Get Thee FROM The Nunnery...

St. Joseph of Cupertino Parish
Chicago, Il

Maxine:
I wish you a safe trip back home, and thank you for sharing the facts about Sybian, Felix, Mia, and Bishop Bassanni with me. Some of what you told me was absolutely shocking, so please excuse my bluntness in our conversation. I have had to answer a lot of questions lately. But I thank you for the pleasant day at the estate; the altar girls are very taken with Francesca and Ramona, and would dearly like to go back.

Now that I understand better your circumstances, perhaps what I can share with you will shed light on the events at the convent and the following days.




Upon hearing a gunshot that night, my housekeeper informed me the police were arriving at the convent. As I rushed over, I met one of the paramedics, “Mary Katherine,” whom I knew from the parish, and she told me to bring my anointing kit. When I arrived at the room where all the police were, I immediately saw the Bishop lying on the bed in a mess of blood-soaked sheets. On the floor, near the door, lay Pedro Yarez, to whom I rented the convent. Both bodies appeared lifeless, so I knelt down and began to administer the last rites to Pedro, while the police were taking all the witnesses down to the station for further statements.

Dipping my finger in the sacred oils, I anointed Pedro’s forehead, eyes, ears, lips and hands, signifying all the human faculties with which he may have offended God in his life. Then I moved to the bed to anoint the Bishop’s corpse.




Again, I traced the sign of the cross on Bassanni’s forehead and eyes. But as I was anointing his ears, my finger felt something. I hesitated --- there it was again. I’m not a doctor, but I know the body goes through strange convulsions after death. When I felt it a third time, I called to Mary Katherine who listened with her stethoscope and then yelled, “HOLY SHIT! I GOT A PULSE! THIS ONE’S STILL
KICKIN’!!”



They pushed me out of the way, and in one choreographed movement began to work on him. Mary Katherine radioed the hospital to be ready, as they moved him on to a stretcher and rushed him to the ambulance. That was the last I saw of the Bishop.

I could get no further information from anyone until an administrator from the archdiocese called two days later to tell me the Bishop had indeed passed away, and the Cardinal specifically wanted me to celebrate a memorial mass for Bassanni before his body was flown back to Italy. There was to be no public viewing of the body. The next day a funeral home from out in the suburbs brought the casket into church, I said the mass in the presence of altar girls and a couple of faithful parishoners (“funeral groupies” we call them.) The casket was put in the hearse and it drove off. Fait accompli.

As I now know more details of your involvement with Felix Culpa, I will see what I can find out “on da street”, as they say. Frankly, I’m more than a little curious, myself.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Ernest Raynor