remember when I got out of prison, I
Speaker 13: was at the kind of a party at the Manse
Speaker 13: and somebody said to me, what are you going to
Speaker 13: do now? And I said, well, I'm going to think
Speaker 13: things over for a while and see what's going on,
Speaker 13: you know, and see what.
Speaker 2: I can do. So Packard Mantz became a place that
Speaker 2: could be the start of a grand counterculture experiment. By
Speaker 2: the time Anne moved to the Mantz, the place was
Speaker 2: evolving into more of a commune full of movement people.
Speaker 12: The community was so rich and fine and funny. It
Speaker 12: was so alive. It was definitely where you want to be,
Speaker 12: like no question, and it wasn't like giving up something.
Speaker 12: It was like joining a really good theater troupe or something.
Speaker 2: It became a place for the Catholic radicals to live
Speaker 2: out loud as former clergy, and.
Speaker 13: It was a big thing for us that in the
Speaker 13: old days when people left religious life or the priestoo
Speaker 13: or something, they went into hiding. Almost they were kind
Speaker 13: of they couldn't embarrassed by it. You couldn't go back
Speaker 13: to the areas where now you left because you saw
Speaker 13: something more positive in a sense, and so you weren't embarrassed.
Speaker 13: You weren't ashamed. You just said, you know, I want
Speaker 13: to go in a different direction, which was sort of
Speaker 13: unheard of.
Speaker 2: So Anne and Bob settled into commune life. Mary Anne
Speaker 2: and Patrick, meanwhile, had begun a brand new family life.
Speaker 2: They could now live out in public. In one kiss,
Speaker 2: Patrick had gone from being a celibate priest to a
Speaker 2: father of two toddlers.
Speaker 8: He married Mom with two kids, like it was instant family.
Speaker 8: He was a priest one day, living by himself, and
Speaker 8: then he was married with two kids the next, Like
Speaker 8: we saw him at the Poul Center. We loved him.
Speaker 8: We did torture him though, like I think I rubbed
Speaker 8: his toothbrush on the soul. Joe would stand behind him
Speaker 8: and the car pick his nose and wipe it on
Speaker 8: his bald spot.
Speaker 3: And Patrick was so unbelievable with Christy and Joe. He
Speaker 3: just loved them so much. And the integration of our
Speaker 3: the four of us, was such an extraordinary and special thing.
Speaker 3: I remember him saying his greatest regret was that he
Speaker 3: hadn't been there when they were born. That he just
Speaker 3: he was their father, He was absolutely their father.
Speaker 2: They found an Emerson College dorm at one point thirty
Speaker 2: two Beacon Street in downtown Boston, where they could live
Speaker 2: cheaply as dorm parents. The first order of business was
Speaker 2: for Patrick to formally adopt Christy and Jojo and to
Speaker 2: become their father.
Speaker 3: And we had this incredible party on the day that
Speaker 3: Christy and Joe were adopted. We'd all gone, so there
Speaker 3: was maybe twenty five of us, you know, dear friends,
Speaker 3: all again from the Pall Center community, and we'd all
Speaker 3: gone to the courthouse and they were adopted as a
Speaker 3: little ceremony and they'd get lollipops and all that, and
Speaker 3: then Patrick had put this unbelievable slideshow together of them
Speaker 3: too free to be you and me. It was like
Speaker 3: this running slide show all day. But of course he
Speaker 3: was also a Justice of the piece. So in the
Speaker 3: middle of this party, March is in a wedding, so
Speaker 3: he does a wedding. He marries this couple and we
Speaker 3: become their wedding party in the middle of in the
Speaker 3: middle of the adoption.
Speaker 2: Party, one of Patrick's only sources of income, because lest
Speaker 2: we forget, he had taken a vow of poverty and
Speaker 2: was starting from scratch, was being a Justice of the
Speaker 2: peace and marrying people, often a couple of crazy kids
Speaker 2: who decided to a lope.
Speaker 12: And then two strangers would come in and get married,
Speaker 12: and they would give your father twenty five dollars, maybe
Speaker 12: a couple of times a day. That might happen on
Speaker 12: a good.
Speaker 2: Day, but he was no good with money.
Speaker 12: And Patrick frequently would just turn that right over into
Speaker 12: two lobster just for himself and Maryam.
Speaker 2: Patrick faced the challenge of building a life for his
Speaker 2: sudden wife and two kids, and just as Floyd had predicted,
Speaker 2: he left the people of Hope. In his resignation letter,
Speaker 2: he implored them to carry on the mission and bring
Speaker 2: in new blood. Reading between the lines, his wording suggests
Speaker 2: they had already become bogged down and too much conversation.
Speaker 2: As for myself, he wrote, I'm feeling a need for distance,
Speaker 2: so I'm into a withdrawal thing. I believe this is
Speaker 2: good for both the p of h and myself. He
Speaker 2: left his role as a religious leader and devoted himself
Speaker 2: entirely to family life, and soon Patrick would become a
Speaker 2: full blown biological father as well.
