I grew up as a Roman Catholic. I started out going to Immaculate Conception church, but for whatever reason (I wasn’t consulted) my mother switched us to St. Jude’s Mission. The priest at St. Jude’s was Father Diamond, but he was assisted by Father Holley, who I remember today only as a producer of apalling sermons. (I specifically recall one whose central illustration was evidently adapted from Tony Orlando and Dawn’s Tie a Yellow Ribbon… quite closely adapted, right down to the bus driver and the hundred ribbons tied to the old oak tree. The only worse sermon illustration I ever heard was from a Presbyterian pastor, who talked about the boy with no ears. Which might have been the inspiration for this story.)

My guardian angels must have been working overtime, because that’s all I remember about Father Holley. But some people have other memories of him. In fact, he is a “textbook case” of how the Church covered up priest abuse. I only just learned all this when Google found me this story about what he’s been doing lately.