#what does she think of these conjugal visits among old friends?

[mustlovewillgrahamsdogs]

what i wouldn't give to have a scene where hannibal mentions the whole murder husbands thing to will 😩he's just never gonna bring that up? yeah right

[kiss-my-freckle]

The Apothecary

8x5 episode description: “The task force investigates an organization of bank robbers with a special expertise in stealing from other criminals. An old blacklist case resurfaces.”

My suspect: The Apothecary 

Reasons why:

1. Red’s collapses. 

The timing is perfect because it’s like a reverse of The Apothecary’s episode. Instead of suspecting Dembe of poisoning him, Red’s first collapse came at a time when Dembe’s imam was abducted. Red has no reason to suspect him, which removes their need to do an exact repeat. 

Snakes -

The woman’s snakeskin boots as she entered the room. 

"The lab did find one distinct element in the molecular structure of the drops taken from Robert Dahle’s apartment. A peptide unique to the venom of Bungarus flaviceps, also known as the red-headed krait."

Jennifer's reference in S6 that reminds me of Liz's reference in S4 and ties in Red's reference in S2.

"I'm the snake in the grass."

"I’ll do my job, but I am done cozying up to that snake."

"Our fake father's a criminal, and our real one's a snake."

Orion Relocation Services + Fate - 

There are other seeds, like Dembe standing by the Orion stained glass window. 

The Hunter and his arrows. This made me think of The Deer Hunter and Liz's marionette comment, which she first mentioned to Ressler in The Longevity Initiative (2x17).

This also pulls in Keenler’s Capricorn Killer soundtrack.

♪ What arrow? At what angle? And what angel? ♪

And I already know Agnes is that angel because she was referenced twice, by the woman from Paris and Skip Sutherland.

“She’s an angel.”

“For a surcharge, I’ll even watch the cherub.”

Red’s Stairway To Heaven comment. "Who the hell's Elizabeth Keen?" because Liz was wrong. "I'm expecting a little devil of my own." As Red already warned us she would be. "What makes you so sure you're not wrong this time?"

My question is, what the hell happened? You did. You and Agent Ressler.

All that glitters is gold + Like I said, silver linings

Red’s symptoms, which mirror that of his original poisoning, only it’s more like an ongoing attack rather than a one-shot. I think they’re getting the formula wrong because The Apothecary didn’t have Red’s medical file. Kate only needed so much from him anyway because of her skill set. 

“Well, just that whoever poisoned him knew his medical history - intimately. The toxins were uniquely designed to target his body chemistry.”

She attended medical school and she knew of Red’s medical history.

"Your tremors are gone. But not the underlying condition."

His tremors were gone because he wasn't drinking the wine.

"Fun fact - Li Qing Yuen ate wolfberries every day of his life and was said to have lived to the ripe old age of 256."

The tests -

“We thought, at first, you may have had a series of mini strokes. But the MRIs, the EEGs, they ruled that out.”

“Vitals are - okay. Pulse. You need an MRI as well as a CT-scan.”

The medical file -

“There were no medical records, nothing about Reddington on file.”

“About my chart.”

The wine (with both his collapses) - 

“An old blacklist case” for an “old friend”

“Elizabeth, I found the wine that was used to administer the poison.”

“What? Everyone knows wine is dehydrating.”

The difference in doctors -

Dr. Clemons: "Not for her."

Dr. Stark: "Someone she cared about."

For the same reason the woman from Paris didn't turn to Norman Devane for herself, Red didn't turn to Spalding Stark for himself. He's trying to donate to someone he's related to, someone he actually cares about. That's why Red isn't collapsing, having tremors, or showing signs of vision and/or hearing impairment when he visits Dr. Stark, only when he visits Dr. Clemons. He's seeing two doctors for two different reasons. That’s why Dr. Stark purposefully stated that he doesn’t test on children. He’d experiment on Red because technically, he’s considered terminally ill. He has a running hit on his head. Dr. Stark would provide Red with hope of saving his future - Agnes, his granddaughter. Agnes runs opposite Ames in The Pharmacist. That’s why Red is financing Stark.

“My - My daughter’s pregnant. I want to see my grandchild. I can get you the money.”

Just as he financed Dr. Shaw to save Liz. 

2. Elodie killing her husband. 

Taking note how Aram's dialogue to Elodie's dead husband mirrors Red's comment to Tom in 5x8.

"I, uh - I know this is super awkward. But I think this might be in your best interest."

"I’ll say this for you - you’ve always believed that you were acting in her best interest."

As well as Red’s comment to Kate.

"And yet, I know you believe what you did was best for Elizabeth, which is why I brought you here."

Aram's comment... lol

"Quick stick. Oh, God. Oh."

This ties in Liz's second memory wipe. “You were drugged. Propofol, Tramadol.”  imo, the reason they've been mentioning Tom so much lately. 

Add in Elodie's comment -

"Who comes up with all the nicknames? General Shiro. The Pharmacist. The Apothecary.”

And Aram’s -

“You used me. You got me to open up to you. That’s why you kept asking about Blacklisters. To seduce me into giving you a murder weapon.”

3. “stealing from other criminals” like Red’s statement to Marvin.  

"I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re criminals, after all. It’s in our nature to betray."

Judas hits back to The Pharmacist (Dr. Stark). 

“I’ve always found stories of betrayal to be so compelling, so tragic for all those involved. Judas, Iago, men who were beloved by those they’d betrayed.” 

♪ There is a judas among us Nobody here we can trust There is a judas among us ♪ 

4. Marvin and Becky.

This is a man who already lost a son to suicide.

"They tracked him down, of course. Returned the child to his mother. Marvin was disbarred, convicted, and incarcerated. A year later, Timothy hung himself. He was 15."

Went to prison for three years because of his work with Red.

"He forced the FBI to release you from prison a week before your parole so that you could become his accomplice and help him escape during a police standoff. You had a new fiancé at the time, a whole life waiting. What do you have now, Marvin? Alone, on the run til you die?"

While incarcerated, lost his chance to have children with Becky.

"Becky hit menopause while I was in that bird cage. We wanted kids, but if you must know, I had performance anxiety during our conjugal visits."

The bird references are everywhere. Atticus at the mental hospital. Red wanting to hear the birds sing in Isabella Stone's episode. Agnes and her cuckoo clock. Mato and his cuckoo clock. Red wanting to hear the bird sing in Miss Rebecca Thrall's episode. 

"Because I am working in a toy store!"

Then Marvin went to work in the toy section, which likely upset him more, but it's as close to kids as he'll get. It’s also likely he did time with The Apothecary (Asa Hightower) because they took the death penalty off the table in exchange for curing Reddington. 

"I’m here because I need information about the prison where you served. Wallens Ridge, something’s happening inside those walls, and I need to..."

"You take the death penalty off the table, and I’ll tell you how to cure Raymond Reddington."

The father Asa became, the father Marvin wishes he could be. Asa raping his wife pushes to Hannah Hayes' episode.

5. My predictions for Ressler.

I already did a full-length post on my predictions for Ressler. Not sure where it is and I don't feel like looking for it, so I’ll keep it basic. Ressler went with Red to Dr. Stark’s lab FOR A REASON. Red’s two-for-one sale will become his two-for-one investment. “This is gonna be a gas.” Damn right, it is. Ressler’s gonna look at Red’s medical file in the hopes of helping Liz, only to find out Red is Katarina Rostova aka N-13. Then Red is gonna threaten Ressler with fire just as he did Minister D because it’s all about those blackmail dialogues - found in Minister D and The Informant, as well as the one Garvey handed to us with the bones. Add in Dom’s warning to Liz in 8x2 because knowing is enough. 

“I don’t bite. Unless you ever utter my name. In which case, I’ll gut you like a fish and feed you to the lobsters.”

While Red is threatening him, Ressler’s gonna talk his way onto Dr. Stark’s table like Norman Devane was, only it’ll be for a DNA test to see if he's the father of Agnes. “Because I honestly don’t want her to worry. Whether she does or not is ENTIRELY up to you.” This will be what saves his pretty face from fire, and follow through with Tom’s 4x8 iou. Because Agnes is a Ressler, not a Keen. imo, Ressler’s gonna save two people - Red and Agnes. Red’s two-for-one investment simply by bringing Ressler to Stark’s lab. Because Red knows Agnes is in need of a donation, but he has no idea he’s being poisoned. Ressler’s gonna realize Red is being poisoned, while Red is gonna realize Ressler is the father of Agnes. The not-so- cliché future in-laws. 

The Apothecary hits in so many directions.

[ashtheshortstack]

Garlic in the Cauldron - Ch 2

Garlic in the Cauldron

Adrien Agreste learned from a young age that witches were the enemies to vampires. He was taught to kill on sight, drink them dry, and never look back… however, meeting a witch named Marinette threw his entire world off balance.

Ch 2 - Some Call it Magic

Read on ao3

<-Previous Chapter/Next Chapter –>

Hi, my dumb ass forgot to post this on tumblr last Thursday.

Sleeping was often a difficult task for Adrien, mostly because nightmares often plagued him. He’d often relive situations with his father, but his dreams would make them much more sinister and eerie. He felt a pain in his chest every time he’d awake from one of those intense night terrors. Sometimes he’d dream of witches capturing him and tormenting him, sometimes it was his father scolding him and leaving him to rot. There was no telling what type of torment his brain could concoct for him while he slept.

However, it had been a few nights since he’d met Marinette, and his brain had been oddly calm and kind to him. No vicious terrors or relived trauma for a few nights was a blessing for sure. He hadn’t expected to have a sweet dream of a giggling witch holding his hands with a faint blush on her freckled nose, that was for sure. But when he awoke with a smile on his face for the first time he could remember, he was thankful to have met her. He simply longed to find her again.

“Well, Romeo, that’s a love struct look if I’ve ever seen one,” Plagg teased as he hopped onto the bed beside the young vampire.

Adrien couldn’t stop the embarrassed flush that kissed his cheeks and the small smile that twitched its way to his lips. “Maybe,” he glanced out into the dark room. “It’s not fair. She shouldn’t be allowed to be so pretty.”

Plagg made a gagged sound. “Gross.”

Ignoring his familiar’s distaste, Adrien gaze a dream-dazed sigh. “You think I can see her again soon?”

The cat gave a hunched shrug. “Possibly. Your pops is going hunting again tonight, right?”

With an eager nod, Adrien beamed and checked the clock. He had about an hour before his father would leave. He hoped Marinette would be awake like she was the other night when they met. Maybe she’d be out flying again if he was lucky. He did worry about their sleep schedules being different effecting if he could visit her often. Witches may not need to be active at night like vampires did.

It was part of the life of being a “mythical” being. There was always a catch to their existence. For vampires, it was being allergic to many things, including sunlight. The one time Adrien even attempted to go out during the afternoon, he’d developed the worst rash of his life. Full of blistering hives and burnt skin. He remembered the pain and sobbing as his mother rubbed cream on the raw skin.

In retrospect, he really hadn’t realized how little he knew about witches until he started wondering how to maintain a friendship with one.