Speaker 8: My mom was pregnant. I remember her being super sick,
Speaker 8: like horrible headaches, I remember like her laying on the
Speaker 8: couch with her long hair like flowing off of the coach,
Speaker 8: just like feeling terrible with.
Speaker 2: A baby on the way. Bob and Anne quickly realized
Speaker 2: that Patrick and Mary Anne should join their burgeoning beloved
Speaker 2: community at Packard Manz.
Speaker 24: Oh well, the mans was beautiful.
Speaker 2: This is my brother Joe Hughes aka Jojo.
Speaker 24: At one point twenty acres and so the original Packer
Speaker 24: to stay was just you know, it's a beautiful, big
Speaker 24: summer home built to resemble a Japanese lafehouse. It was
Speaker 24: a very kind of bucolic and peaceful and tranquil place.
Speaker 8: A real aversion to fall, particularly at the Manz because
Speaker 8: the way that the manse was set up like we
Speaker 8: lived down deeper into the woods with the meadow out
Speaker 8: our front window, but was surrounded by pine trees. So
Speaker 8: this su the autumn sun would set and it would
Speaker 8: hit the pine needles, which were like orange gold, and
Speaker 8: then this beautiful light would h fill our house. But
Speaker 8: I found it too too much, so I'd put a
Speaker 8: blanket over my head until the sun went down. And
Speaker 8: my mom and dad were like, oh.
Speaker 4: My god, she's really nuts.
Speaker 8: She's a great I would be like sitting. I was
Speaker 8: like I said down Yet I just couldn't handle it.
Speaker 8: It's too beautiful, it was too melancholy.
Speaker 2: Chrissy has also described that autumn sun gleaming off the
Speaker 2: pine Duff at the Manse as the visual equivalent of
Speaker 2: Harry Nilsen's voice. If that completes the picture, now, Packard
Speaker 2: Mance and family life would be a grand experiment in
Speaker 2: counterculture living.
Speaker 12: More and more like I see. We did what we
Speaker 12: felt we could do to end the war in Vietnam
Speaker 12: and to become social change agents in a variety of ways,
Speaker 12: and to try to have that inform us as we
Speaker 12: moved forward. And right after that we put in to adopt.
Speaker 2: Tron, and and Bob decided to adopt the Vietnamese baby
Speaker 2: orphaned by the war, named Tron van Dung.
Speaker 12: I adopted Tron. And when Bob and I drove back
Speaker 12: to New York, everybody was there to greet this child
Speaker 12: and to care for him and make it a special
Speaker 12: And I was taking care of Chrissy and Joe when
Speaker 12: your mom and Patrick went out the door to have you.
Speaker 2: This is where I entered the story. Ten days after
Speaker 2: Tron arrived at Packard Mantz.
Speaker 8: I was born the day Brennan was born. I know
Speaker 8: that there's tons of pictures of it, and I just
Speaker 8: remember being like, oh my god, like you were the
Speaker 8: cutest because I was seven, so like you were. I
Speaker 8: was like the perfect age difference because I was like,
Speaker 8: he is mine.
Speaker 12: And the joy that you know, came when Patrick called
Speaker 12: to say that Brendan had been born, and how happy
Speaker 12: Chrissy and Joe were.
Speaker 8: When Brendan was born is when it like we really
Speaker 8: coalesced as a family, because like you were all of ours.
Speaker 2: Patrick baptized me himself in the living room of the
Speaker 2: Manse to Morning Has Broken by Kat Stevens.
Speaker 8: And I just remember you with Daddy all the time.
Speaker 8: There were always errands. I don't know what the hell
Speaker 8: had to go to the dump? How did do this?
Speaker 8: How to do that? How did you know? Like always
Speaker 8: driving around, and I remember actually being jealous of the
Speaker 8: time they got to spend with you. Where have you been?
Speaker 8: I've been waiting all this time, and Daddy and Mom
Speaker 8: were so like just over the moon.
Speaker 2: My dad never brought us to church growing up. I
Speaker 2: had a very secular childhood. The Manse was a magical
Speaker 2: place where we had livestock and a pastor in front
Speaker 2: of my house and a deep woods for exploring and back.
Speaker 2: Anne Walsh was pregnant when I was born.
Speaker 24: You friended, Tron and Kate all arrived on Man's property
Speaker 24: within the space.
Speaker 2: Of six months, My brother Joe and so you kind
Speaker 2: of filled out.
Speaker 24: You know, there were the big kids and the little
Speaker 24: kids and so and you know, that was very fun,
Speaker 24: because those are sort of a halcyon days.
Speaker 2: Tron, his little sister Kate, and I grew up together
Speaker 2: building forts, digging holes and getting into seventies era childhood hijinks.
Speaker 2: And our parents, like all parents in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: were making it up as they went along, but with
Speaker 2: the added pressure of inventing a counterculture. For instance, we
Speaker 2: had a bull in the meadow named Stanley.
