Yesterday I went to afternoon Mass at Our Lady of Prompt Censure. That isn't its real name, but I don't want to hurt the feelings of any parishioners who may be reading; there are some good people in the congregation, but it is far too conservative for me. We listened to a homily called "Jesus Is Not Politically Correct," all about how if you've been divorced you are an adulterer and if you've had an abortion, well, you're just fucked. Then we sang a hymn that sounded like "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (which, to be fair, is a great song ... but the associations are unfortunate). Now I know by my Catholic calendar that this is "Respect for Life Weekend," and the weekly Scriptural readings are about marriage and family. I don't criticize the priest for discussing the topic assigned to him, but Father Pat at OLGC would have found a way to talk about them without trying to make his flock feel sinful and small.

In other OLGC news, members of our and St. Henry's parish councils are meeting with the new sheriff in town, Archbishop Gregory Aymond, later this week. Regardless of the outcome -- and I don't kid myself that he's going to put anything back the way it was -- there seems to be a relief in much of Catholic New Orleans, and certainly in my heart, that Hughes the company man/pedophile enabler is gone and a native New Orleanian who seems like a kind and reasonably humble man is in the office. (Office? Is that what you call it? Not sure of all my Catholic terminology.)

I have an Oriental Shorthair eating the screen portion of my laptop, so must close.

(GEAUX SAINTS!!! 4-0!!!!!)

Last night I had occasion to send "Enough Rope" to a gay couple from my OLGC rosary group. Rereading the essay, thinking about it and my other, somewhat less serious gender essay "Cocksucker Suit" (published in Greg Herren & Paul Willis' anthology Love, Bourbon Street), I came to a realization that I hadn't ever really admitted to myself before:

I like wearing dresses.

Mentally and emotionally I identify as male and always will, but the older I get, the more fluid my feelings on gender seem to become. It makes me happy that terms like "genderqueer" are used in casual online conversation. It makes me realize that when I put on a nice dress and shoes, fix my sacrum-length hair, and generally get all done up, it doesn't make me feel female; it just makes me feel sharp, the same way I feel when I wear my cockseersucker suit and Stacy Adams boys' alligator loafers. I don't wear much makeup, but I do like me some jewelry. Most of the time my style of dress resembles supergee's timeless description of his own fashion sense -- "garish and slovenly" -- but when I want to look nice, I don't care what gender my clothes are. I did for a while in 2004 and 2005, going through a phase where I wasn't at all comfortable wearing women's clothes or jewelry, but then in '05 there was this certain little event, and after that I found that I had bigger things to worry about than whether wearing a dress made me less manly. And everybody knows that most men in New Orleans, gay or straight, have at least one dress in their closet anyway.

So here's me on teewee today. You have to watch a Ronnie Lamarque commercial first, but he's amusing; Chris and I once saw him dining at the late, lamented Hong Kong Restaurant & Lounge at the lake (a tiki paradise if ever there was one); we were starstruck and wanted to go over to his table and sing his jingle, "Bridgin' the gap! Ooo, ooo, ooo!", but ultimately we did not. And speaking of starstruck, at WWL-TV today I actually got to shake the hand of Jim Henderson, voice of the Saints!!!

Anyway. Yeah. There I am. Thank God Alden Hagardorn from St. Henry's was there to do most of the talking, but I did manage to hit all the points we OLGC people wanted to hit. I look pale and tired, but please bear in mind that ninety minutes before airtime I was huddled under the covers crying and going "No! No!" Given that, and with the help of my good friends Cheron, Harold, Alden, and -Pam, I think it went OK.

Inventory: Cymbalta-failure crazy, check. Agony-inducing catch in the back, check. Garden despair, check. Sciatica flareup, check. Aimless self-weariness, check. Out of cookie-cutter-but-addictive Harlan Coben novels, check. Another New Orleans summer, no more pretending there might be one more nice cool spell, check. H*rr*c*n* season, check.

All this, and I gotta go be on TV tomorrow too. I don't want to, am in no shape to -- I'm as stiff as a board and as tranked as Kathleen Blanco after the levees failed -- but my OLGC peeps need one of the parishioners arrested in the Epiphany raid to go on and talk about the new archbishop. I've been feeling sufficiently useless of late that it is hard to say no to comrades-in-arms who want my help. I'll be on WWL, maybe on the 6:00 or 10:00 broadcast, maybe on Dennis Woltering's Sunday morning show, dunno yet. [Edit: Just learned I'll be live on the 6:00 PM broadcast. Eek!]