To his surprise, Adrien’s door creaked open and there stood Nathalie. Her arms were folded behind her back as usual, posture straight, and nose in the air. “Adrien, your father would like to see you.”

He tensed, sucking in a nervous breath. “May I ask what about?”

“I’m afraid I’m unaware of the nature of his request. I was only told to come fetch you,” she said with a shake of her head.

He slipped out of bed and paused, glancing down at his attire. “Should I get dressed?”

Nathalie gave him a pity smile. “I don’t think this is a proper matter, but he did sound urgent. Let’s go,” she said with a motion of her hand.

Adrien nodded, giving Plagg a quick concerned glance before following Nathalie out the door and down the halls. When she approached his father’s den, the crushing iron smell of blood hit Adrien’s nostrils. The scent was overwhelming to his senses, so much it almost gave him a headache. Adrien blinked away the watering in his eyes as Nathalie opened the door.

“I retrieved Adrien as you requested, sir.”

Gabriel spun in his chair, sitting straight with a whine glass full of bright red liquid that Adrien was positive wasn’t actually whine. His father’s elongated fangs protruded from his upper lip. Technically, as vampires got older, they could adjust the length of their fangs depending on the prey. Adrien just thought it was gaudy and something his father did just to appear more intimidating. Plus, he was still on the younger side, so Adrien wasn’t quite able to control his fangs yet.  

“Ah, I see that Nathalie just woke you,” his father sounded a bit amused, however, his face didn’t show the same. His brows stayed straight; eyes still as cold as ever.

Gulping, Adrien gave a polite nod. “Yes, Father. She said it was urgent that you speak to me.”

“Yes,” Gabriel took a sip of his glass before setting it down on his desk. His father properly folded his hands on the table, keeping sharp eyes on his son. Adrien felt the stare ripple through him. “Nathalie tells me you haven’t been leaving your room much lately. I’m concerned that you’re not getting enough substance in your diet. Blood is an important part of your consumption, and I fear you’ll fall into a frenzy if you don’t maintain it.”

“Oh, I’ve been drinking blood, Father, I promise. I just prefer eating solid foods. If there’s anyway we can make the blood more tolerable, then I’m sure I’d… consume enough,” Adrien explained. He decided to ignore the tidbit about staying in his room. Of course, he was staying in his room more. Plagg was much better company than the servant members of their clan. Nathalie didn’t like to humor him often, and the Gorilla didn’t speak at all.

“Son, we’re not humans. Eating human foods is not what sustains us. I know you’ve always been hesitant about drinking blood, but it’s what we must do. If you’re so insistent on cutting down on blood, then maybe I should start reserving some witch blood for yo—”

“No!”

Gabriel looked aghast at his son’s sudden outburst. Adrien froze, eyes wide and shoulders stiff. He was surprised himself. He hadn’t meant to burst out like that, but the thought of drinking witches’ blood was a hard no for him. Especially since he had just met one who he wanted to befriend. That sounded… immoral.

“S-Sorry,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “I’m just not interested in witch blood, Father.”

His father let out a hum, leaning over the desk. “I understand that new things tend to make you nervous. However, you will be carrying on my legacy one day, you realize. I suggest you get used to the scent and taste of it soon. Witch blood satisfies our thirst much longer than human blood does. It’s something to consider.”

Adrien swallowed thickly but bobbed his head in understanding. “Father, I don’t mean to disrespect you, but I’m still uncomfortable with the thought of hurting others in order to get their blood. I’m fine with getting blood already packaged instead of feeding.”

A chill went down his spine as his father snickered. “Adrien, don’t forget what you are. We are vampires. We are at the top of the food chain. Humans, witches, and all creatures fear us.” Gabriel tapped the table as he spoke. “That is a reputation I intend on upholding.”

“Yes, Father,” Adrien replied robotically. Licking his lips, he gained a breath. “I will make sure that I’m taking care of myself as well.”

His father smirked, fangs gleaming with pride. It made Adrien uneasy to see his father in this predatory state. He just wanted to leave. Wanted to run away as fast as he could.

“Good, son. I’m glad we understand each other,” Gabriel stood, grabbing his cup and gulping down it’s contents. The smell was so potent. That wasn’t human blood, Adrien knew that for sure. His father harshly plopped the glass back onto the desk. “I will be leaving to hunt. We found a new coven recently, and I intend to make the most of it.”

Adrien’s heart fell, but he hoped his face didn’t show it. He felt his throat tighten. Please, not Marinette’s coven. That’s all he wished. Not hers.

“I expect that you’ll drink plenty of blood this evening, correct?”

His body felt heavy. “Yes, sir,” he murmured.

Had he made her coven a target by visiting? Did he leave her scent for his father to track? Adrien certainly prayed that was not the case. His father bid him farewell, telling him to go eat and be more aware of his blood intake. Adrien followed him from the office and watched him conjugate with the fellow clan members in the foyer.

All eyes were on him. The high clan members stared him down. Their gazes unwavering as he started down the stairs. He was stunned, though, to see his childhood friend standing among the members.

“Chloe?” he asked, mostly to himself.

His eyes were wide as she gave him a smirk and a tiny wave with her fingers. She wasn’t allowed to leave the group, so Adrien approached her instead. “Hey Adrikins,” she cooed.

“Chloe, what are you doing here?”

The blonde cocked a brow at him. She scoffed. “What do you mean? I’m hunting with the clan. What’s it look like?”

Blinking, Adrien definitely wore his confusion on his face. “You’re hunting? We’re too young to join the elders for the hunt.”

Her posture changed, body loosening and her snobby posture changing to that of concern. “What? That’s ridiculous. We’re allowed to start hunting at sixteen.”

“Oh,” was all he could manage. His voice cracked a bit, his head hung low and the view of his shoes became a much better sight to behold than Chloe.

“Speaking of which, are you not joining us again this evening?” she asked as if she hadn’t just dropped an atomic bomb on him.

“I…I guess I’m not.”

He certainly recalled his father telling him that it would be years until he was old enough to hunt. Not that Adrien really wanted to, yet the fact that his father clearly thought so lowly of his abilities made him feel shameful. Swallowing, he gathered what little was left of his shattered pride. “I-I’ll see you later. Good luck.”

He left. Adrien started slowly, but once he was out of eyesight, he sprinted to his room. Slamming the door behind him, he leaned back against it, sliding down it slowly He groaned the entire way down. Hurt. Betrayal. Confusion. All of it swarmed in his gut. Was he really that much of a wimp to his father? He could have started hunting two years prior and never was there even any mention of it. Was he a burden? A nuisance? His father didn’t want to deal with him on the hunt.

Gabriel lied to him. Constantly telling him he was too young. Too inexperienced. That couldn’t have been it at all. How was he to get experience if his father never let him leave the mansion!? How dare he!?

“Woah, Adrien, you okay?”

Adrien opened his eyes to see Plagg’s concerned gaze. At least someone in this place cared about him. In a way, he guessed he should be grateful for his father’s decision. He would’ve never met Marinette, and if he was just like any other vampire, then Plagg probably wouldn’t have stuck around.

“Y-Yeah, I’m okay. Did you know that vampires start hunting at sixteen? And I’m eighteen and my father has just… conveniently forgotten to mention it for the last two years?” Adrien said, curling his knees to his chest.

Plagg trotted into the vampire’s lap. “I can’t say I know much about vampire traditions, but I can say that I don’t think you’d be the kid I know now if you were like the rest of your clan.”

He couldn’t help but smile and give Plagg a scratch under his chin. The familiar let out a brief purr, soothing Adrien’s heartache a little. “Thanks, Plagg.”

Opening his eyes, Plagg’s voice went flat. “What did he want?”

Rolling his eyes, Adrien sighed. “The usual scolding of me living my life. Father can’t seem to accept I’m not a blood-thirsty monster like he is. He yelled at me for not drinking enough. He even offered me witch blood, but I said no.”

Placing a paw on Adrien’s shoulder, the familiar smiled. “I’m proud of you.”

Adrien grinned. “I knew you liked me! You just pretend to be annoyed.”

“Ugh! Shut up,” Plagg pounced away and put a distance between the two of them. The familiar could pretend all he wanted, but Adrien knew he cared about him. “Anyway! Weren’t you wanting to visit a certain witch?”

Gasping, Adrien jumped to his feet. “Plagg! My father said he found a new coven! You don’t think I led him right to them, do you?”

Plagg hissed and started towards the window. “The likelihood is low. That’s the most protected coven in the area. We should check though. Your father should have left by now, so let’s go.”

Adrien watched the familiar shrink down small, taking his tiny form and floating towards the window. He followed suit by transforming into a bat, flapping his wings to catch up with the familiar. The two took off through the window. Adrien looked down and saw his clan marching off together in the opposite direction. He felt slight relief washing over him. If they were going a different way, then hopefully it wasn’t Marinette’s coven that they found.

 ________________________________________________________________

 Adrien was thankful to see Marinette’s coven still intact when he and Plagg approached it. All of the witches still seemed carefree and happy with their families. There seemed to be a street market this that day. Witches were exchanging goods in carts. It was probably potion materials.

“They look fine,” he mused.

Plagg hummed in agreement. “Yeah. If you’re going to meet Marinette, you should probably find somewhere just outside of the coven.”

“You’re right, but I have to find her first.”

Plagg chuckled. “We already have.”

Adrien’s head shot up. The familiar was right. None other than Marinette was soaring on her broom again. Her familiar was perched on her shoulder as they flew. It appeared that they were conversing with one another. Adrien hated to interrupt… no. Actually. He didn’t. He was just too excited to see her.

Flapping his wings, he sped up to catch up to her. “Marinette!” he called.

She perked up at the sound of her name. The witch glanced around, trying to find the source of the voice.

“Marinette!” he repeated as he finally fluttered beside her. She turned, making eye contact with him. “Hey,” he said.

Marinette shrieked. Her broom wobbled as she lost concentration. She leaned forward, gripping the broom as it began to sputter and fly back and forth in the air. His heart pounded. He hadn’t meant to scare her!

Granted, maybe approaching her as a talking bat wasn’t the best of ideas.

Her broom began descending quickly. Marinette wound her legs around it and pulled back on the handle in an apparent attempt to slow down the falling broom. It didn’t help much. She was dropping quickly towards a bundle of trees just outside of the coven streets. He couldn’t just let her crash into a tree! She’d be a witch pancake if she hit a trunk too hard.

“Hang on! I got you!” Adrien called as Marinette continued her panicked maneuvers.

Her broom caught between two branches, the momentum sending the witch flying forward. Adrien moved quickly, changing out of his bat form in midair, and catching Marinette in his arms. He clutched her to his chest as his back slammed on the ground. He skidded across the dirt, shoulders digging into the surface as his legs wound around Marinette, keeping her still. They came to rapid halt when Adrien’s back rammed into a tree.

With a grunt, Adrien grabbed his head. He breathed heavily, huffing to catch his breath. Cracking an eye open, he looked down at a flustered Marinette. Her cheeks were red, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She jumped off him, scooching away with arms held up in front of her. “Oh, my God! Are you okay?”

Adrien sat up with a chuckle, rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head from the blow. “I’m okay. Vampires are pretty sturdy.”