Speaker 24: Stanley was very gentle. I mean, there are pictures of
Speaker 24: you taking naps on a summer day, kind of lulling
Speaker 24: on Stanley's Stalley.
Speaker 2: Allowing a three year old to nap on the stomach
Speaker 2: of a bull may sound beyond the pale to today's parents,
Speaker 2: but Patrick and Mary Anne were as gonzo about parenting
Speaker 2: as they were about protest But at a certain point,
Speaker 2: Stanley had pure and wasn't so friendly anymore, and the
Speaker 2: grown ups got concerned.
Speaker 24: Like, Okay, this this bull's getting a little dangerous. We've
Speaker 24: gotta haven't slaughtered, And so they had Stanley slaughtered. And
Speaker 24: I remember the little kids were at dinner in the
Speaker 24: big building, the Man's the main building one night, and
Speaker 24: there just to be tons and tons of beef stew,
Speaker 24: you know, you know, and every of them was enjoying
Speaker 24: the beef stew, and it just seemed dan like, like
Speaker 24: where did this deep stew becoming? Like from the double kitchens?
Speaker 24: I mean, how much beef stew one kitchen hole? And
Speaker 24: then after so at some point in that dinner, you know,
Speaker 24: I think I think, uh, I think it was Bob Canade.
Speaker 24: As a matter of fact, who just at one point, kids,
Speaker 24: sorry that but that that beef stew that you've been
Speaker 24: eating that meal, all that delicious beef is your friend Stanley.
Speaker 2: The grown ups didn't have a pot to piss in
Speaker 2: or a window to throw it out of, but it
Speaker 2: didn't matter, because we just frolicked in a field and
Speaker 2: dug holes in the ground and went to the public
Speaker 2: school where we were the weird commune kids and money
Speaker 2: didn't matter and life was easy. After his priesthood. Instead
Speaker 2: of finding gainful employment, Patrick repurposed his ability to make
Speaker 2: multimedia extravaganzas into making documentary film strips about corporate malfeasance.
Speaker 2: His biggest one was called Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?
Speaker 25: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?
Speaker 2: About Gulf and Western's abuse of sugarcane croppers in the
Speaker 2: Dominican Republic.
Speaker 25: The sugar on this table came from the Dominican Republic,
Speaker 25: a product of the Gulf and Western Corporation at the time.
Speaker 2: In addition to owning expansive sugar operations in the dr
Speaker 2: Gulf and Western owned Paramount Pictures and Simon and Schuster.
Speaker 2: And as a result of Patrick's slide show, they started
Speaker 2: getting a ton of angry letters.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's what happened. That's what happened. They started to
Speaker 3: get letters and letters and letters because this slide show
Speaker 3: was distributed and churches were showing it, and high schools
Speaker 3: were showing it, and colleges were showing it, and so suddenly,
Speaker 3: including I think their own employees, were going, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: we just saw this film.
Speaker 25: The average person has a responsibility to find out more
Speaker 25: about big corporations because there's a lot at stake. Who's
Speaker 25: going to control for lives of ordinary people, the giant
Speaker 25: corporations or the people themselves.
Speaker 2: Gulf and Western then sent two lawyer goons to Boston
Speaker 2: to meet with Patrick and mary Anne.
Speaker 3: And they lay into us how this is libel, and
Speaker 3: they're telling us how it's not true. And they're going
Speaker 3: on and on and on and on and on about
Speaker 3: like why it's just so wrong, and ended saying and
Speaker 3: our intention is, you know, we'll sue you, we'll bring
Speaker 3: you to court. And I'm sure they expected us to wilt,
Speaker 3: just in fear right, And Patrick said, this would be
Speaker 3: an amazing opportunity for us if you bring us to court.
Speaker 3: We were one hundred percent go ahead, So away, what
Speaker 3: do you want the corduroy chair? And Patrick used to
Speaker 3: have this great thing about how can click his heels,
Speaker 3: you know, run and jump and click his heels. We
Speaker 3: got outside, he just he had to clickly else.
Speaker 2: The National Council of Churches eventually expressed public support for Patrick,
Speaker 2: and he and Marianne never heard from Gulf and Western again.
Speaker 3: No, and they backed right down. I mean that was
Speaker 3: such a lesson in how to deal with power. It
Speaker 3: was such a great lesson, which is to say, actually,
Speaker 3: you don't have any I mean, go ahead, make my day,
Speaker 3: but you don't really have any power.
Speaker 2: Patrick was becoming an effective outside agitator, rankling the halls
Speaker 2: of corporate power and driving down their stock value with
Speaker 2: his messages of justice for the downtrodden. His indefatigable optimism
Speaker 2: in the face of annihilation by the tall buildings of
Speaker 2: New York was a light that burned bright and hot. Patrick,
Speaker 2: as my dad, was incredibly warm and funny as hell,
Speaker 2: and he was also an enthusiastic straight man from my
Speaker 2: childish jokes like everyone's dad, I suppose. Even looking at
Speaker 2: the back of his head while we drove our VW
Speaker 2: bus always gave me some measure of comfort. He had
Speaker 2: a round, bald head with a ring of curls around
Speaker 2: the back, and kind looking, downturned eyes like Ernie on
Speaker 2: Sesame Street, and he seemed like a walking hug. His
Speaker 2: booted feet were usually poking out from under a broken
Speaker 2: down car behind our house. While he was alive, everything
Speaker 2: would always be fine.
