“Don’t freak out, but there is a priest on board.” The text came from the back of a plane back en route to Washington, D.C., for the annual Federalist Society Conference, where I planned to spend the next forty-eight hours discussing formal reasoning and rational principles of law with fellow law students and attorneys. Yet, there I was, wondering if there was bad juju on the tarmac.
While most practicing Catholics would be comforted by a priest passing them on the gangway, assured that even if the doors fly off, they’ll still get last rites, I dread the possibility. I come by my fear naturally: my paternal grandmother, the original A. T. Skehan, was a stubborn Irish woman who once refused to fly home to Boston after she spotted a Roman collar at the gate. While my grandfather pleaded with her by phone, she insisted that she had attended nine first Friday Masses in a row, and was therefore assured that she would die in the presence of a priest. So, naturally, outside of her regular reception of the sacraments, she avoided priests altogether.
Read Full Article »