Fr. Z's Blog

Continued from Episode 6 – HERE

I pulled the Charger up into chancery lot just as the rain tapered from its sulky drizzle. The building loomed in the evening fug, concrete and glass stacked like a columbarium of forgotten ideals. I killed the engine and let the quiet settle over me, the last drag of my cigarette glowing in the rearview.

A black sedan crept up behind me and stopped. The door swung open, and out stepped Fr. Tommy, cassock flaring in the damp wind. His eyes found mine.  No nod. No sign. Just the tacit acknowledgment of two men who’d chosen the same battlefield trench.

I flicked the cigarette onto the pavement. We fell into step without a word, shoes scuffing over slick concrete.

Father Tommy took us to a little used side entrance, the one diocesan staffers pretended not to know about. Fr. Tommy was a step in front me.  He knew the place after his years of work there.  The hall smelled of mop water and bureaucratic decay, stale air that stuck to your tongue. A flickering exit sign threw jittery shadows across the corridor.

We moved quickly through the hallways, down a stair, and into a corridor lined with framed photos of past bishops grinning beside donors and minor celebrities, all teeth and no sincerity. Tommy’s cassock whispered across the tiles. My coat felt heavy from the backup printouts tucked inside, a dossier turgid with liturgical grift and sanctimonious double-dealing.

At the end of the hall, a pair of double doors stood half-open. A sign was taped to the door Council for Inclusive Liturgy Innovation. C.I.L.I.  There was an intermittent surge of clapping, drumming, and something that sounded suspiciously like a didgeridoo.

Inside, we could seen a “discernment tapestry” hanging behind a deconstructed altar made of recycled IKEA press-board and driftwood from the diocesan Eco-Pilgrimage led by Fr. Warmflannel.  Fr. “Just call me Bruce” Hugalot was leaning into a little performance about “new paradigms of parish engagement,” his voice as greasy as Oil of the Sick left too long in the sacristy cabinet.

Fr. Tommy shot me a look that said he’d had enough. I nodded back.

Time to lay the cards on the table before they printed more glossy brochures about the future they were busy gutting.

The priest squared his shoulders. I checked the weight of the folder in my coat.

We went in, Father first, me just behind.

The door swung shut behind us with a click that sounded like a trap snapping on a rat that thought it was in charge.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[Cue sultry saxophone and crackling static]

ANNOUNCER (rich world-weary baritone):

Tonight’s episode of Tracer Bullet And The Smoke of Libville was brought to you by Sanctus Blend Incense Company, purveyors of the finest liturgical resins this side of the Tiber. When your parish needs to chase away the smell of compromise, heresy, and give praise to the Almighty light up a thurible full of Sanctus Blend. Accept no imitations.

And don’t miss tomorrow’s episode…

[low, suspenseful vibraphone chords]

…when Tracer and Father Tommy, in the depths of the the chancery, unmask the labyrinth of trickery and liturgical skullduggery for a befuddled bishop Francis Atticus McB.  It’s the episode they’re calling…

[echo effect]

SPIES, LIES AND A BARK IN THE DARK

Same frequency. Same smoke curling under the door. 

Smoke by Sanctus Blend, that is.  Because the truth should smell sweeter than lies.

[Cue fade-out sax riff]

Continued from Episode 5 – HERE

Episode 6: The Howl At The Moon

In the rearview, the neon sign for the Alibi Bar shrank into a smear of blue and red. The rain finally sputtered out about the time I hit the roundabout near St. Gert’s, leaving the streets as shiny and slick as a Jesuit’s pomade. I let the wipers drag one last arc and with a wet groan they froze mid-swipe like they’d given up caring. Pulling up near the chancery, I cracked the window to let the night in. It smelled of ozone, old brick, and the sour reek of a city that never learned how to tell the truth.

I lit a cigarette. The glow caught the cracked dashboard in sickly orange.

Part of me wondered if I should’ve dragged Tommy along, priestly ballast to keep my conscience from floating clean off. But he’d said his piece.

I thumbed the radio on. Some local Catholic station was playing a pre-recorded homily. The voice I recognized, Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants. “…in these uncertain times,” he droned, “we must remain open to accompaniment…to the creative spirit…”

“Ha!” That’s what he called it when he shifted parish funds around like shell games and anointed committees of facilitators to “reimagine” everything the Church used to be.

I clicked a different preset. A cliché saxophone mewled over a languid backbeat, trying so hard to sound sad it was practically begging to be a track in a bad noir flick. I let it wheeze another bar, then turned the knob so hard the dial nearly snapped. Silence felt cleaner. More honest.