Speaker 17: Patrick died in the thick of that work. His movement
Speaker 17: through the revolution was a work in progress, and it
Speaker 17: wasn't finished, and it continues, obviously, which is the power
Speaker 17: of what you're doing, being faithful to that humane impulse
Speaker 17: he embodied.
Speaker 2: I was a sickly kid and I was home from
Speaker 2: first grade doing spirographs at the kitchen table on October
Speaker 2: twenty third, nineteen eighty. It was a Thursday, the morning
Speaker 2: that he died.
Speaker 3: I shot up out of a sound sleep with my
Speaker 3: heart just pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding, and I had
Speaker 3: this thought that something unspeakable is going to happen to
Speaker 3: someone we know who wears a hat. That was the
Speaker 3: sentence that came into me. Was so bizarre, and I
Speaker 3: remember sitting now, I almost woke. I almost woke Patrick up.
Speaker 8: I got up super early because I was in junior
Speaker 8: high and I was in eighth grade.
Speaker 3: An Walsh and I that week had gone and taken
Speaker 3: an acting class for the hell of it. And I
Speaker 3: came home and he was sitting on the couch. He
Speaker 3: was reading Jim's book Mortal Friends. And I remember thinking
Speaker 3: to myself that he seemed kind of tired. And I
Speaker 3: actually remember sitting on his lap and we were just
Speaker 3: talking and we were talking about the weekend. There was
Speaker 3: a new Woody Allen movie out. I think we had
Speaker 3: lunch with you at the little table and I said
Speaker 3: to him, wow, you seem really tired. I wonder if
Speaker 3: you want to just take a nap, like take a
Speaker 3: quick nap first. He said, yeah, I really am tired.
Speaker 3: Maybe I will do that. I'll just go I want
Speaker 3: to take a twenty minute nap, no more. And I
Speaker 3: said okay. And I remember looking at the clock to
Speaker 3: make sure I woke him up in case he didn't
Speaker 3: wake up. I was supposed to wake him up at one.
Speaker 2: While he was asleep, Anne Walsh and another resident of
Speaker 2: the man's came over to say hi.
Speaker 3: I was making coffee and the three of us were
Speaker 3: just talking and visiting and all that stuff. And I
Speaker 3: remember looking at the clock and it was ten past one,
Speaker 3: and I said, oh, I better go wake him up.
Speaker 3: So I just left the room and walked down to
Speaker 3: JoJo's room, which is where he was taking his nap.
Speaker 3: And I got to the doorway and the first thought,
Speaker 3: I have. His hands were above his chest like this.
Speaker 3: And there's a point in the consecration at Mass where
Speaker 3: the priest would hold his hands like this before doing
Speaker 3: the consecration, and his hands were above his chest like that.
Speaker 3: The first that I had was like, Wow, it looks
Speaker 3: like he's saying mass. And then I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 3: he looks dead. I I don't even know where the
Speaker 3: screams came from. I mean I started just and I
Speaker 3: jumped on top of him and just started like banging
Speaker 3: his chest and screaming and scar and screaming. And that's
Speaker 3: when Anne and Mike and you ran down the hallway
Speaker 3: and Anne grabbed you to run out of the house
Speaker 3: so that you wouldn't see anymore, and Mike ran and
Speaker 3: called the police and called the ambulance.
Speaker 2: Ann Walsh scooped me up in my long Johns and
Speaker 2: ran downstairs to her living room. I remember her screaming
Speaker 2: into the phone operator, you have no choice.
Speaker 3: I had this vision. I wanted to go to the
Speaker 3: top of the little dirt road and like drag the
Speaker 3: ambulance down.
Speaker 2: We lived in the brown house at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the hill.
Speaker 3: I know what that I could have dragged an ambulance
Speaker 3: down that hill. There's no question in my mind. I
Speaker 3: think I stayed with him on top of him until
Speaker 3: the ambulance.
Speaker 2: Came in the confusion, I wound up standing alone at
Speaker 2: the entrance to the manse, and I watched the ambulance
Speaker 2: turn in to the property and one of the grown
Speaker 2: up sprint behind it down the hill.
Speaker 3: And I remember the doctor coming in and saying that like,
Speaker 3: we did everything we possibly could, but he's died. He's dead,
Speaker 3: and I think I just collapsed, and I kept saying, OK,
Speaker 3: I can't, I cannot tell the kids. I cannot. The
Speaker 3: shock was so brutal, It's like every nerve ending is
Speaker 3: on fire. Jim was signing books at Barnes and Noble
Speaker 3: when Lex called and said Patrick had a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Jim had himself finally left the priesthood and gotten.