“I didn’t know you could turn into a bat!” she exclaimed, obviously still stunned by the whole ordeal.

With a nervous laugh, he looked down at his lap. “S-Sorry, it was an accident—”

“Well, you should be sorry!” her little bug familiar piped in. “She crashed her broom again and it was your fault! She could have been killed!”

Jeez. The little creature sure knew how to make him feel like shit. “I didn’t mean—”

Marinette sighed, snatched the red familiar away from him. “Tikki, lay off. It was my fault. I lost focus so my broom lost control. Leave Adrien alone.” She glanced at Plagg, who had returned to his cat form. “Why don’t you two go play nice?” Marinette smiled as she shooed her familiar over towards Plagg.

“Fine,” Tikki grumbled and began floating towards Plagg. “But I’m still watching you,” she finished giving Adrien one last glare.

Damn. That ice-cold look sent a shiver down his spine. He’d never felt so hated before. It wasn’t like Adrien didn’t understand. He did almost kill her owner twice now…

Marinette scooted closer, taking a seat beside him. He couldn’t help how his heart seemed to beat faster when she was around. Adrien glanced away anxiously. “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” she said and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I understand.”

Adrien looked up, smiling slightly. Why did she make him so nervous? He couldn’t understand it. “Do you make it a habit to crash your broom often?”

She let out a sweet laugh shaking her head in earnest. “No, I only seem to do that when a certain vampire is around”

He couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out. “Maybe, I should leave you alone then?”

“No,” she said immediately. Marinette gave him a kind pat on the shoulder. “I think I’ll survive.”

Sitting up straighter, Adrien puffed up his chest. “Well, I did save you.”

She let out a snort. “Yeah, uh huh. We’ll call it even since you tried to drink my blood a few days ago.”

With a grimace, Adrien clenched his jaw. She didn’t have to remind him. He’d been living with the guilt ever since he did it. “Sorry about that… again.”

“It’s okay. It meant something to you. I was an easy target. Besides, I think it worked out the end for us, right? I made a new friend out of the whole ordeal,” Marinette chimed with a smile.

He didn’t deserve to be in the presence of such a kind heart. Adrien wasn’t sure how he got so lucky so meet her. Nodding, he agreed. “Right.”

There was beat of silence. Adrien wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d been so excited to see her again that he hadn’t considered that the whole interaction might be awkward. He didn’t know what to talk about. She kept calling him a friend, but he wasn’t sure what friends did. Or how to interact. The only girl he’d ever spoke to was Chloe, and that was more him telling her what to do rather than a mutual friendship.

“Sooooo, um. I wasn’t really prepared on what to say,” she started, sucking on her bottom lip.

Adrien ruffled his hair at the base of his neck. “Yeah, me neither. I didn’t mean to make this weird.”

“No, no! You’re okay. Let’s try to make it not weird. Why not just… talk about each other’s kind? Obviously, I don’t know much about vampires since you’re the first one I’ve ever seen. I know the general look, the ears, the fangs, but I didn’t know you could turn into a bat.”

Adrien hummed. “Well, vampires have three forms. Our natural form is the one I’m in right now.”

“Huh. I didn’t know vampires had so many special tricks. I thought you guys just… growled and drank blood.”

He snorted with a grin. “I only growl sometimes. Anddd, I have plenty of special tricks. Like we have very good sense of smell and we can control our teeth.”

She cocked a brow. “Control your teeth?”

He nodded lifting his lip with a finger to show his fangs. “We can control our fangs eventually. It’s like an adjustment for the size of the prey. I’m technically too young to be able to do that yet.” Or so he thought. Could just be another lie made up by his father.

She looked at him with disbelief. “Huh. That’s… cool, I guess. Have yours ever, I don’t know, just popped out before?”

“I guess? Mine have only gotten longer when I drink blood or go into a frenzy.”

Marinette let out a nervous laugh, glancing away from him and rubbing her arm slowly. “Yeah, I’ve heard about those.”

Adrien did his best to comfort her with a small smile. “Don’t worry. I have a decent control over mine. It’s been almost a year since I’ve done that. As long as I maintain a good diet, I’m fine.”

“Oh? And what’s a good vampire diet consist of? Maybe, I need tips,” she giggled.

Needed tips? For what? She was beautiful.

He chuckled. “Oh yeah? Well, you may have to take a liking to blood since that’s mostly what we consume. But with a bit of human food. Like…” he paused to think. “You know the stereotype that human models barely eat anything? It’s like that. I only eat a small portion a day then drink blood the rest of the time. If I eat too much normal food, I’ll get sick.”

She seemed so genuinely interested. Marinette nodded in agreement, tapping a finger on her chin. “Oohhh. Huh. That must suck. I love eating sweets until I can’t taste salt anymore,” she replied with a giggle. She looked him over and smirked before tilting her head. “Witches eat people food, if you were wondering.”

“Really? And here I thought you guys ate rats you stewed in a cauldron. Sometimes human children if they stumble upon your secluded homes in the woods,” he mused.

He was worried that he had overstepped with that joke when she stayed silent for a moment. She stared at him as he gave her a simple hint of a smirk. Marinette sputtered before snickering behind her hand. “Oh, you’re joking.”

Barking out a laugh, Adrien grinned. “I was. Unless…”

She gave him a playful push to the shoulder. “Shut up.”

Adrien couldn’t help the joy the teasing and laughing brought to him. He paused, smiling at her as Marinette caught his gaze. Those bluebells sent him into a daze. She was so pretty. No one should be allowed to be so gorgeous. Her skin was like porcelain, the faint freckles that dusted her nose were too cute. His heart fluttered as her eyes bore into his.

Marinette’s cheeks flushed, and she quickly turned away. “A-Anyway, you were saying? About vampires?” she asked with a sideways glance.

“R-Right, um, yeah. Where was I?”

“Hmm,” she tapped a finger to her bottom lip. Adrien was ashamed to admit he tracked the motion, enthralled with how pink and pouty those lips were. “You were saying that vampires have three forms, right?”

“Oh! Yeah. So, this form, the bat form, and then… uh… the one that’s both? I don’t think we have a name for it, necessarily. It’s not used very often. I’ve—I’ve never actually done it before,” Adrien confessed. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to tell her about the third form. It wasn’t known that vampires had the third form. Most people who witnessed it… didn’t live to tell.

“Wait, so… what is it? You’re vampire but a bat too?”

Adrien hummed in agreement. “Yeah, I’d look like this but with some added bat features.”

Marinette sat up, scooching to sit in front of him instead of to his side. She definitely seemed interested in his life. It was flattering to him. “Does that mean you sprout wings?”

“Yeah. We have wings and claws. I think fangs tend to get longer too. Plus, the red eyes,” he explained. He bit his lip to hide the chuckle from bubbling out. She looked so at awe at the information coming out of his mouth.

“Red eyes?” she asked.

“Yeah. Our eyes tend to turn red when we frenzy too… Or when—” he stopped, tongue heavy in his mouth.

“When…?”

“When vampires drink witches’ blood,” he finished reluctantly. The sorrowful look on her face didn’t help matters. He wished he hadn’t brought it up at all.

Marinette stayed silent, staring down at her lap. “Do you drink it too?”

“No!” he said quickly with a shake of his head. God, that was the last thing he wanted her to think. He’d never had it. Never wanted it. He saw how… eccentric it made the other vampires. It seemed like too much of a boost. He was afraid of it. The only reason he was going to drink from Marinette was to prove to his father he wasn’t useless. After the information he learned today, that effort may have been futile anyway.

“You don’t? You’ve never?”

“No, I’ve never drank it,” Adrien insisted. She still seemed wary of him, fiddling with her fingers in her lap and avoiding eye contact. With a quick glance over at the conversing familiars, Adrien gestured to Plagg. “Hey! Plagg can vouch for me. Have I ever had witches’ blood?”

Plagg shook his head. “Nope, never. His dad even yelled at him about it today. He came back to his room upset about it.”

Adrien gave the cat a flat glare. “All you had to say was ‘no.’ I didn’t ask for the details of my life to be shared, thank you.”

After giving the familiar a small smile, Marinette gave him a concerned gaze. “Does your father yell at you often?”

Giving a lopsided shrug, he glanced away. “It’s… just something he does,” he murmured. There was a beat of silence. He glanced up, meeting the troubled look that glowed in those beautiful blue irises of hers. He didn’t want this to become a pity party for him. He’d already dealt with him enough that evening. Sucking in a breath, Adrien popped up straight and forcing a cheerier tone. “A-Anyway! Is there anything I should know about witches?”

Marinette seemed to get the hint to drop the subject. She recollected herself, sitting up straighter. “U-Uh, well! We have lots of festivals. We tend to visit one another often. Covens are very close-knit communities that spend a lot of time together. We all have familiars, obviously,” she said gesturing to her grumpy familiar. Her arms flailed wildly as she spoke. Adrien couldn’t help but find all of her mannerisms to be super adorable. “We… don’t melt when you throw water on us.”

“Oh, good to know,” he snickered.

“Yeah, so if you were planning to off me by throwing me in a lake, you’re going to have to find another way.”

With a grin, he shook his head. “I would never,” he said softly. Her cheeks flushed a little as her mouth formed a small o shape. Maybe that was too sincere for a time while they were still getting to know each other. Clearing his throat, he fiddled with his hair. “I-If you were trying to get rid of me by shucking me out into the sun, I won’t turn to dust. I just get a rash. Like a bad sunburn. Makes me sneeze too.”

Marinette laughed. “ So, that’s why you come here at night?”

He nodded.

She perked at that, tapping her chin with a hum. “You know, there’s a lot of legends and rumors about what hurts vampires. What if you just correct a lot of those for me… like… a question lightning round?”

He snorted but didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”

“Hmmm… okay. Is a stake to the heart the actual only way to kill a vampire?”

“Uh, that’d kill anybody, Marinette.”

“Are you actually dead?”

“No, we have blood and we’re living. It just pumps slower because our chemical make-up is different.”

“Does that mean you live forever?”

“No. Just longer than the average human.”

“What? Really? Us too!”

“How old?”

“About to two hundred or so?”

“Huh. Vampires too.”

“Nice!” she held a fist out, gazing at him expectantly.

Adrien blinked before slowly lifting his fist to bump his knuckle against hers. She beamed happily at him, and he couldn’t help but find her smile so infectious. He laughed. A laugh of pure joy and happiness. Something he hadn’t felt since his mother was around. He’d hardly known this girl, but jeez she made him so thrilled to exist.

“S-So, uh,” he seemed to find his voice again, beginning to speak. “Got anymore juicy secrets about witches?” God, he just needed the subject off of him for a moment. A breather would be nice.

“Well, obviously, we live high class lives full of high-quality food stewed in caldrons. We also have professional broom riding,” she boasted with a puff of her chest.

Adrien leaned back against the tree, crossing his arms. “I take it that’s not your hobby.”

Scoffing, she feigned a hurt expression and pressed a palm to her chest. “Honestly, how dare you assume that. You don’t think I’m good enough to be a professional?”