The chancery hulked ahead, like a mausoleum where the living paid rent. A single window glowed on the top floor. The bishop’s office. A puddle glimmered in the street ahead, catching the wan glow of the chancery’s security lights. It looked like oil. Maybe it was. Nothing stayed pure in Libville. Not water, not money, not faith.

I rolled past, slow, watching for movement. That’s when I saw him: Fr. Gilbert in his raincoat holding up an umbrella, his other hand gripping a leash like it might jump up and throttle him.

At the other end was Chester, the bishop’s dog. If that label still applied. In the jaundiced sodium glow, he looked like a bull terrier with a rap sheet, the sort that’d give George Booth nightmares, spine bent like bad theology, ears warped like old chancery minutes.

They were halfway across the lot when the clouds split open, and the moon came crawling out, low and as yellow as a nicotine stain. Chester lifted his muzzle and let loose a howl that sounded like it had been saved up since All Hallows’ Eve.

Gilbert glanced around, as if the night might explain itself. It didn’t. It never did.

I eased the Charger back into gear and slipped past them, tires whispering over the wet asphalt.

My smoke was nipped to the finger burn, but I let it smolder anyway. Tomorrow would be a marathon of dirty files, dirtier questions, and lies stacked like poker chips.

A few blocks on, I slid up to a washed-out motor court and doused the headlights, leaving the night to finish the story.

For now, I needed rack time. Even a conscience like mine had to sleep once in a … yellow moon.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Continued from Episode 4 – HERE

Episode 5: The Booth at Alibi Bar

Rain polished the streets of Libville into a mirror that only reflected bad decisions, the kind that start with a smile and end with crime scene tape.

I lit a cigar with a match struck off the dash and eased the ’68 Charger into gear. The engine rumbled low, the sound of an old promise you know won’t be kept. The black paint was worn thin in places, like a conscience you’ve talked yourself out of listening to.

I rolled past the shell of what used to be St. Vibiana’s. Now it was something called a “Center for Spiritual Re-Imagining.” Soft lights glowed in the windows and wind chimes tinkled like they had something to say. They didn’t.

The Alibi Bar squatted just off Route 6, where Libville’s faux-rural charm gave way to cheap gas and cheaper theology. The booths were sticky, the coffee bitter, and the jukebox hadn’t worked since Bishop Fatty’s consecration Mass. Come to think of it, neither had he.

I slid into the back booth beneath the flickering bulb. Fr. Tommy was already there, mood darker than the back of an unused confessional. He was like a man who hadn’t slept since Laudato Si’ dropped.

“You look terrible,” I said.

“You should see the other guy.”

I signaled the waitress for two coffees. No sugar. No illusions.

The priest slid a lumpy envelope across to me. “USB drive. Parish council minutes. Staff emails. Internal drafts of memos that never made it past the bishop’s secretary. Meeks has been ghostwriting them for months. Somehow she got Mrs. Kennedy’s username and password and she’s been hijacking her for who know how long.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And he signs them?”

Fr. Tommy shrugged. “Sometimes.  He thinks he’s being judicious.”

“This is enough to make the CDF twitch,” I muttered. “How’d you get it?”

Tommy glanced out the rain-streaked window. “Let’s just say not all the chancery staff are on Team Synod.”

I leaned in. “You know where this ends.”

He nodded. “Chancery. Tonight. Listening Session.”

“Let me guess: sacred circle seating, no agenda, pre-written consensus already drafted.”

“And printed on recycled paper scented with lavender.”

I tapped my cigarette on the edge of the saucer. “Patsy Meeks will be there.”

“She’s facilitating.”

“Of course she is. Anything said aloud gets transcribed. Anything inconvenient gets omitted.”

Tommy reached into his cassock. Pulled out a tiny mic the size of a rosary bead.

“I’ll be wired,” he said. “We get her to say it. Just once. The goal is suppression of the TLM.”

“That’ll be enough.”

I looked down at my coffee. It had gone cold and oily. Like most modern liturgy.

“You realize this could get ugly.”

Tommy looked me dead in the eye. “Tracer, for years in seminary I endured clown Masses in Crocs. I can handle ugly.”

We paid and left separately. Standard protocol. I took a side alley and circled back to the Charger. The rain had gone from drizzle to flagellation. The kind that made a man want to make a general confession and build an ark.

The headlights cut through the mist as I drove toward Libville’s cold concrete heart. In the passenger seat, the folder Tommy gave me opened under the blower – names poking at me in the alternating flashes and shadows.

Hugalot. Warmflannel. Wainwright. And now Patsy Meeks.

The Council for Inclusive Liturgy Innovation was about to have its final session.

And I planned to be there for the Dies Irae.

TO BE CONTINUED…