Speaker 3: Married, and they told me the story of driving down
Speaker 3: to the hospital, them talking about what an impossible patient
Speaker 3: Patrick was going to be like as a hard patient. No,
Speaker 3: this is not going to work out, this won't be good,
Speaker 3: And that was their expectation. When they came into the
Speaker 3: emergency room asking for Patrick Hughes. They expected him to
Speaker 3: be up in a hospital room, and someone in the
Speaker 3: emergency room had to tell them that he had died.
Speaker 3: And Jim said, I want to see him, and they said, oh,
Speaker 3: you were relative, and he said, yes, I'm his brother,
Speaker 3: and they took him back and that's when Jim gave
Speaker 3: him the last right. And I remember when Jim came
Speaker 3: back to the house. I just screamed when I saw
Speaker 3: him because I knew he and I had just lost
Speaker 3: our best friend, that I knew what we had something
Speaker 3: in common that was so deeply shared between us, you know.
Speaker 8: And you said, Daddy's just sleeping. He was just sleeping,
Speaker 8: because you witnessed the entire thing, so and you just
Speaker 8: kept saying it over and over again.
Speaker 3: And then the house started filling up and people started coming.
Speaker 3: Everybody was the shock of it, Brendan was. It's like
Speaker 3: he was the healthiest, most alive person you knew on
Speaker 3: the whole planet, and he died.
Speaker 2: Patrick Hughes was forty one years old. In a few days,
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan would be elected to the Oval Office and
Speaker 2: declare it was mourning in America. In six and a
Speaker 2: half weeks, John Lennon would be shot and killed outside
Speaker 2: the Dakota Building on Central Park West. Looking back, Patrick's
Speaker 2: death marked the exact end of an era as much
Speaker 2: as it did a single life. We held a three
Speaker 2: day Irish wake.
Speaker 12: I can remember it was October obviously, and I can
Speaker 12: remember the color of the pine neals that had fallen
Speaker 12: off the trees and this gold and burnishing.
Speaker 2: It was in the living room of the manse, and.
Speaker 12: You know, it was a closed casket, right the grand
Speaker 12: piano usually was, and a prejeer in front of the casket.
Speaker 12: And you kids were like those all kinds of food
Speaker 12: and dining rooms. Your kids would go over and get
Speaker 12: like him and mustard on your bread and go sit
Speaker 12: next to Patrick's body on the priger. And I was saying, honeys,
Speaker 12: don't get like the mustard on the casket. You kept
Speaker 12: opening the box. Yep, he's still in there. Yep, He's
Speaker 12: still in there.
Speaker 2: Patrick's funeral was held at the Paulist Center.
Speaker 8: The amount of people that came again staggering, because he
Speaker 8: was so loved and had such impact and influence. People
Speaker 8: were rattled.
Speaker 12: That talent to bring people together and to serve them,
Speaker 12: you know, showed up again at his funeral, you know,
Speaker 12: which was at the Paulast Center. And I don't think
Speaker 12: they had ever let in a long time maybe a
Speaker 12: priest to live there could be buried from there, but
Speaker 12: they didn't. We had to get special permission, and that
Speaker 12: was It was like a bittersweet, beautiful, beautiful liturgy.
Speaker 2: Jim Carroll, Patrick's best friend, gave the eulogy. He told
Speaker 2: a story of their time back in the seminary. It
Speaker 2: was their first autumn back in nineteen sixty two. He
Speaker 2: told us they began making bets about when the pond
Speaker 2: would freeze, and Patrick announced he would skate across it
Speaker 2: on December eighth. When the day came, all the Seminary
Speaker 2: brothers gathered at the edge of the pond and one
Speaker 2: of them heaved a rock that easily sank right through
Speaker 2: the surface. But Patrick, undeterred, laced up his skates and
Speaker 2: struck out onto the ice, and he managed to skate
Speaker 2: all the way across as a giant crack opened up
Speaker 2: behind it. That was the self assurance, Jim told us
Speaker 2: that carried him through his priesthood and into family life.
Speaker 2: Pat Hughes, he said, invented an approach to liturgy that
Speaker 2: influenced not only the Paulists, but the whole American church.
Speaker 2: Here at the Paula Center. He was the heartbeat of
Speaker 2: one of the only Catholic churches in Boston or anywhere
Speaker 2: that had a conscience about the war.
Speaker 3: It was funny when he died. I remember thinking this,
Speaker 3: like the greatest gifts that you can ever give anyone
Speaker 3: ever is to fully live your life, because when you
Speaker 3: do and you die, no one has a regret for you,
Speaker 3: even at forty one. I mean I could say when
Speaker 3: he died at forty one that he had lived so
Speaker 3: fully that even though his life was cut short, he
Speaker 3: had lived completely. That is the most incredible gift you
Speaker 3: can give to people.
Speaker 25: I think.