“Considering when I first met you, you crashed your broom on a clear night, yeah. I would assume that,” his voice oozed so much sarcasm.

Marinette cracked a smile. “Yeah, well, who needs professional broom riding anyway? I don’t see how they do it. Broom riding takes so much focus and energy. I can’t stay on one as long as they do.”

“It’s okay. I think that’s a special quality about you.”

Her cheeks dusted rose and she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “You think so?”

Adrien sat up, smiling as he did so. “Yeah, one of many.”

Gazing at him with those blue eyes, smile turned shy. “I have special qualities?”

“Yeah, of course you do. Obviously, you’re brave and a little crazy for even wanting to talk to me after the whole… uh, incident. You’re pretty, charming, and funny. I like being around you. And—uh—I wouldn’t mind meeting up with you more. And learning more about you. So that I can find more special qualities to tell you about.”

Marinette nodded, the sweet expression never leaving her face. “Okay. How about we meet again right here tomorrow?”

“You… really want to?”

Smiling, a hesitant hand hovered over his shoulder to shyly pat him. Adrien pretended the slight, gentle touch didn’t send tingles through his skin to his chest. Her voice was soft, the tender gaze never leaving her face. “Yeah, I do.”

Her grin was infectious as Adrien couldn’t help the twitching of his lips. “I’d like that.” Pausing, he turned away from her for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip. Leaning over towards her, he cupped his hand around his mouth in a mock whisper. “Between you and me… I don’t have any friends?”

Marinette let out an exaggerated gasp. “Really?” she asked, flopping her hands on her lap. “I really would have never known.”

Adrien laughed. “Yeah. What a surprise, right?”

“Well,” she said glancing away for a moment. “You do now.”

 _______________________________________________________________

 “See, Tikki, I told you,” Marinette boasted, puffing up her chest with confidence as she entered her room. “I knew I could learn about vampires by talking to him. And he didn’t suspect a thing about it. It was all just small talk.” She made her way over to her closet, opening the doors to pull out her pajamas for the evening.

Tikki crossed her arms giving her owner a flat look. “Are you trying to convince me you don’t like him or yourself?”

Pausing, Marinette turned to face her familiar. She tilted her head and cocked a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You like him. A lot.”

“Ha!” she let out a snort then snatched a t-shirt and polka-dot pjs out of the closet. “Yeah, right. This is research to defeat the Agrestes. Like learning vampires have three forms. That’s interesting, huh?”

Tikki squinted. “You told him he was your friend. Emotional manipulation of someone who is clearly lonely is cruel.”

“Stop it! I am his friend. He’s sweet, okay? If he needs me to be there for him then I will.”

“So, it’s not research?”

“It’s both!” she cried. Marinette groaned, stuffing her face into her change of clothes. “Tikki, stop hounding me about this. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

The familiar sighed, floating over to her owner with reluctance. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I know… I do like him in a friendly way. He obviously has a bad life at home. I know vampires probably aren’t the most nurturing of creatures, but Adrien seems sweet enough. He’s been through a lot with his mother. I’m starting to think his dad isn’t the best parent from what Plagg hinted at today,” she explained.

“Speaking of Plagg, we did have a conversation about Adrien. He told me a little more about him.”

Marinette finally shucked off her shirt, tossing it into the hamper before pulling her large t-shirt over her head. “Really?” she asked as she popped her head through the shirt. “Like what?”

Tikki grimaced, rubbing a paw along her arm. “Well, you were right about his father. Apparently, he’s very harsh and cold towards Adrien.”

She felt her shoulders deflate. “He doesn’t deserve that…”

“No… he doesn’t. I know I’ve been difficult with him, but I’m just doing my job to protect you. Plagg said Adrien stays in his room most days to talk to him. And that his father keeps him sheltered away from the rest of the clan.”

Heaving a sigh, Marinette popped open the button of her jeans and slid them off her hips. Tikki’s words were heavy on her shoulders. No one deserved to be hidden away from the world. Not even a vampire. She stepped into her pajamas as tears bubbled in her eyes. Marinette quickly blinked them away with a sniffle. Adrien really did try. She knew he did.

It didn’t make any sense. Why was she doing this to herself? Marinette was starting to question her sanity. This was a vampire. The ones who hunted down her kind like turkeys for a Thanksgiving feast. The boy tried to drink her. And it had terrified her. But when she saw that guilt-ridden expression on his face when he pushed away from her, she couldn’t help but have sympathy for him. He was clearly a broken soul. His mom was killed by witches, which should have made him much more hate-filled than he was. Anyone raised to hate an entire race wouldn’t so easily give up those feelings. But he had.

She couldn’t help but wonder if this was really blessing of fate. Marinette knew her purpose was to defeat the Agreste clan. It was a prophecy assigned to her at birth. It was why she was gifted the earrings by Master Fu at her sixteenth birthday. And suddenly, two years later, a vampire practically falls in her lap. A vampire who has never killed a soul in his life? Could it have been destiny that brought Adrien to her? Who knew, really?

_______________________________________________________________

 Adrien tip-toed into the kitchen. He knew he father and Nathalie were still out hunting with the rest of the clan, but the Gorilla was around guarding the house somewhere. He grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich with a glass of blood to go with it. The last thing he wanted was to accidently frenzy around Marinette, so he needed to keep up his strength. He noticed a block of camembert sitting on the counter. Plagg hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday, and there wasn’t any chicken or fish in the fridge… he’d already checked.

With a lopsided shrug to himself, he cut two slices from the wheel. He plopped the slices onto his plate, careful not to get the stinky cheese on his sandwich. Adrien quietly snuck back to his bedroom. He scooted onto his bed, careful not to spill anything.

Plagg hopped onto the comforter, eyeing him. Adrien held up a slice of camembert. “There was no chicken or fish, so you’ll just have to go with this tonight.”

“Is that cheese? I’m a cat, Adrien. Not a mouse,” Plagg hissed. Adrien didn’t hesitate, just continued to hold the cheese out for the cat to take. Plagg glowered at his kindness. Leaning forward, he took a tiny bite. Adrien chuckled when the familiar’s eyes lit up, taking larger bites.

Adrien took his sandwich from the plate and pushed the cheese towards Plagg. Sucking the blood from a straw, he watched the familiar munch down on the camembert. He gazed up at Adrien with wide eyes. “Kid, this is the best thing I ever tasted.”

Adrien had to keep himself from snorting the blood from his nose.

[pamphletstoinspire]

The State of the Catholic Church Today --Celibacy and the Married State

A CALL FOR RENEWED EMPHASIS ON THE CELIBATE VOCATION

Generally speaking, there are two principal vocations in the life of the Catholic Church: marriage on the one hand, and celibate priesthood and religious life on the other. Both are expressions of conjugal love. In the normal calling of marriage, an individual binds himself for life to another human being. In the exceptional calling of priesthood or religious life, an individual binds himself eternally to God.

The fruitful life of the Church has always depended upon a healthy interaction between these two states of life. In truly Catholic periods or cultures, an equilibrium has been established, whereby the family bears children, some of whom are called to religion, and religious life in turn justifies and sanctifies the family. In Willa Cather’s Shadows on the Rock, a novel about Catholic Quebec in the seventeenth century, a young domestic heroine’s love of order and cleanliness is such that she can’t sleep in a dirty bed. She is balanced in the world of the novel by a beautiful ascetic in a church in Montreal, walled up behind the Blessed Sacrament with a stone for a pillow. Like the French ships that convey to the Canadian colonies “everything to comfort the body and the soul,” the capacious hold of the Church enfolds both vocations. Neither Shaker nor Protestant, the Church affirms both women’s choices, just as the young heroine of the novel is enamored of her alter ego in Montreal, and the recluse, in her turn, prays for her brothers and sisters in the world, night and day.

Still, this mutual dependency and reciprocal respect notwithstanding, in the whole history of the Church the choice for celibacy has always been understood to be objectively higher than the choice for marriage, because the celibate anticipates in his flesh the world of the future resurrection. Rather than pass through the intermediate state of earthly marriage, the priest or religious steps outside the bounds of ordinary life and begins to live, in advance, the nuptial realities of heaven.

Contrary to popular impressions, the documents of Vatican II did not break with this traditional understanding. The same documents that resoundingly affirm marriage continue to assign to celibacy an “eminent” position, one “always . . . held in particular honor in the Church.” In the language of Lumen Gentium, the religious, by his profession, seeks “more abundant fruit” from the grace of his baptism, is “more intimately consecrated to divine service,” and “more fully manifests to all believers the presence of heavenly goods already possessed here below.” In St. John Chrysostom’s formulation, “It is something better than what is admitted to be good that is the most excellent good,” a conclusion echoed by John Paul II. “Virginity, or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way,” he writes in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, “bears witness that the Kingdom of God . . . is that pearl of great price which is preferred to every other value no matter how great.”

Put another way, the Catholic view of human life and history is never circular but always teleological, always “straining forward,” in the words of St. Paul, “to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13). Catholic family life is not ordered to itself, but to what is future and ultimate: life with God and his saints in heaven. Catholic families do not bear children simply so that their children may bear children, and so on. They bear children for God. As Hans Urs von Balthasar explained, for people like St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, all of whose living children ended their lives as religious, “It would be just as senseless and unchristian for a family to be shut in upon itself as for a believer in the Old Testament to reject its fulfillment in the New.”

Few families in the history of the Church have risen to the level of the Martins in this regard. But whether acted upon or not, whether explicit or implicit, there was a consensus in Christendom as to the direction and meaning of human life. When mortality was high and childbearing dangerous, when there was no Viagra or estrogen therapy, there were few illusions about the duration of either sexuality or marriage, and there was a general acknowledgment that, soon enough, everyone would be obedient, celibate, and poor. While the vast majority of people in those days chose marriage in the first place, if they outlived their spouse they were less likely than our contemporaries to choose marriage again. Even before death intervened, a small minority of spouses separated by mutual agreement and entered monasteries. Many more widows and widowers did the same. Marriage was not regarded as a treadmill to be endlessly resumed, but as a passing phase of life, even as everyone, married or not, was passing from earth to heaven, where “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matt. 22:30).

In the view of St. Ignatius, marriage was so provisional a state that it was scarcely deserving of a vow, for “it must be remembered that a vow deals with matters that lead us closer to evangelical perfection. Hence, whatever tends to withdraw one from perfection may not be made the object of a vow, for example, a business career, the married state, and so forth.” If we bristle at this seemingly low view of marriage, we might remember that in Ignatius’s day most marriages lasted until death, suggesting that what holds a marriage together more effectively than a promise or vow is the larger faith tradition in which an individual marriage is embedded.

The great novel of this view of human life is ­Kristin Lavransdatter, a three-volume saga of medieval Norway by Sigrid Undset. Late in the novel, when the widowed heroine is settled in a monastery after many years in the world, she ponders the sisterhood she has finally joined:

When, after this hour of prayer, Kristin went back through the dormitory and saw the sisters sleeping two and two on sacks of straw in the beds, clad in the habits which they never put off, she thought how much unlike she must be to these women, who from their youth up had done naught but serve their Maker. The world was a master whom ’twas not easy to fly, when once one had yielded to its dominion. Ay, and in sooth she had not fled the world—she had been cast out, as a hard master drives a worn-out servant from his door—and now she had been taken in here, as a merciful lord takes in an old serving-maid and of his mercy gives her a little work, while he shelters and feeds the worn-out, friendless old creature.

