After a few pleasantries she led them to a study off the main entrance hall. The room in which they were to meet the spokesperson was oak-paneled, formal, lined with books. In the center was a round table, highly polished, ringed by six velvet-seated chairs.
A few minutes later the door opened.
Father Michael Raphael was much younger than either Jessica or Byrne expected. In his twenties, athletic looking and handsome, he carried about him an air of boyish vulnerability, as well as the outward confidence needed by the point man for such a powerful organization as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The archdiocese covered not only Philadelphia, but Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties as well. Its reach, and influence, was great.
Jessica didn’t know that much about the priesthood, but she did know that for Michael Raphael to have been ordained at this young age, he’d had to have entered the seminary with a bachelor’s degree. His age and position were surprising on many levels. Priests fresh out of the seminary were usually assigned to smaller parishes, or to menial tasks in the larger ones. This duty, being the public relations officer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was a plum position.
And while his good looks were beguiling, it was his eyes that held you — dark, penetrating eyes that seemed to look right through you.
‘I’m Michael Raphael,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’
‘Nice to meet you, Father,’ Jessica said. It seemed odd for her to be calling someone around ten years her junior ‘Father,’ but old habits died hard. Especially those drilled into you by a Catholic school education.
They all shook hands.
Raphael gestured to two chairs at the table. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves comfortable.’ He then indicated a beautiful antique serving cart near the tall windows. ‘May I offer you tea or coffee?’
Both Jessica and Byrne declined. Raphael poured himself a black coffee, took a seat opposite them. They exchanged small talk about the long, brutal winter, the plight of the Sixers and Flyers.
‘I have to say that we were expecting someone older,’ Byrne finally said.
Raphael smiled. ‘I get that a lot. Alas, this will stop a lot sooner than I would like.’
‘I don’t hear much eastern Pennsylvania in your voice,’ Byrne said. ‘You’re not a Philly boy?’
‘Very astute, detective. As much as I would like to claim the City of Brotherly Love as my hometown, I cannot. I’m from Ohio. Southeastern Ohio to be more precise, just across the West Virginia border.’
‘I thought so,’ Byrne said. ‘Browns or Bengals?’
‘Browns, I’m afraid. We Franciscans are a long-suffering order.’
Small talk finished, Byrne got down to business. ‘Have you been briefed at all about why we’re here?’
Both Jessica and Byrne took this as a given. They’d had to put together a bullet list of things they wanted to discuss before being granted a meeting.
Raphael nodded, sipped his coffee. ‘I have,’ he said. ‘As you might expect, the archdiocese is quite concerned. We’re here to assist in any way we can.’
‘We appreciate it,’ Byrne said. He continued, giving the priest basic details and timelines regarding the murders of Daniel Palumbo and Cecilia Rollins.
Raphael listened, expressionless.
‘While the buildings were vacant, it is likely that whoever is doing this is committing these crimes in a Catholic church for a reason,’ Byrne said.
The unspoken part of what he was saying was that there might be a connection between the killer and the Church itself. Whenever a church closed, there were bound to be disgruntled parishioners, not to mention priests, nuns, lay workers.
At one time, in a small section of North Philly, there had been a Catholic church every few blocks, churches with primarily parishioners of the same ethnicity — Italian, Polish, German, Lithuanian, and ‘general’ parishes, as they were known. In Philadelphia the Irish parishes were called ‘general’ parishes because, at one time, if you were Catholic and spoke English, and you lived in Philadelphia, you were probably Irish.
Byrne picked up his notebook, flipped a few pages. ‘Can you tell us, briefly, the process by which the archdiocese closes a church?’
Raphael thought for a moment. ‘This is not something undertaken lightly, of course. It’s a process that can take many months, sometimes years, often accompanied by a great deal of heated discussion and debate. A neighborhood parish is, for many people, the center of their community. It is where babies are baptized, the young are confirmed, marriages begun, lives honored at funerals.’
When Raphael said the word ‘babies’ Jessica’s mind flashed on the image of little Cecilia frozen into the old washtub. She felt the rage rise within her. She battled it back.
‘As I’m sure you’re aware, there have been many church closings over the past fifteen to twenty years,’ Raphael said. ‘When enrollment in the parochial schools drops, the revenue begins to dwindle. The sad truth, at least for the city parishes, is that most Catholics have moved into the suburbs. The exodus really began after the Second World War, but accelerated in the seventies, eighties and nineties.’
Raphael turned his cup in its saucer, continued. ‘When a parish shrinks it is usually stuck with a hundred-year-old building, which is a monster to keep up, and there simply aren’t enough people to sustain it. So the building is closed or consolidated with another parish.’
‘What happens to the churches themselves?’ Byrne asked.
‘Some are torn down. Some are sold to other denominations. Not often, but it happens. A classic example was St Stephen’s on North Broad Street. It was sold to the Baptists, and they are having a hard time keeping it up.’
‘So, you hold the final mass at a church, then what?’
‘Well, the first thing we do is remove all the objects that are either sacred or valuable. The stained glass, the marble railings, the tabernacle. There are a few repositories for sacred items, the largest being in Corpus Christi, Texas.’ Raphael smiled. ‘We don’t want to have things ending up as curios in karaoke bars.’
Jessica had once gone to a friend’s wedding reception in upstate New York, held at a large meeting hall. At her table were candlesticks with IHS on them, a Christogram widely used to depict the first Greek letters of Jesus’s name.
‘Secondly — and this happens with a lot of the older churches — we have to deal with the fact that the founding pastors were buried beneath them. Of course, they have to be moved. Keep in mind that, once a parish is canonically founded, anywhere in the world, they must receive permission from Rome to close. It is mostly pro forma, but still required.’
‘Is there a ceremony?’ Byrne asked.
‘A ceremony?’
‘When a church closes. Is there some sort of ceremony? A taking back of the blessing?’
‘You mean deconsecration?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing formal, at least that I know of. Although something like that is a bit outside my wheelhouse. A consecration is a blessing. The opposite would be a curse.’
Byrne said nothing.
‘Every rite is to bring the Lord’s blessing to something, detective,’ Raphael added. ‘Not take it away.’
Raphael rose, poured himself more coffee, looked out the window, toward the skyline. The question about deconsecration seemed to have rattled him.
‘Can you get us a list of churches that have been closed?’ Byrne asked.
Raphael turned back to them. The expression that crossed his face at that moment was one of sadness and concern. It was obvious why the Philadelphia Police Department wanted a detailed list. These churches — these closed churches — were seen as potential killing grounds.
‘Of course,’ Raphael said. ‘I can have these collated and sent over by tomorrow morning.’
As they prepared to leave, Jessica looked around, at the majesty and grandeur of the office. She then studied Father Raphael for a few moments.