Speaker 2: Marianne and Tobin continued to distribute Patrick's slideshows for a
Speaker 2: few years until the orders stopped coming in and VHS
Speaker 2: took over. Then Marianne started working in politics and eventually
Speaker 2: met an editor from the Boston Globe who had three
Speaker 2: kids of his own. They tied their fortunes together such
Speaker 2: as they were, and we all moved to Dorchester. He too,
Speaker 2: would die only seven years later, but she continues to
Speaker 2: live in the same house to this day. She eventually
Speaker 2: founded a management institute for nonprofits and ran it until
Speaker 2: she retired.
Speaker 8: I really resist or react very strongly when somebody tells
Speaker 8: a story about anyone in my family, Like if anybody
Speaker 8: sort of like pulls.
Speaker 2: Them away from me, my sister Kristen.
Speaker 8: Memory is so problematic.
Speaker 2: Kristin, Joe and I and Kate and Tron, I'm sure
Speaker 2: and all the children of the Catholic left. We all
Speaker 2: walk around with these stories in our hearts and they
Speaker 2: can feel heavy. My first outline for this story is
Speaker 2: dated February fifth, nineteen ninety nine. I've been trying to
Speaker 2: tell it for over twenty five years.
Speaker 8: If anybody is telling me anything that I know in detail,
Speaker 8: I'm like, it's not your fucking story to tell. That's
Speaker 8: not what happened, you know.
Speaker 2: Inside my head, it just felt like my destiny, not
Speaker 2: to be too melodramatic about it, to tell this story,
Speaker 2: but it's pretty scary to finally be doing so.
Speaker 8: I feel like really tight, like do not make him
Speaker 8: anything than what he was, which was like it just
Speaker 8: my dad.
Speaker 2: There are so many problems with trying to capture that time,
Speaker 2: with capturing these people and they're rollicking Jois de vive
Speaker 2: with capturing him. I was only six when he died,
Speaker 2: and this project has been a lifelong attempt to get
Speaker 2: to know him better. I started doing these interviews in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, Howard Zinn, Bob Kanine, and Tobin
Speaker 2: Kip Tiernan, and my aunt Joanne Hughes all passed away.
Speaker 2: Years ago. I moved to Los Angeles, I met my wife,
Speaker 2: we had a son. I distracted myself with other projects
Speaker 2: and time went on, but this one would never leave
Speaker 2: me alone. Arthur Miller, in his autobiography, talked about how
Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe could walk into a room and spot all
Speaker 2: the people that had lost a parent as a child.
Speaker 2: There is a do you like me? He wrote, of
Speaker 2: the look in the eyes of people who have lost
Speaker 2: their parents, an appeal out of bottomless loneliness that no
Speaker 2: parented person can really know. And when you're taught at
Speaker 2: a tender age in no uncertain terms that love is
Speaker 2: in fact quite finite in certain circumstances, you begin to
Speaker 2: hoard any scrap you can get while mistrusting those who
Speaker 2: offer it, like a scavenger in a war zone. You
Speaker 2: end up a world class self saboteur, pathologically incapable of
Speaker 2: doing the one thing that would finally make you feel better,
Speaker 2: because then he really is permanently gone. Laborators have been
Speaker 2: very patient with me as I finally laid this giant egg.
Speaker 2: It was at Patrick's burial that the brutality of his
Speaker 2: loss finally hit me. I'd spent the week making sure
Speaker 2: he was still in the box, and when we got
Speaker 2: to the burial, I saw that gaping maw in the ground,
Speaker 2: waiting to swallow him forever. Then I just started to wail,
Speaker 2: and Uncle scooped me up and whisked me away from
Speaker 2: the scene because I think he intuited it was the
Speaker 2: sight of the hole that was torturing me. But I
Speaker 2: pounded him on the shoulders and demanded he turned back around,
Speaker 2: and when he did, everyone was staring at me. Looking back,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was in sorrow, But at six years old,
Speaker 2: as I looked at all their stricken faces, my only thought,
Speaker 2: because I am nothing if not Irish Catholic, is that
Speaker 2: I had ruined my father's burial. But there's an old
Speaker 2: saying among Irish Catholics that gives me some comfort about this.
Speaker 2: What's the use of being Irish if the world doesn't
Speaker 2: break your heart. That visual of everyone staring at me
Speaker 2: is the last thing I remember for a year, and
Speaker 2: I've been making up for that moment ever since, which
Speaker 2: includes I think finally talking to you. I told this
Speaker 2: story because I wanted to get to know him better.
Speaker 2: I told it because I wanted to get back the
Speaker 2: love I lost that day when he went to take
Speaker 2: a nap in JoJo's room and never woke up. I
Speaker 2: told it because I wanted to understand this time. Before
Speaker 2: I was born, these hilarious grown ups. I grew up
Speaker 2: with their patriotism, their bravery, their humor, and the ferociousness
Speaker 2: of their love. And maybe the old idea that God
Speaker 2: is love is less of a platitude than my cynical
Speaker 2: gen X brain originally thought. And maybe it's not God
Speaker 2: is love, but God is love. The mysterious, inevitable feeling
Speaker 2: that came over me when my wife Emily walked into
Speaker 2: that party in two thousand and nine and I saw
Speaker 2: her for the first time, but it felt like I'd
Speaker 2: known her my entire life, or the force that made
Speaker 2: me sob for three days when our son Oscar was born,
Speaker 2: because my heart suddenly had to grow three sizes to
Speaker 2: accommodate how I felt about him. Love is the mysterious
Speaker 2: chaos in our choice to devote ourselves to other human beings.