Of course, in the view of the human community, intent on its own ­survival, it is one thing when an old ­person leaves the world for religion, and quite another when a young person, and someone’s heir, does the same. In the abstract or the case of someone else’s child, Christendom conceded the superiority of celibacy, but when the Franciscans or Dominicans came to town families famously locked up their sons. Humanity is ordered to fecundity, and Nature fights for her rights, “pleads her cause with prodigious eloquence, with a terrible power of seduction.” Like the ­Israelites in the Old Testament who insisted on a visible king (1 Sam. 8), Nature demands physical intercourse and blood heirs, and fiercely resists any prioritizing of God over human beings or future over earthly goods. Thus even the most saintly celibates, in their youth, met with scandalized resistance and hostility.

It is easy to forget, for example, now that St. Thérèse’s cult is secure, what the neighbors were thinking and saying as, one after another, the Martin girls left their widowed father for the convent. When Thérèse was finally canonized and her family’s dreams realized, Céline, Thérèse’s sister, recalled “the humiliations that had been our lot and that of our dear father: relatives distancing themselves from us, apologizing for being part of our family; friends and acquaintances who said among themselves: ‘What good was his piety?’”

It is easy to forget, too, that hostility to celibacy can also afflict the saint in an interior way. St. Francis was not only stoned in the street, but taunted by internal accusers. We think of him as having made one definitive act of renunciation when he stripped himself in the town square, but a close reading of his life suggests a long struggle, painfully waged. As he said sardonically toward the end of his life, “Don’t canonize me too quickly. I am perfectly capable of fathering a child.”

But once the struggle was over, and the miracles and answered prayers began to appear, the celibate in former times was reclaimed by the human family, because he had proven himself fertile after all. Resistance gave way to acceptance, and acceptance to passionate acclaim. Then everyone wanted a piece of the saint; everyone wanted access to his body and his prayers. Then the one once coldly spurned for choosing heavenly over earthly goods was joyfully embraced for bringing heavenly goods to earth.

In Shadows on the Rock, Cather traces this trajectory in the life of the recluse in Montreal. On the far side of her parents’ anguish, her fiancé’s grief, and her own suffering, the recluse emerges as a binding force in Catholic Canada, a treasure held in common. After angels repair her spinning wheel in her upper room in Montreal, the story travels across country:

By many a fireside the story of Jeanne Le Ber’s spinning-wheel was told and re-told with loving exaggeration during that severe winter. The word of her visit from the angels went abroad over snow-burdened Canada to the remote parishes. Wherever it went, it brought pleasure, as if the recluse herself had sent to all those families whom she did not know some living beauty.

If the vocation of the recluse is extraordinary, the vocation of the priest is ordinary. But one meaning of ordinary is quotidian, and whereas miracles of the recluse’s sort are rare, the priest works his miracles daily. Every day, in the confessional, he forgives sin. Every day, on the altar, he brings God to earth as food. In the character of Bishop Laval—in his height and his great age, his legendary charity and formidable endurance—Cather gives the reader an icon of the dogged, indispensable vocation of the priest. If the recluse in her atelier is literally raised above the common lot, the old bishop in his daily work is literally on the ground with his flock. But his vocation, too, is vertical in its orientation. His vocation, too, reaches to heaven. The recurring image in the novel of the old man at work is the image of him ringing the church bell before dawn, calling the working people to Mass:

Many good people who did not want to go to mass at all, when they heard that hoarse, frosty bell clanging out under the black sky . . . groaned and went to the church. Because they thought of the old Bishop at the end of the bell-rope, and because his will was stronger than theirs.

Both the recluse and the priest, by their sacrifices and prayers, knit together the human family. But it is on the renunciations of the priest, especially, that the spiritual life of the laity depends. In the Catholic view, the life of Christ has passed into his sacraments, and only the priest can effect the sacraments that fully bring Christ’s life to Christ’s body. The spiritual health of Catholic people depends in a fundamental way on certain individuals choosing the vertical orientation of celibate priesthood over the horizontal ­orientation of marriage. Married life in the Church is never equal to priesthood and religious life but always dependent on them, as the horizontal of the cross hangs on the vertical. Earthly marriage is never an absolute but always an intermediate vocation, ordered to the ­Wedding Feast of the Lamb as a means to an end. The recluse in her upper room, the old bishop hanging on the bell-rope that disappears over his head—these are examples of individuals who have vowed themselves to God above all, and who then hand down to those below what they receive from above.

We have been speaking of the traditional ordering of the Church’s life, her traditional understanding of the relationship between her lay and religious vocations. Today, has this understanding changed? From the outside, the Church seems as committed to celibacy as ever. Before a non-Catholic knows anything of the Church’s life, before he attends a Mass or sees the inside of a confessional, he is aware of this man or woman, this priest or that nun, whom he perhaps passes in the street, and who then becomes the face of the Church for him.

If he is like most outsiders, he will be wary of this face, or sign, that he connects, correctly, with celibacy. He may be uncomfortable or repelled by the sign, or he may be attracted to it or impressed by it, but in any case, for him the priest or nun will be decisively Catholic. Inside the Church, asked what is most important to Catholicism, the practicing Catholic will probably answer, the Eucharist. But the outsider, without having read a word of theology, is most keenly aware of the priest, who in fact makes the Eucharist possible.

Or our outsider may encounter the Church in so-called Catholic literature, where again the Church’s traditional views will be communicated to him. ­Either he will read about priests or nuns (The Diary of a Country Priest, In This House of Brede, Morte d’Urban, Mariette in Ecstasy), or he will read about a love between a man and a woman that gives way before a greater love (The End of the Affair, Brideshead Revisited, Kristin Lavransdatter). These latter ­novels—so different from the novels of Jane ­Austen!—might well have affixed to their frontispieces as a warning Paul Claudel’s axiom, “God promises by his creatures but only fulfills by himself,” or François Mauriac’s baleful observation, “Today, after so many centuries, [Christ] is still there . . . just as we know him in the Gospels, with his ­inordinate demands, ­separating man from woman and woman from man, destroying the human couple to the scandal of many.”

Protestant novels, primarily concerned as they are with familial and social arrangements and the individual’s place in them, ordinarily end with marriage. But the Catholic novel, whose proper subject matter is the relationship of the individual to God, can only be finally consummated outside the bounds of the novel and even of life itself, which explains both why so few Catholic novels are entirely successful, and why so many end with death. The emphasis in Catholic literature is never on social consolidation and earthly marriage. Rather, the true Catholic note is a note of rupture and transcendence, rupture and implied restoration on a higher level, goods for which religious life—real people making real sacrifices with an eye to eternity—stands surety.

Even in non-Catholic, equivocally Catholic, or anti-­Catholic literature or films, if the Catholic Church comes into the story, priests and religious represent her, reinforcing for our outsider the Church’s traditional ordering of her internal life. Always it is the exceptional calling of the priest or the nun, or the even more exceptional calling of the priest who is also an exorcist, that stands for the Church, in a kind of metonymy. The author’s attitude to Catholicism may be melodramatic and hostile (Henry James’s The American), sardonic and world-weary (Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory), or conspiracy-minded and debunking of Catholic claims (anything by Dan Brown), but in every case the author’s fascination with Catholic priesthood and religious life is self-evident.

The media, too, turns out to be obsessed with priests and nuns, whether railing against them (Pope Benedict, abusive priests) or fawning over them (Pope Francis, liberal American nuns, Mother Teresa). Even the sexual abuse scandals in the Church, and the media’s preoccupation with them, evince the Church’s traditional claims, testifying as they do to the tremendous importance of the Catholic priesthood, for good or ill.

From all of this evidence, either consciously or unconsciously our outsider will conclude that celibate vocations are the key to the Catholic Church. It follows that if he decides to become a Catholic ­himself, it will be religious life that has attracted him; otherwise he would be content to become, or remain, a Protestant. Put another way, he desires something more than baptism and marriage, the only ­sacraments Christendom agrees can be effected without a priest. He may have ideas of becoming a priest or a religious himself. Or he may feel a need for the strengthening that confirmation promises or for the mysterious food of the Eucharist. Perhaps something weighs on his conscience that he has been unable privately to shake off; or he has had experience of evil, experience that has shaken and defiled him, and harbors a hope that a priest may be able to help him.

On the other hand, it may not be a specific sacrament but a whole way of life that attracts him, an attitude to life very different from what he has encountered elsewhere. On the deepest level, a person comes to the Catholic Church because he is disappointed with everything else. Work, family life, other religious communions have not sufficed. Our convert may have been abused in his natural family or betrayed in a marriage, but even if his relationships have been harmonious and his work in the world successful, he begins to feel that the horizon of his life is simply too low. Dimly, he begins to understand that natural affections not ordered to eternal realities are doomed. And so he finds himself attracted to the idealism and higher horizon of Catholic religious life. He hears the silence and the gales of laughter coming from behind convent walls, or he witnesses the serene, life-giving fatherhood of a holy priest, and he wants to be part of a church that has such vocations in its midst. If he is married, he begins to suspect that his marriage cannot stand on its own but needs the bracing vertical of celibate priesthood and religious life to keep it true. If he is single, for whatever reason, he hopes to discover his life’s true meaning in the Church, the Church that has never held up marriage between a man and a woman as the highest good.

In brief, whatever his situation, he wants his life ordered to what is greater. He wants a larger context for his private projects and relationships. And he wants peace, the peace that the world cannot give, and expects to find it in the Church that has always prioritized the contemplative over the active life.

So our outsider becomes a Catholic. And in the Church of the late twentieth and early twenty-­first century, what does he find? Certainly, the priest is still there, celebrating Mass, baptizing babies, presiding at marriages. If our convert needs to be baptized, a priest will baptize him. If he was previously baptized as a Protestant, a priest will hear his confession, a priest or bishop will confirm him, and he will receive the Eucharist consecrated by the same priest or bishop. And in the reception of the sacraments—in the sacrament of baptism most dramatically, but in the other sacraments as well—the convert will receive, together with an entirely new or reinvigorated life, an indelible impression of the generative power of the Catholic priest. From this point on, he will be able to attest to it from his own experience: The priest, at his ­ordination, receives potency of a supernatural kind, capable of generating and sustaining new men and women, who live by the power of Christ, who has redeemed them.

Still, however momentous the changes wrought by the sacraments of initiation, and however powerful the convert’s impression of the part played by the priest, soon enough, as he perseveres in his new life, he begins to understand that, in the Church at large, the center of gravity—or at least the perceived center of gravity—has shifted away from the minis­terial priesthood. What he previously may have understood in the abstract—that thousands of priests were ­laicized in the aftermath of Vatican II, seminaries emptied, and monasteries collapsed—he now begins to understand in the concrete, in the plain fact that in many parts of the country there simply aren’t enough priests. And even where there are enough priests, he notices that their sacramental importance has been de-emphasized, and distance introduced between them and their parishioners.

