The Seminary Chronicles “What Cadei Really Said”

Now if you read the post before this one, you should have known there is more to the story.  If you haven’t read that post, please go do so now.  We will wait for you… 

<humming Jeopardy theme>

Okay!  Good.  Now we are on the same page.

So why should you have known there was more to the story?  If you think about it, it is not that far reaching that a bunch of seminarians stayed up past bedtime, praying for a fallen Pope.  Unusual, maybe, but not a stretch at all.  So why did I remember this night so well if it is not a stretch?  Well I am glad you asked.

What made this night so unusual is what Fr. Cadei said after we had started praying for the loss of a great man.  After he stood up in his PJ’s and headed back to the lectern, he had a very stern look about him.  Now as crazy as Cadei was, he was normally a very cheerful man.  I had only seen this look from him once before and that is when he was dragging me out of the chapel for reading “The Bastards”.  (You’ll need to search the archives for that story.)

So this was bad news indeed. 

“The Holy Father died today.” He began, “And all of you killed him!”

Whoa!  This is new!  I/we had been accused of many things in my/our short existence, but being able to teleport to Rome, kill the Pope and get back before lights out was something I couldn’t imagine, even in my youth.  So to say that this was a little weird, even for Fr. Cadei, is something of a understatement.

“You have killed the Pope-a (Italian accent) by your sins.  You have brought shame down upon the Holy Church by you ungodliness and wickedness.  Now we must pray.”

And he again turned, kneeled before the alter and began with the litany of prayers.  And we prayed. 

I’ll be the first to admit.  I am a sinner.  I am now as I was then.  But I don’t think that there was anyone there that night that had sinned enough to kill a Pope.  Not even collectively.  Even me reading “The Bastards” more than likely could not kill a Pope.  Besides, I had already done my penance for that sin.  To think that a bunch of pimple-faced seminarians had sinned enough to knock off the leader of The Holy Catholic Church is, well, absurd.

But then again, what did we know?   We had Fr. Cadei, in his most blazing and convincing form, yelling out prayers and asking the Lord’s forgiveness for the sin of murder that we all had done and evedently done very well because the Pope was dead and we were indeed the guilty party.

This is what I truly remember from this night.  Not the fact that I was kept up well past bedtime, praying for the fallen Pope, although it is indeed unusual, it was the fact that I, personally and collectively, was being accused of actually killing the Pope albeit metaphorically. 

I also have to admit, I stopped and thought about what I was about to do if I started thinking about Farrah Fawcet or whatever form of mischief I was about to perform after that night.  If only for a second or so.  After all, what if Fr. Cadei was right? 

Hmmnn…maybe the guy wasn’t so crazy after all.