Speaker 2: It's easy, especially now when rugged. American individualism and meanness
Speaker 2: are so in vogue to be cynical about movements for
Speaker 2: social change. But all these Zany Catholics brought a ferocity
Speaker 2: of love to what they did that cannot be denied.
Speaker 2: Love for their country, love for each other, love for
Speaker 2: the common man, love for anyone who is suffering.
Speaker 3: To look back at those times, to look back at
Speaker 3: who I was, and who Patrick was, and who all
Speaker 3: of my friends. Who are some of us, you know,
Speaker 3: some still with us and some not.
Speaker 26: And there's something about that moment that was so It
Speaker 26: was an unbelievable time, but there was something that was
Speaker 26: really innocent about it.
Speaker 3: There was something about it that we believed.
Speaker 2: Patrick's headstone reads a slightness quote from Scottish poet Thomas Campbell,
Speaker 2: to live beyond in the hearts you leave behind is
Speaker 2: not to die. Patrick's Walk for Hunger and the Wednesday
Speaker 2: Night Supper Club are still going fifty years later. In
Speaker 2: recent years they've seen as many as forty four thousand
Speaker 2: people taking part in the oldest pledge walk in the country,
Speaker 2: and they now give out an annual Patrick Hughes Award
Speaker 2: for Social Justice. Last Christmas, I was back in Boston
Speaker 2: with my family and one cold crisp night, I took
Speaker 2: my son Oscar to volunteer for the Wednesday Night supper
Speaker 2: club in the basement of the Polis Center, which as
Speaker 2: an organization is still going strong, forever changed by Patrick
Speaker 2: and Floyd's brief time there. Dan here, you just recorded that.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't think I caught your name, Brendan, brendand Sarah.
Speaker 2: It is a pleasure. A dedicated group of volunteers shows
Speaker 2: up every week and cooks, waits on the guests, and
Speaker 2: cleans the place spotless when it's done. The night I
Speaker 2: was there, we serve turkey and stuffing. My son Oscar
Speaker 2: handed out milks to the guests as they came in.
Speaker 2: At first, I thought to myself, how wonderful this is
Speaker 2: still going after so many years. But it's quick to
Speaker 2: realize how terrible it is that after fifty years it's
Speaker 2: still necessary, and how crucial is what Martin Luther King
Speaker 2: described as the love that does justice.
Speaker 19: Those movements come out of love. They come out of
Speaker 19: people's love for their fellow men and women.
Speaker 2: Howard Zinn, people they don't even know.
Speaker 19: Because I think there is something fundamental about human beings
Speaker 19: that they are compassionate and they are moved by what
Speaker 19: happens to the people. Sometimes people say, oh, you know, selfishness, competition,
Speaker 19: that's part of human nature. It's not part of human nature.
Speaker 19: That's something that is artificial that you grow up being
Speaker 19: indoctrinated into. You're indoctrinated into violence and competition. But the
Speaker 19: natural instincts of people, I believe, are to help other
Speaker 19: people and to yes and to love. When the artifice
Speaker 19: of a propaganda of government, deception, when that is stripped away,
Speaker 19: what is left is people's natural love for other people,
Speaker 19: and so I think it then becomes a very powerful force.
Speaker 3: His love for us was so profound that he left
Speaker 3: us all completely whole. He didn't leave us as broken people.
Speaker 3: He left us as whole people because he loved us
Speaker 3: so deeply.
Speaker 12: Is something very beautiful about having adopted trime Because I
Speaker 12: felt that I couldn't do very much. I'm not like
Speaker 12: a really great walking on ere or a great teacher,
Speaker 12: but I can love one person really well and consistently
Speaker 12: and find out way that leads.
Speaker 15: As you know, loving empowers us to do things that
Speaker 15: seem so damn impossible. Not one more step, Not one
Speaker 15: more hour. But yes, it happened.
Speaker 2: Somehow, and you go on.
Speaker 15: I can't begin to speculate where it's all headed, but
Speaker 15: it's spring again.
Speaker 3: I loved him so much, and that love continues to
Speaker 3: sustain me. There's just no question about it. Which is
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been dead forty years. That's pretty amazing,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure I know he sustains all of you.
