Father Bear-Daddy

Bitchy, impatient, passionate and demanding, Father Bear-Daddy suffered no fools. His sexuality was suspect:

·         Father Bear-Daddy owned a miniature greyhound, eight inches high at the shoulder and all of twelve pounds.

·         He subscribed to Bay Windows, the local gay paper.

·         He also received other harder core mailings—“Stuff I don’t touch!” according to one parish employee.

·         He had a finely developed sense of gay vanity. When I referred to the friars at Saint Anthony’s as “old,” he became indignant.

·         At the party celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of his ordination, a pastoral associate joked that she meant to buy him pearls to wear, but thought it would look too Mardi Gras.

·         Father Bear-Daddy was the Shrine’s decorator-in-chief—and his taste is inspired by a Victorian bordello. Imagine extravagant purple and scarlet swashes of silk streaming down from the rafters under which one had to duck to reach the ambo, collections of lilies that spread out from the altar like a rash, and low lighting so that anyone on the altar could pass for twenty years younger.

·         Father Bear-Daddy had read Hot Sauce.