Memorie Monday -- Is this my fifteen minutes?

Sometimes all you can say is, “What the heck happened?”  Karen put it in stronger terms and asked
 me if I was related to Ned Flanders.

Our local paper read my story about Cilla and Fr. Barryfitzgerald and called for an interview.  But not with me – with Cilla.  I said they could talk to me.  As much as Cilla loves the spotlight, I didn’t think it would be good for her.

So the reporter said, “How did you feel when your daughter insulted a priest?”

“Not as bad as I felt when he told her that her grandmother was going to Hell.  It was a very bad thing to say.  Of course,” I felt obliged to add, “that doesn’t make him a bad man.”  (“Though he probably is,” I added in my head.)

“So you forgive him?”

“As a Christian, I have to.”

“Are you going to pray for him?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess so.”  (Not the best attitude, I suppose, but it was the best I had.  I’ll have to pray for a better one while I’m at it.)

It must have been a slow news day, because they ran the story with the headline, “Priest Damns Lesbian Couple to Granddaughter.”    They recapped the story and quoted me.  They said that Fr. Barry and the church had no comment.  Janet told me later that they talked to Kate, probably looking for some feminist or gay rights comments, but she just dazzled them with theology.  She didn’t get a mention.

I cut out the story and put in the pile of things to be put in the family scrapbook it I ever get the time.