Speaker 2: You may remember, as Mary Anne stood at the Jetway
Speaker 2: when she was leaving her first husband Texas, that Patrick's
Speaker 2: seminary brother gave her his ordination card with Patrick's phone
Speaker 2: number on the back and on the front was a
Speaker 2: quote by tehar Deschardin. The quote on the front of
Speaker 2: the card was this, the day will come when, after
Speaker 2: harnessing the space, the winds, the tides, and gravity, we
Speaker 2: shall harness for God the energies of love. And on
Speaker 2: that day, for the second time in the history of
Speaker 2: the world, man will have discovered fire. By the time
Speaker 2: Karita Kent received the commission from the Boston Gas Company
Speaker 2: to create Rainbow Swash on the Dorchester gas tank, she
Speaker 2: had left her position as nun and art teacher at
Speaker 2: the Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. She had left
Speaker 2: her order and walked away from the Catholic Church to
Speaker 2: focus on her art and social justice. It still stands
Speaker 2: on ninety three, momentarily delighting Bostonian commuters again. It's their
Speaker 2: will and remains a symbol, at least to me, of
Speaker 2: the explosive cauldron of colorful subversion that will always be Dorchester,
Speaker 2: and it recently welcomed home one of Dorchester's proudest sons.
Speaker 4: Some Yeah. For thirty seven years, I've been in nursing,
Speaker 4: either a nursing yat or as a nurse as an R.
Speaker 2: After the war, Paul Cooming brought his love of anyone
Speaker 2: suffering to the medical field and became an o R nurse.
Speaker 2: He moved to Minneapolis, where he raised two children. He
Speaker 2: has continued to be an activist throughout the decades. Then
Speaker 2: he came home to Dorchester.
Speaker 4: I know that I was brought up to believe that
Speaker 4: God was love. If you want to know God, you've
Speaker 4: got to know love. You have to be loved, you
Speaker 4: have to you know, commit love. And this action community
Speaker 4: that well was the work of love. I mean, I
Speaker 4: was there because I loved my country so much that
Speaker 4: I was willing to do what I did I didn't
Speaker 4: love my government. I opposed my government because it was
Speaker 4: doing wrong, but I never failed to love the people
Speaker 4: that it ruled over. And I think I and others
Speaker 4: were able to transfer those feelings of respect and love
Speaker 4: to that joy during that trial. We let them know
Speaker 4: that we were in love with the We had no
Speaker 4: problem with the people in the United States, which is
Speaker 4: that problem with the government, and that people had to
Speaker 4: stand up and be responsible to write the ship.
Speaker 2: Can I end that?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Divine Intervention was a production of iHeart Podcasts. It was
Speaker 2: produced by Wonder Media Network and was created and written
Speaker 2: by me your host, Brendan Patrick Hughes. Our deeply incredible
Speaker 2: producers were the Bureau Chief, Carmen Borca Correo, the Scimitar
Speaker 2: of Wit, Abby Delk, the secret Weapon Palomo Moreno, Jimenez,
Speaker 2: the Mother Confessor, Grace Lynch, and myself. Our editor was
Speaker 2: Gift to every room she walks into. Grace Lynch for
Speaker 2: Wonder Media Network. Our executive producers were the great and
Speaker 2: powerful Emily Rudder with a thousand watts smile and Jenny Kaplan,
Speaker 2: who has incredible tastes in podcast pilots. For iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer was Christina Everett, whom I hope I
Speaker 2: get to high five one day for Drout Street book Club.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer was Rolin Jones, who I've spent my
Speaker 2: entire career trying to impress. Over the last twenty years
Speaker 2: of making this, I was helped by several friends along
Speaker 2: the way, including Morris Smiley, Jeff Zen, Adam O'Byrne, Tony Manna,
Speaker 2: Ethan Stocks, Louis Wheeler, Chris Banow, Susie Blair, Masha Simmering,
Speaker 2: Dante Marino, Pamela Grimaud, Jonathan Fierros, Elise Corwin, Joe Trepeia,
Speaker 2: Kristin Hughes, Amelia Hirsch, Jaji Hammer, and Carly Pope, who
Speaker 2: voiced the late Sarah Tosi. Our theme and end credit
Speaker 2: music was composed and performed by Tanya Donnelly. Yes, fellow
Speaker 2: gen xers that Tanya Donnelly. And if you're wondering if
Speaker 2: this meets I got to meet her in person, the
Speaker 2: answer is yes, and she's even more awesome than you've imagined.
Speaker 2: It was mastered by one of my oldest friends, Ben Aarons.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to my agent at Uta Shelby Shankman, who
Speaker 2: took one listen to the pilot and said, Brendan, let's
Speaker 2: sell this thing to Davey Gardner at the Tribeca Festival,
Speaker 2: who makes dreams come true. To my wife Emily Topper
Speaker 2: and our son Oscar who put up with relentless skipped
Speaker 2: dinners and missed soccer practices to allow this show to
Speaker 2: come into the world. Extra special thanks to all the staggering,
Speaker 2: the inspirational patriots who allowed me to interview them, beginning
Speaker 2: twenty years ago in two thousand and five on a
Speaker 2: road trip with my mother, Mary Anne Hughes. This project
Speaker 2: was made in loving memory of my father, Patrick Hughes,
Speaker 2: born in nineteen thirty nine died nineteen eighty. This is
Speaker 2: Brendan Patrick Hughes signing off thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: Divine Intervention.