Did you catch those three lovely little words in the midst of my whinging? Yes! The new archbishop. Hughes finally officially retired today. So long, Alfie, don't let the door hitya where the good Lord splitya. No, I won't say that on TV. I'll talk about how we are heartened by the fact that Bishop Aymond has already extended an olive branch to us, saying he wants to enter into discussions with parishioners of closed churches, and that he is a native New Orleanian. I try not to be snobby that way, because many great transplants have entered New Orleans' essential heart as fully as any native, but Hughes never seemed to know or care about the rich history and traditions of Catholic New Orleans. Aymond will have grown up steeped in them, which gives us hope.

I finally got some new eBay auctions up. I usually like to do it earlier in the day, but this was when I had time, so I apologize if this is bad timing (I know it's not too great for my British and European customers unless they are serious night owls). These are all blank books I've made recently: a "Carnival mask" one, a wetlands-themed one made with nifty, realistic alligator-look paper, and one about New Orleans/home that I especially like, a hardcover journal that comes with a 925 (jewelry-quality) sterling silver NOLA FOREVER charm. Please have a look if you can.

Oh, and I did finish the book-shaped treasure box I mentioned, but I think it needs to be photographed on black velvet rather than the plain brown paper I usually use as a backdrop. If I can find a piece, I hope to get it up soon; if not, I may hang onto it until I can photograph it to its best advantage.

After teasing us a little, the archdiocese decided that Our Lady of Good Counsel could not be opened on Good Friday despite its being one of the traditional churches on the Nine Churches walk. We are going to be out there anyway, talking to people and giving out water to walkers who do include us on their route. If you're Uptown between 12:30 and 1:30 PM, stop by and see me.

tjcrowley was in town this weekend, and I went out and had too much fun with him, and now I think I'm having a slight flu relapse. I'm not talking about flu in a bottle, either; the only thing I drank was about a third of a very nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot at Clancy's on Thursday night. Mostly I just wore myself out. Darren is one of those friends so dear and fun that he makes me forget I can no longer walk for miles and do as many exciting things as I want to without getting all crippled and exhausted. After I visited San Francisco a few years ago, he bragged that I was the only person who'd been able to keep up with him on a truly epic walk we made around the city ... but back then, I could take Vicodin at the end of the day. No more of that.

Yesterday morning, parishioners of Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry's gathered in front of St. Louis Cathedral, where Archbishop Alfred Hughes was saying Palm Sunday Mass, for a silent, peaceful protest. Hughes was actually more decent than we expected, briefly coming up to talk to us after the Mass (of course, what he said was that he'd keep praying for us to see the wisdom of his church-closing plan, but we didn't think he would have the guts to address us at all). Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Fr. Crosby Kern, the rector of St. Louis Cathedral. Shortly after we assembled, he came out and looked at us, said, "Shame, shame," and then spit at us. A. Priest. Spit. At. Us. Then he called the police, and when they refused to make us leave -- hello, right of peaceable assembly -- he told them to get "this bag of trash" (the blessed palm fronds we'd set by the cathedral wall for people to take) off the sidewalk, and he insisted that they stay until the Mass was over in case we made trouble. Because, you know, the French Quarter police don't have anything better to do than sit around watching a bunch of Catholics holding signs. The cops ate bananas, drank some of our bottled water, and chatted with us until the archbishop left and Kern's hysteria apparently dissipated. Then we got back on our buses like good baby ducklings and went home, where I got a blinding headache and had to go back to bed for most of the rest of the day. Today I bequeath any ambitions I might have had to Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and the rest of the mighty Carolina team. Go Tarheels!

CONFIDENTAL DEPT.

To Stephen E.: I have your signed copy of The Sound of Building Coffins.

To theninth: Thanks for the shirt; it made me laugh!

To marquisdd: I have a present for you whenever you happen to make it Uptown (or I downtown).

To Ramsey: Sorry I missed your call -- I was in Central Grocery having a muffuletta with Darren, and there is virtually no cell reception in those solid old French Quarter buildings. I have been thinking of you and will call or e-mail soon.

To eBay customers, if I have any left: I'll get some stuff up soon, I swear to God.

is tomorrow. Usually, at this time of year, I'm running around baking cookies and assembling casseroles and helping to decorate whatever altar I'm working on. This year, there has been none of that. This year I feel sort of closed off from what is usually my favorite day of the year.

I haven't done an update on the status of Our Lady of Good Counsel for a while, mainly because there's not much to say. All the charges against those of us who got arrested during the Epiphany raid were dropped. Our civil and canonical appeals are still in the system. We have not been allowed back in the church, not even to get our personal belongings (Chris and I suffered several cold nights this winter because our heaviest down comforter was in there, and we could not afford to replace it). We still hold a rosary service in front of OLGC every Sunday morning at 11:00, and, during Lent, we do the Way of the Cross each Friday at 5:30.

