Sunday Evening, July 3, St. Patrick’s Church, New Orleans

The choir, organ, and congregation in New Orleans’ St. Patrick’s Church reached the crescendo of the Tantum Ergo, St. Thomas Aquinas’ hymn to the Blessed Trinity, 

Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et jubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.

Father Stan Klores, tall, broad-shouldered, imposing, stood below the steps to the altar in a gold and silver embroidered vestment, and sang out:

Panem de caelis praestitisti eis. 

The congregation chanted back:

Omne delectamentum in se habentem.

A priest wrapped Klores in a stiff shawl, also of gold and silver.  Another began rhythmically swinging a censor, sending a fog of incense above the sanctuary.  Father Stan mounted the steps to the altar, opened a glass compartment in the center of a gold crucifix, and placed a host within it.  Then, wrapping his hands in the shawl, he raised the gleaming monstrance to the level of his chest, and turned to face the congregation.  He raised the monstrance above his head, lowered it, and then extended it to the left and right in the sign of the cross, then came to a halt with the monstrance in front of his heart.

With the rest of the worshippers, Peter Newland lowered his head, hand striking his breast, the bells of the church tower began pealing.  His thoughts wandered for a moment to his assignment for the National Catholic Reporter, covering the controversy Klores was stirring up with his Catholic traditionalist movement, Faith of Our Fathers.  While most eyes were still closed, Peter raised his head to gaze at the monstrance. There was a sharp crack of glass breaking.  The monstrance fell from Klores’ hands. He swayed for a second, blood gushing from his chest, a scarlet stream running down the white marble steps, and toppled like a falling tree.  A priest raced to him, pressed one hand to the wound on Klores’ back to stanch the flow of blood, and worked his free hand under the priest to stop the blood from his chest, and shouted, “A doctor.  Father Stan’s been shot.”

Same Evening, July 3, New York, Picholine Restaurant

Walking down New York’s West 64th Street from Lincoln Center toward Central Park, a stroller’s eye might have been attracted to the inviting green awning of the Picholine Restaurant.  

If he had entered on the evening of July 3, when his eyes adjusted to the candle-lit room with walls of mirrors and dark drapes, he would have seen, in just the black dress intended for such a restaurant, a very attractive woman in her mid-thirties seated in a corner banquette with a man of about the same age, their conversation intense and engaged.  The light was subdued, the candles on the tables reflected in the ceiling-length mirrors. He could hardly have helped being captivated by the beauty of the young woman, who had also captured the attention of the diners on either side of the two. Our observer would not have been wrong if he guessed there was an intimate relationship between them.  

He will now take his leave, for he has things to do that need not concern us, but he can be forgiven if he casts a wistful glance at the charming couple and concludes that they were in love..

  There is a moment – late in the evening – when brandy is being poured, coffee is being served, and deserts are being shared, when a hush descends.   The young man, whose name was Jack Logan, drew the girl close to him and looked around the room. He could imagine affairs planned around them, deals done, love declared. The corner banquette commanded a view of the restaurant, and was the spot where all gazes converged.  It was the place the maître d’ reserved for the wealthiest and most faithful patrons, or for the party with the most beautiful woman, the best possible adornment for an elegant restaurant.  Jack and Ann Grace had been seated here at this table because Ann was, Jack thought contentedly, the most beautiful woman in the room. He reached out and took her hands in his. 

“Cardinal Ryan,” Ann said, motioning in the direction of Central Park towards St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “would be very surprised if he knew who I was sitting with right now.”  Cardinal Ryan had been closest friend of Ann’s deceased father, the president of the Grace Corporation, and the most prominent and wealthiest Catholic layman of his time. The Cardinal had officiated at Ann’s baptism.  And Ann had continued her father’s benefactions to Ryan. More to the point, Cardinal Ryan had written a scathing review of Jack’s latest book on neuroscience and spirituality, charging that Jack had “reduced the Holy Trinity to mere ganglia and neurons.” 

“Maybe you and Damasio,” Jack’s collaborator at Harvard, where Jack was a research M.D., “should get together with Ryan to reassure him.  He seems to think you are the second coming of,” she ran through a mental list of militant atheists, “I don’t know, Voltaire. And don’t just flex those big Navy SEAL biceps at him.  He doesn’t scare easily.”

She paused a moment, took a sip of wine and smiled at him.  “You aren’t really an atheist, are you?”

Just then Jack spotted a friend at the bar and asked Ann if he could be excused for a minute.  Almost immediately he rushed back to the table. “They are saying something at the bar about a shooting in New Orleans.  A priest saying Mass at St. Patrick’s.”