For example, after he consecrates the Eucharist, the priest in many parishes sits to one side while lay people distribute the sacrament to other lay people who, in turn, communicate themselves.

As for the sacrament of confession, in many parts of the country it has all but died out. One hour a week in most parishes is all the time allotted to confession, and even then, there is often nobody there. The consensus seems to be that the general confession in the Mass is sufficient; personal confession to a priest is no longer necessary.

Then, too, because the laity can distribute the Eucharist, they often carry it to the sick, where again, a traditional opportunity for confession—not to mention reception of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick—is lost. And as cremation becomes commonplace and even many Catholics scatter cremains, a growing number of Catholics now dispense with a Funeral Mass altogether, denying the priest even that last, traditional opportunity to exercise his ministry.

As for exorcism—a particular competency of a specially trained priest—many archdioceses no longer have an exorcist on staff. All of which leads one to wonder whether the priesthood is presently de-emphasized because there aren’t enough priests, or if there aren’t enough priests in part because their ministry is increasingly de-emphasized. It should be admitted, too, that there are priests who cooperate in their own marginalization: by refusing to visit the dying at night, for example, or to hear a confession outside the scheduled hour.

Meanwhile the laity, the state to which so many priests and religious reverted in the wake of the council, is everywhere in the ascendant. If the priest’s job description has shrunk, opportunities for the laity have expanded. The year 1987 was explicitly dedicated to the laity, but all the years since Vatican II could properly be called the Era of the Laity, when it has been widely announced that the laity have come into their own. They are the true Church of God, this line of reasoning goes; the ordained ministers are simply the supporting cast. It is the active apostolates that matter; contemplative life is disappearing because it has been outgrown.

Accordingly, the emphasis is no longer on the priesthood per se but on “the priesthood of all believers”; no longer on literal poverty but on “detachment”; no longer on virginity but on “chastity according to one’s station in life.” Marriage especially has been elevated in the Church’s preaching to a point where even well-formed Catholics now believe that it is equivalent to priesthood and religious life. Scriptures that challenge this view are either shrugged off (“Jesus didn’t mean that”) or reinterpreted and then applied in a spiritual or metaphorical sense to the laity.

At the same time, there has been a strong push to identify and canonize more lay and married saints, as if the small number of married saints relative to the number of canonized celibates were a function of prejudice rather than the fruit of an underlying truth. Among young intellectual Catholics, John Paul II’s Theology of the Body continues to be in vogue, at least those parts of it that line up with contemporary pieties. And as marriage and family life have been increasingly romanticized, the question is increasingly asked whether priests shouldn’t be allowed to marry, too, and the physical privileges of marriage universally enjoyed. Everywhere the emphasis in the Church is increasingly on natural rather than supernatural relationships, in a shift that amounts to a kind of supersessionism in reverse, as the natural or blood family, as in Judaism, comes to the fore.

It was in this Church, influenced both by Protestantism and the secular culture and ideologically primed for a final shrugging off of the priest, that the news of the clerical sexual abuse scandals surfaced. It was at this point, at the very end of the century Pope Leo XIII foresaw would be dire for the Church, that we learned that, devastating as was the vast exodus of priests and nuns after the council, the real problem wasn’t those who left but a small percentage of those who stayed, like Judas who stayed with Jesus even when many of Jesus’s other disciples fell away (John 6:60–71) in order to deliver the death blow from within.

In the chaos that followed, as waves of disbelief, fury, and grief swept through the Church, the surrounding culture, smelling blood, moved in for the kill. Now it could be openly expressed: hatred for the Catholic Church and her celibate hierarchy. Now the traditional script in which the celibate is belatedly vindicated by the holy fruits of his life could be torn up and replaced by a script that says that celibacy ends in depravity and asceticism doesn’t have to be affirmed at all.

In this script, celibacy isn’t an ideal but an abomination. It isn’t a harmless anachronism but an occasion and even a cause of sin. No one can be celibate, not even Jesus himself. The sexual fantasies that tempted Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The DaVinci Code treats as historical facts, suspensefully unearthed; and by 2013, in Mark Adamo’s opera The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, sex between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is simply a ho-hum given, with the Magdalene now Jesus’s teacher rather than the other way around (“Rabboni!”), as she initiates him into the mysteries of carnal love.

As for Jesus’s mother, the original celibate and contemplative in the Christian tradition—the one who, standing in the breach, delivered to the world the Christ she conceived from above—she, too, must be pulled down. If celibacy is the problem, Mary especially must be defamed and the Annunciation repudiated, because it was at the Annunciation, the hinge on which history turns, that a new principle of generation entered the world. In the past, when the Church was in disgrace, Mary was given a pass, but no longer. Now the blasphemies enumerated in the First Saturday Devotions from Fatima—Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception, ­Blasphemies against [Mary’s] virginity, and so on—take on flesh.

If the blasphemers hesitate to attack Mary directly, indirect methods serve. If she isn’t credible as a villain, perhaps she may be credible as a victim. The Irish writer Colm Tóibín’s strategy, in his 2013 play and novel The Testament of Mary, is to have Mary desacralize herself. In her own words, in her “testimony,” she dismantles both her own reputation and Christianity’s. As she tells it, there was no Virgin Birth or Incarnation. There was no Resurrection. The disciples made it all up, for gain. They pressured and manipulated her, harassed and tormented her. Her contempt for these imaginary disciples is Tóibín’s own contempt for contemporary Irish priests, just as Thomas Cromwell’s attitude to English monks and nuns in Hilary ­Mantel’s novels Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012) is Mantel’s own attitude to Catholic celibacy, expressed through the character of Cromwell.

In these widespread contemporary attacks on the Church, vituperative outrage and blanket condemnations are the rule. In Peter Matthiessen’s 2014 novel In Paradise, it is taken for granted that Pius XII and the Vatican were responsible for the Holocaust. In the 2013 film Philomena, a lay person—Philomena herself, an unwed mother of a gay son—can be holy, but no priest or nun. Celibates by definition are monsters of hypocrisy and enemies of natural life.

Hilary Mantel, being a greater artist, plays a deeper game. In her acclaimed novels about ­Henry VIII’s England, Thomas More is her villain, as much for his hair shirt as his orthodoxy, and Thomas Cromwell her hero, the man who pulled down ­England’s monasteries. But outrage and self-righteous indignation are not Cromwell’s style. As Mantel conceives him, Cromwell is the future: the reasonable, practical, thoroughly secular man, the man in whom the religious impulse is finally dead. The passions of religion—the zeal of the reformers, the anguished scruples of More, even the ­attenuated orthodoxy of the king—leave him cold. Even contempt is too strong a word for his attitude to religion and those still deceived by it. As the revelations of clerical sin in our own day finally cease to shock, and anger and disbelief give way to disgust and contempt, ­Mantel, as Thomas Cromwell, proposes indifference as the last word, the final nail in the coffin of Catholic Christianity.

And the Church’s response to all of this? Because of the guilt of the few, she has been largely silent before her accusers. As the scandals have unfolded, she has scarcely attempted to defend celibacy. Instead, she has circled the wagons around marriage. Sometimes it seems as if all the idealism formerly attached to priesthood and religious life has now been transferred to marriage and the natural family. In my parish, the pews that emptied after the scandals have gradually filled up with large, homeschooling families. New rituals have appeared: a children’s offering at the offertory, a final blessing for children too young to receive Holy Communion. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have become red-letter days in the Church, and not only weddings but even some proposals of marriage are undertaken with a pious solemnity formerly reserved for religious professions. And whereas St. Ignatius deemed marriage scarcely deserving of a vow, now, on a regular basis, married couples are invited to stand and renew their marriage vows en masse, in a ritual uncomfortably reminiscent of the mass weddings of Sun Myung Moon.

And still there is virtually no preaching on priesthood or religious life. There is talk of natural family planning more than of Jesus’s supernatural family, “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). In the past, on Holy Thursday, the pastor washed the feet of other priests and lay brothers, witnessing to the truth that Jesus washed the feet of men who had left everything to follow him. Now, on Holy Thursday, he washes the feet of married men.

In the short run, it does no harm and possibly much good to try to strengthen monogamous, lifelong marriage. But to think that this is the answer to the Church’s problems is to think as man thinks rather than as God thinks. In the long run, if the vertical to which the horizontal relationship of marriage is ordered comes down, not only marriage but the Gospel itself will fall. When the Church stresses relationships between creatures more than the relationship of the individual to God—when she treats marriage as an end rather than as a seedbed for vocations—the Gospel message itself is compromised. The hard Paschal truths at the core of Christianity are suppressed: the truth that the natural family is never fully commensurate with Christ’s new family; the truth that a man’s enemies will be members of his own household (Matt. 10:36) and that in order to be Christ’s disciple he must hate not only father and mother, wife and children, but even his own life (Luke 14:26). And in the atmosphere of tribalism, human respect, and sentimentality that ensues, an illusion of human sufficiency creeps in, an illusion that, in our human strength, we can meet one another’s needs.

Recently I heard a sermon preached on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. In Matthew’s parable, ten virgins go with their lamps to meet a bridegroom. The five wise virgins have oil for their lamps; the five foolish have none. When the bridegroom is near, the foolish ask the wise for oil, but the wise refuse them. Looking for oil elsewhere, the foolish are shut out from the feast. When they return and knock, the bridegroom says, “I do not know you” (Matt. 25:1–13).

The meaning of the parable is clear enough. It is about the vertical dimension of the Christian life: the primacy of the individual’s relationship to God and the limitations and final inadequacy of human relationships. The virgins who hold on to their oil are not condemned by Jesus; on the contrary, he calls them wise. The foolish show their foolishness both in their delinquency and in their attempt to get oil from the others. The “oil” that lights our human lamps—our fundamental fuel, if you will—comes from God. Like the oil of chrism in the sacrament of baptism, it signifies sanctifying grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift of grace we can receive only from God, either directly in prayer or sacramentally through his chosen ministers. We can neither give it to others, nor receive it from them. The high virtue of charity—“willing good to someone,” in ­Aquinas’s formulation—demands that we tell this truth. To ­attempt, instead, to do what the foolish demand of us—to try to be “nice,” in other words—or to make foolish demands ourselves, avails nothing. But the preacher, influenced, I dare say, by current trends in the Church, offered his own interpretation. “Here’s what I think,” he said. “They should have shared.”

For Catholics like myself, who at some point in our lives decamped to the Catholic Church from the lower horizon of Protestantism, these are discouraging times. It is disheartening, to say the least, to see the Church so infiltrated by the surrounding culture and so demoralized by the recent scandals that she is in danger of rejecting in her own life what is most decisively Catholic and selling for a mess of pottage her deepest mysteries and highest privileges.

