OK. So much darkness is happening, politically and locally, nationally and internationally, let’s get happy with a found letter from She, my deceased wife, that might brighten your day. Let’s start with what you have read so many times.

I wrote this here previously: “From kindergarten to sixth grade, I was under the tutelage of the black-robed Sisters of Saint Joseph who lived in a huge convent just across the street from where I was born.” Duh! As if you didn’t know all about that.

Yes, I started life as a Catholic with a capital C, and the usual: baptism, first communion, altar boy, holy marriage. Yes, I did, and a whole  bunch of you old-timers did the same thing and told me about it. Funny thing, old Catholics tell the same story, don’t we?

Now that I’m officially an aged widower, I spend much of my time digging through boxes of pictures, notes, and letters, throwing out trivia that piled up in our lives over the years.

In one of these boxes, I found this funny note from my beloved Katherine about our endless conversations in which we talked about the times I played a young priest, especially the one for which I beat out the soon-to-be character star George C. Scott. Sadly, it was canceled but she continued:

“When I am gone,” she wrote, “you will be eligible to get right down to the closest diocese and tell them you want to become a real priest. You will, of course, be refused. Then you will be shown the door even though you often wrote columns about how the priesthood would be the perfect retirement for you and, oh yeah, you always knew how good you looked in black.”

I do.

Well, I’ve been out of the film game for so long, I don’t know what the rules are anymore, but I think it’s way too late now to care. I think Bing Crosby and Spencer Tracy were my favorite actors who played priests, but who remembers them? But Liam Neeson, (Humphrey) Bogart, (Montgomery) Clift and Anthony Hopkins looked great serving the host. There I go ahead. Even the nuns of my childhood said, “What a lovely priest you would make.” I know lots of nuns remember Bing and Spencer.

Now, I sit here as a nonagenarian Catholic who remembers her joking about it and saying “that sounds like a column.” Of course it does, what doesn’t? Yeah, so I wrote one or two (a dozen), and now, sent adrift from politics, here is my most recent letter. It’s a letter of application dressed up like a column and sent off to the former Robert Francis Prevost of Chicago and Peru, whom we now reverently know as Pope Leo XIV.  Remember, it’s just  a column to make you laugh. You’re still laughing, right?

“Dear Pope Leo XIV ( I hope I got that right). Here is my letter of application to enter the priesthood. As to accommodations, all l would require would be a small room with a bed, WiFi, a laptop, cellphone, and access to the required shared lavatory and the usual three meals a day.

“I still speak a little altar boy Latin, which I can brush up on. I don’t eat meat or smoke or drink, so a bowl, spoon, glass and food befitting a vegetarian diet is all I need. By the way, how’s the Medicare program in  the seminary world? Clothing: I’m told that the wardrobe in the priest/monk world is still the same. I went through this when I enlisted in USAF as a youth. Let’s do better here. I’m much thinner now, 29 inch waist, 160 pounds, and I wear a size 11 1/2 shoe (is it the same for sandals?)

“As to the location, I tend to be fussy. I would prefer a location in a warm climate. NOT New England or North Dakota, Montana, Oregon, or, God forbid, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, or Florida. I understand that some seminaries allow television, but only those that play religious programs and constant replays of Edward Berger’s ‘Conclave’ with Ralph Fiennes. Has your Holiness seen that? Somebody told me seminarian classes use it for all opening day classes. Is that right? I’m not up for that. I guess SNL will be banned?  Not surprised.

“One last question: How did they get your pope robes fitted so fast?  I’ll bet there were a bunch of nuns with pins and needles in their mouths waiting to fit you. Oh! Forgive this old fool for this irreverent column. It was Her idea! I hope you’re laughing. You are from Chicago, the home of Second City Comedy … right?”

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.