Ideally, in the Church’s life, there is a ­continual interplay between marriage and celibacy, sensuality and asceticism, like the interplay in the creation ­between heat and cold, day and night, light and darkness, and so on, all of which rhythmic ­oppositions, in their alternating times and seasons, bless the Lord (Dan. 3:57–88). Even within marriage itself there were seasons of feasting and fasting, indulgence and abstinence, just as in the Church’s traditional attitude to marriage there was idealism but also a healthy skepticism, romance but also a bracing note of sardonic realism (“better to marry than burn”), that paradoxically served marriage well. In fact, it was by downplaying earthly marriage and ordering it to what was greater and eternal that the Church ensured marriage’s health, tamping down ­unrealistic expectations and not placing on marriage a weight greater than it was intended to bear.

In our relational lives there is only one absolute good, and that is our relationship to God, a good denied to no one, lay or religious, who seeks it, prioritizes it, sacrifices for it, holds fast to it. Relative goods, on the other hand—including health and success, marriage and children—man cannot demand. God dispenses relative goods as he sees fit, in order to help man find his way to the final good of eternal life with him.

But in our culture, and increasingly in the Church itself, marriage is not regarded as a means but an end. It is not considered a relative but an absolute good, and therefore a right. The usual solution or sequel to widowhood or divorce in our day isn’t a late religious vocation or a salubrious solitude, but more marriage, or more venery in Roger Angell’s phrase in a recent essay in the New Yorker: “More venery. More love; more closeness; more sex and romance. Bring it back, no matter what, no matter how old we are.” In a climate like this—a climate for which the Church bears a certain responsibility, given her abuse of the grace of celibacy and her disproportionate enthusiasm for marriage—what does the Church say to homosexual persons who wish to marry? What does she say, for that matter, to the invalidly remarried who want to receive the Eucharist and are dumbfounded by the suggestion that they forgo sexual relations in order to do so? Should we be surprised that in a culture that so privileges marriage over celibacy, many Catholics now assume that the Eucharist is ordered to marriage rather than the other way around—that the choice for marriage is primary, in other words, and the ­Eucharist simply a secondary enhancement?

Once marriage is understood to be an absolute good and a right, it becomes very difficult to explain why, in certain circumstances, the goods of marriage have to be set aside. When the Church herself doesn’t value celibacy at its true value, it is all but impossible to recommend celibacy to others. The less robust and exemplary the celibate example in the Church, the more the idea spreads that the choice for God costs nothing. The less celibacy is apprehended and lived as a grace, the more it begins to be thought of as a punishment.

In the long run, undervaluing celibacy is a suicidal path for the Church. But already certain individuals suffer grave harm from the depreciation. For the individual, nothing is more important than the choice of vocation. Nothing is more important than that he find his true path in life, the path that God has marked out for him. When a vocation is correctly discerned, even its most formidable challenges can be met; when mistaken, even its ordinary burdens may prove hard to bear. Accordingly, one of the most important responsibilities of the Church is to help people discern their vocations. But in a time like the present, when at best an equivalency is assumed between marriage and celibacy, and at worst celibacy is implicitly or even explicitly devalued, what happens to the individual who is actually called to celibate priesthood or religious life? How is his capacity to respond to God’s call—especially the call to sacrifice sexual goods—affected by a widespread insinuation that such a sacrifice is unnecessary, that there is no special benefit to celibacy, and as far as sanctity goes, as good a result can be had from marriage?

At this point, we have entered what von Balthasar calls “the zone of the ambivalent,” in which people offer to God things good in themselves, but not the things God has actually asked of them. Such evasions are perennial temptations for the Christian. Indeed, one could paint the whole history of Christianity as “the history of all the things [Christians] offer to God as substitutes in order to escape the act of real faith.” So the question must be asked, whether the Church in our day is enabling and even encouraging such evasions by not telling the whole truth about vocations.

In the past, in Christian cultures, a paradigmatic movement can be traced, in the collective psyche if not across actual terrain, from the world to the monastery. In our time, the paradigmatic movement has been from the monastery to the world. Following the general migration in the Church, various novels and memoirs have followed individuals from religion to lay life: Kathryn Hulme’s 1956 novel The Nun’s Story, for example; or Karen Armstrong’s 1981 memoir Through the Narrow Gate; or Colum McCann’s 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin, in which a male character who has taken religious vows is eventually brought to bed by a woman. On the face of it, these narratives reject the austerities of religion. But on a deeper level they turn out to be spiritual tragedies, their predominant note not one of triumphalism, but of sadness. Even in a culture like our own, in which the propaganda runs all one way, the ideals of religious life, like the virgin martyrs themselves, turn out to be hard to kill.

In the Catholic Church the whole truth abides. All truth has been entrusted to the Church, according to Jesus’s promise (John 16:13). Whether or not a given truth finds expression in a particular time or place is not finally important. What is important is that neglected truths remain in the Church’s treasury, like recessive genes, waiting for favorable conditions or an auspicious hour in which to express themselves.

The wait may be long. Blessed John Henry ­Newman, in an 1850 sermon on the occasion of the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England, described a wait of three hundred years. But when the three hundred years were over, “the Church came forth not changed in aspect or voice, as calm and keen, as vigorous and as well furnished as when [the prison doors] closed on her.”

In the Church’s treasury, along with other neg­lected truths, the truth of the preeminence of her celibate vocations is still there. It is there in the relevant Church documents, for anyone and everyone to read. It is there in Catholic literature and in the example and writings of the saints. It is there in the story of Jane de Chantal, who famously stepped over her own son on her way to founding the Visitation Order, or the example of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, who, like many others in the Church’s history, took a vow of celibacy during their marriage. It is there in the sensus fidei, or “supernatural sense of faith” of the whole people of God, who in our day beatified by acclamation (“Santo subito!”) not lay or married people as the Congregation for the Causes of Saints might have preferred, but John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a celibate priest and a celibate nun.

Finally and most consistently, the truth about the evangelical counsels is there in certain passages of Scripture, proclaimed in their turn at Mass, as the cycles of readings require. Year after year, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether faithfully ­expounded or passed over in embarrassment, the relevant Scriptures are read—“Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:22); “It is well . . . to remain single” (1 Cor. 7:8); “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have and give to the poor” (Mark 10:21)—and men and women respond, in diminishing numbers for many years, but now again in greater strength.

Relative to the laity, priests and religious will always be few, even where vocations increase. It is inevitable that they be few, because the demands placed on the celibate are beyond the reach of most men. Yet it is on the example of the few that the rest of the Church depends: for the sacraments, in the case of the priest, but also for a visible witness to the contemplative foundation of every Christian existence. We live in a world where Freudian ideas still hold sway, including the idea that religion is a sublimation of sex. The celibate, by his example, proposes a truth exactly opposite: that every other love, every lesser love, is a sublimated form of the love of God.

In the greatest saints, these sublimated forms fade away into the mysterious, unmediated brightness of God himself. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was not a philosopher like John Paul II or a lawyer like Thomas More; he was not a teacher like Elizabeth Ann Seton or a subtle theologian like Thérèse of Lisieux. He was a religious and a priest, an alter Christus even to the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. Coarse and unsophisticated as he was, in his person the vertical of the cross—the love of God above all created things—was manifest. Writing to a friend after a visit to San Giovanni Rotondo monastery, Don Giuseppe De Luca, an Italian historian of Christian spirituality, shared his impressions of the wounded friar:

Padre Pio, dear Papini, is a sickly, ignorant Capuchin, very much the crude southerner. And yet (bear in mind that besides making confession to him, I also dined with him and we spent a great deal of time together), and yet—God is with him, that fearful God that we glimpse in revery and which he has in his soul, unbearably hot, and in his flesh, which trembles constantly . . . as if battered by ever more powerful gales. I truly saw the holy there, holiness not of action but of passion, the holiness that God expresses. Although he is a man of very meager intelligence, he offered me two or three words that I have never found on the lips of other men, and not even (and this is harder to admit) in the books of the Church. . . . There is nothing of ordinary spirituality about him, nor is there anything extraordinarily miraculous, stunning, or showy; there is merely intelligentia spiritualis, a free gift from God. And there is a passion, even a human passion, for God, dear Papini, that is so beautiful, so ravishingly sweet that I can’t tell you. The love of woman and the love of ideas are nothing by comparison, they are things that do not go beyond a certain point, whether near or far. While the love of God, how, I do not know, burns, and the more it burns the more it finds to burn. I have the absolutely certain sensation that God and man have met in this person.

Article written by Patricia Snow

[fatgirlsguidetodating]

Blog: Love behind bars; online dating for prisoners.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m boring. But I truly don’t get the desire to pick a criminal’s profile to correspond with on a dating site. But it happens. Regularly enough for there to be a few sites catering to this need. One of my tweets even had a response from one of those sites offering free subscription or something. I didn’t take them up on the offer. Hell if I struggle to find a normal decent guy on the dating apps and sites I’m currently using why would I then look for love in prisons?

Take the example of Canadian killer Dustin Hales. He killed his wife while the lady both he and his wife had been having a relationship with watched. He was found guilty and given a life sentence with 17 years non parole. Now he’s on one of the dating sites for women on the outside to write to men inside called “Canadian Inmates Connect.” The majority of men on the site are openly looking for love or- at least- conjugal visits.

When asked why she set the site up founder Melissa Fazzina said she thought it could help promote rehabilitation by allowing the inmates the chance to forge and nurture positive connections in the outside world. Those working in the field cautiously agree.

“Almost anything that can create a sense of community and belonging upon release, or even while you’re in there, increases the possibility of a safe reintegration—because often these guys are coming out with nothing and nobody.”

Catherine Latimer, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, a non-profit organization that works with offenders and promotes just and humane responses to crime, echoes this sentiment: “They’re in prison as punishment, not for punishment. They have a right to communicate with people. They have a right to have family and friends on the outside,” she says. (1)

It should also pointed out that even without the websites this sort of thing happens and has done for a long time. Consider Charles Manson, for example, who almost married his long time pen pal/fiancee. In England notorious inmate Charles Bronson, serving a life sentence, married a lady who wrote to him. Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, who murdered and dismembered 13 people in the 1980s, had no trouble finding a bride. Doreen Lioy started writing to Ramirez after falling for his picture in the paper. They were married in 1996 in the prison waiting room. Ted Bundy, a rapist-murderer who was suspected of murdering 35 young women, attracted gangs of admiring groupies who sat patiently through his court cases. Even John Wayne Gacy - not the most eligible man, with a history of drugging, raping and murdering 30 young men in Chicago - ended up marrying a woman he met while awaiting the death penalty. Even Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a purpose built cellar as his sex slave for 24 years, received hundreds of letters.

The cliche of the prison bride as trailed trash with peroxide dyed hair and a cigarette hanging out her mouth with a vocabulary that consists mainly of swear words is actually misguided. Research has shown these women all come from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic classes, different professions, different levels of education. Some were married, some weren’t. Some had kids, some didn’t. Carlos the Jackal become engaged to his lawyer last year. The famous Glasgow hard man Jimmy Boyle married a psychiatrist he met in prison. But it does make us ask why?

From the research I’ve done quite often serial killers or those who have committed a crime- or crimes plural- are often inundated with “fan mail”. And often the letters are super sexually explicit, contain naked photos, and proposals of marriage. From what I can gather all too often the women want to try and understand the man behind the monster, perhaps even to help them find redemption. What makes someone do this? Are they lonely and in search of emotional dependence from a captive audience? Or manipulative sociopaths living vicariously through ‘celebrity’ prisoners? Are they turned on by the fame that these ‘celebrity’ prisoners gain? Do they have their own issues- psychological or otherwise- that makes these men attractive to them? Englishman Alex Cavendish, former inmate and currently a social anthropologist, cites a few reasons.

Major factors to consider are dependency and control. “Dependence works both ways - financial for many prisoners, particularly those who don’t have family ties, as well as emotional.” He explains. In describing the type of women who write to prisoners he says, "I’ll be honest and say that a fair few of the female correspondents are lonely women who often have body-image concerns (many of those whose photos I’ve seen tend to be overweight.) They feel perhaps that a prisoner is likely to be less judgmental and more appreciative of any support - emotional and/or financial.” Of course it’s not all about love. Many women (and men) choose to reach out simply to provide friendship and compassion to those behind bars. Their actions provide a much welcome lifeline, a window to the outside world. (2)

A book called "Women who love men who kill” author Sheila Isenberg examines the idea of prison lovers and it seems that my feelings of why are common. Family and friends, even strangers, genuinely are bewildered at why women would put themselves in such a complex situation. (2)

She also explains that most often these women are damaged- they’ve been hurt in the past; they’ve been sexually abused, psychologically, emotionally abused. So a relationship with a man in prison leaves the woman in control. He’s locked away, he can’t hurt you, you decide when to visit him, you even decide whether or not to accept his collect phone calls. So they feel safer. (3)

Issenberg cites an example of a British woman who has been engaged to several death-row inmates in the USA, all of whom have since been executed. Yet she, and many of these women, claim they didn’t specifically chose the course for themselves. Karen Richey’s partner, for instance, is on death row in Ohio. Karen says that she wasn’t looking for a love affair when she made contact with Kenny, a 38-year-old Scot: “My war cry is that I only wanted to be a pen pal. Kenny insists this is going to be on my grave stone.” (4)

There is a condition known as hybristophilia (often referred to as “Bonnie and Clyde syndrome) which Wikipedia defines as "a paraphilia in which sexual arousal, facilitation and attainment of sexual orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed an outrage, cheating, lying, known infidelities or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery. ” Don’t get me wrong- we all have had the bad boy phase at some point in our lives but I think this is taking it a bit too far.

The thing is though that the fantasy of these types of romances rarely matches the reality. For starters physical contact us obviously limited thus they often never progress past the courting stage. The men spend their days exercising or working in their prison jobs and in the evening writing letters to the women or trying to phone them. They are more compliant and attentive than they would be on the outside because the women send money, pay for their legal representation and afford them the tremendous parole advantage of a permanent address as well as the fact there are little female distractions whilst locked up.

Clinical Psychologist Dr Stuart Fischoff likens it thus; “The love object is almost irrelevant at this point. [The prisoner] is a dream lover, a phantom limb.” (2) Prison relationships therefore seem to retain the intoxicating elements of the “honeymoon period” of all relationships, where that first endorphin-flush of love always involves a degree of transference; whereby we all see our partners as we hope them to be, imagining that the love object embodies the qualities we crave. The excuses the women give for their partner’s alleged crimes operate as in all other relationships. They do what we all sometimes do when faced with negative information about loved ones: they refuse to believe it. They aren’t having to ask the men to pick up their dirty socks or put the toilet seat down.

When it comes to how these women dealt with the knowledge they were in love with someone who’d committed a terrible crime found ways to rationalise it or mitigate the crime and excuse it. For example: he didn’t really mean to be that murderer. In the course of interviewing women for her book Issenberg cited one woman who said, 'He was awkward and when the door hit him in the arm, the gun went off.’ And another one who said, 'His friends were all drinking and doing drugs and he got carried away and he didn’t mean to do it.’ (3)

So how do these dating sites for men behind bars work? Well they are like dating profiles on conventional dating sites. There’s a photograph, a short bio, hobbies and interests. The only difference in this part is the details of their incarceration. Again like conventional sites women pick the guy they like the look and sound of and start writing to them, building a rapport and hopefully a romantic relationship.

“Love a Prisoner” claims to have a “75% compatibility rating for those looking for their soul mate” – including inmates on death row. “Our mission is to give inmates a sense of hopefulness by connecting them to people on the ‘outside world’,” the website states. (5)

The forums on "Write a prisoner” give insight into what the women are looking for. They include things such as chatty prisoners, ones who don’t ask for money, and ones who haven’t committed sex crimes. The women have also slammed claims they are “groupies” of men who have committed vile acts. (5)

“Meet-an-Inmate” claims to be ranked #1 among prison pen pal websites and has been helping inmates connect with the outside world since 1988. They claim it’s a free, easy way to brighten up an inmates day but stress they are NOT a dating service. (6) However despite this romantic feelings can- and do- develop. There have been quite a few marriages from the site over the years. The founder, Arlen Bischke, explained that many prisoners get cut off from their family and friends so correspondence can really brighten their day. (7)

Christian Science Monitor reported that the online prisoner dating industry has grown from humble beginnings. Leading sites now boast “between 7,000 and 10,000 ads” and ABC News claim there are over a dozen major prisoner dating sites now. (7)

In conclusion I must admit to a certain fascination with true crime. I’ve got two shelves on my bookshelf dedicated to the genre after having discovered it during my undergrad legal degree and then my postgrad in criminology, as well as my time working in prosecution and the courts for the government. Shows about true crimes fascinate me. I devoured “making a murderer” (and read Jereme Butings book about that and the illusion of justice for indigent defendants which is pretty much the same in Australia these days given legal aid cuts mean cases are means tested and if they don’t think there’s a chance of winning they won’t take it purely because of lack of resources) and am loving “murder uncovered.” I’ve read a heap of books on Ivan Milat, Julian Knight, Bradley Murdoch and the infamous “underbelly” underworld crime spree. But would I then think to myself okay I’m going to write to these guilty criminals and maybe start some kind of friendship that could perhaps grow into a relationship? Hell no I don’t. (NB: I don’t believe that Steve Avery of MAM fame was guilty but that’s beside the point here.) I have no desire to want to correspond with killers, with men who will likely die in prison, let alone try and fall in love with them! Not only would it be an unequal and strange relationship but there would be no point. Plus the little fact that I don’t get turned on by men who could kill another human being with scant regard, or no regard, for the sanctity of life and the pain and suffering it would consequently create. And though I’ve really tried to understand the women who do this while researching and writing this blog post, and whilst I even partly understand some of the reasoning in bits, I just don’t get it. Love behind bars is just not for me.

Fatgirl.

Sources:

(1) https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/inside-the-matchmaking-service-for-murderers-rapists-and-violent-offenders

(2) https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/dating-a-prisoner-what-attracts-people-on-the-outside-to-fall-in-love-with-convicted-criminals-10326587.html%3Famp

(3) https://www.google.com.au/amp/attn-google-amp.herokuapp.com/stories/6268/why-women-fall-in-love-prison-inmates

(4) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/13/gender.uk

(5) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/living/2907384/women-who-send-love-letters-to-prisoners-reveal-what-they-look-for-in-a-jailbird-pen-pal/amp/

(6) http://www.meet-an-inmate.com/

(7) http://thegrio.com/2011/12/20/online-sites-for-dating-men-in-prison-1/

Other sources:

https://www.google.com.au/amp/jezebel.com/5755106/women-who-marry-prisoners-arent-just-crazy-ladies/amp

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10665003/Murderous-love-Why-are-so-many-women-aroused-by-serial-killers.html

http://m.topix.com/forum/city/cape-girardeau-mo/TPEUTFH8HOOU5H9AF

Sites to meet prisoners (if you’re brave enough….)

http://www.conjugalharmony.com/

http://loveaprisoner.com/

https://www.prisondatingsite.com/

http://www.femaleprisonpals.com/

http://www.writeaprisoner.com/

http://www.prisonpenpals.net/

[newstfionline]

I’m 19 Years Old, I’ve Never Been To School

Bastien, Rue Amelot, Jan. 30, 2017

Identifying himself with just his first name, Bastien wrote this piece in French for the website of the Paris daily Le Figaro.

I live in a small village in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France with my four brothers and sisters. My father works in industrial maintenance and my mother takes care of the family. I attended kindergarten because I had asked to go there. But I left after a year. My siblings aged 18, 15, 12 and 9 followed in my footsteps. I believe my mother would have done the same thing when she was a child if she had a choice.

Unlike those who are home-schooled, I didn’t have a set time to learn things, as advocated by the “unschooling” principle. It means that my parents never taught me at home the same way a teacher does at school. I was first interested in reading at age 6, but it lasted only a few weeks. My parents didn’t insist. It was only when I was 9 that the will to learn how to read came back. I was tired of only being able to look at pictures in books at the library. It was only then that I learned how to really read. After that, I read all the Harry Potter books by the age of 10!

I learned math by cooking. If a recipe was intended for four people, I had to learn how to multiply it in order to have the right quantities for six. To this day, I still don’t know my multiplication tables but it’s not essential for me to know it either. As I read, I learned how to spell. But I still struggle with conjugation.

I enjoyed having this flexibility in the learning process, the freedom to go at my own pace. It made me resourceful because in order to visit friends, I had to go far, take the train, etc. I also took djembe classes for three or four years. Most of all, I was able to ride my bike a lot with all the free time I had.

As a child, I developed a passion for the legend of King Arthur. Now I love science fiction, fantasy literature and video games. I can easily form bonds with adults and younger children. I don’t feel the generation gap as other teenagers who would only hang out with people their age would. What’s more, I’ve spent a lot of time with my parents who took turns to educate us. My mother took care of it most of the time but my father did his part too. Not that it prevented me from having a teenage crisis! I’ve had conflicts with my parents just like anybody else. But I never reproached them for raising me the way they did.

Some friends who were raised like me say they regret not having gone to school. But that’s not my case. The only thing that annoyed me was the distance between my friends and I. Thankfully, we were always able to keep in touch via Skype. Until I was 10 years old, I played with other kids in our village, building huts among other things. But when we reached adolescence, we had different interests. That’s when I started to get closer to other teenagers in the same situation as mine.

I also didn’t like inspection days [The days when education ministry officials visit homes where children don’t go to school]. They never visited when I was a child but they did, several times, when I was a teenager. Those days, I felt a little under pressure. My mother used to keep a notebook where she would write everything I had done, all the places I had visited such as museums and what I’d learned.

When I was 16, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was spending way too much time in front of my computer, playing video-games or chatting on Skype with my friends. One day, my parents asked me what I wanted to do. At about that time, I visited an eco-friendly construction site that friends of my parents were overseeing. A lot of volunteers were working there, and I used to visit it just to get to know people. But what they were doing quickly aroused my interest.

Since there weren’t any specific qualifications for this type of construction work, I applied for a professional certification in public building maintenance--a more general qualification. I prepared by going over past exam papers and I took the exam thinking I wouldn’t pass. But I actually did.

Now, I’m training and working on the eco-friendly construction site at the same time. In the future, I want to become a trainer in straw construction. Eco-friendly construction is a developing sector with bright prospects.