We were going to have a St. Joseph's altar, too. First we planned to have it in the parking lot, but they've shut off access to that. Then we decided a better idea anyway would be to have it in the three outside door bays and on the steps of the church. We wanted to call attention to the beautiful, historic building itself as well as to honor St. Joseph and demonstrate our continued, shared faith as a parish family. Well, it turned out that wouldn't fly, because St. Stephen's (a.k.a. Good Shepherd, the parish we and St. Henry were supposed to be "merged" with) is having an altar in their church, and they don't want the competition. They said we could have it in someone's house if we wanted to (big of them to tell people what they can do in their own houses, no?), but since one of the major points was to draw attention to the plight of our church, we didn't go for that.

Competition.

To me, this seems a lot like saying you don't want another church open near yours on Good Friday because you don't want the competition. (Does this make sense? In New Orleans, Catholics try to visit nine churches on Good Friday, so it's helpful to have as many open as possible. Also, OLGC is one of the nine churches on the traditional walking route. I don't know if they do this in other places.) Most people who go to St. Joseph's altars don't visit just one or two; they enjoy making the rounds. Many people even like to make a novena, visiting nine altars -- we hope to do so this year, to ask for Chris' success with his new restaurant venture -- and, obviously, the more altars you have and the closer together they are, the more easily this can be done.

As well, if you have a devotion to St. Joseph, you don't view other altars to him as "competition." You want him to be honored as fully as possible, with as much food and joy and music and drink and laughter and lucky beanage as everyone cares to provide. Unless you're St. Stephen's, apparently.

I'm talking about the administration here, of course. I have dear friends from OLGC who are working on the St. Stephen's altar. My own godmother, Rosary, is working on it, and she taught me much of what I know about cooking for St. Joseph's Day. I wish I could bring myself to work on it myself, but I'm still too angry at what the archdiocese did to us to give any of my resources to St. Stephen's, so I feel as if I'm not practicing what I preach. It's for St. Joseph. What does it matter where the thing is held? Yet I cannot make myself look past it.

You may ask why St. Stephen's has any say over whether OLGC does or doesn't have an altar. Technically, they don't. (I suppose the archdiocese could say we were trespassing and have the police drag us and our altar off the steps, but I doubt that even they are that tone-deaf. Of course, I've been wrong about that before.) However, some of the core OLGC group feels that our best chance of getting anything done about our church lies in trying to cooperate with Monsignor Christopher Nalty, the pastor of St. Stephen's. Msgr. Nalty has done little to actually help us, but he does acknowledge that we've been brutalized by the archdiocese, and he is not opposed to letting something happen at OLGC at some unspecified point in the future. That's really all he can say, because he doesn't have the power to promise us anything. (The archdiocese won't even give him a key to OLGC, even though it is part of his physical parish now.) Maybe they'll let us open the church on Good Friday. Maybe we'll be allowed to do something for Our Lady of Good Counsel's feast day in April. Maybe we'll have one Mass a month said by a visiting priest. Maybe golden monkeys will fly out of the archbishop's butt and give us all stimulus packages. As you can see, I don't think much of this plan. Unfortunately, I don't have a better one. I could print up a flyer about why they won't let us have an altar and get a bowl of lucky beans and go sit on the church steps all day tomorrow passing them out to people, but 99% of the people passing by wouldn't care, and Chris and I would have sacrificed our St. Joseph's Day. As it is, there aren't as many altars as there used to be, and to have any hope of making nine, I think we're going to have to start out on the Westbank, cut back through New Orleans, and finish up in Metairie -- not impossible, we've done longer trips before, but it would be great if you could still count on hitting nine without leaving Orleans Parish. Or maybe Orleans and St. Bernard, since they used to do some wonderful altars out there.

Despite all the archdiocese's apparent attempts to make me do so, I have not abandoned my religion. I go to the weekly rosary services, and sometimes I go to Mass at St. Mary's Assumption, a nondiocesan church where one of the two priests strikes me as an interesting renegade. But I am unquiet in my heart, and sometimes I am sore afraid.

Since marquisdd called my Mardi Gras summary on his journal "minimal and stark ... pure Hemingway" (and since I'm a tired old fart despite only having had one Bloody Mary yesterday), I shall repost it:

We went out. We had fun. Here are a couple of lame pictures we took before leaving the house because we were too lazy to carry the camera around. Saw Rex. Saw Indians. Came home, watched the Rex Ball and the Meeting of the Courts on WYES while Chris fell asleep in front of the TV.

I did manage to do slightly better than the couple of lame pictures -- a whole set of them (with maybe even a couple of pretty good ones)!

This Mardi Gras was also a day of loss. Anyone who follows New Orleans music has probably already heard about the death of Antoinette K-Doe. I had the honor of meeting Ms. Antoinette once, at a 2007 Twelfth Night party at the House of Blues. She kindly invited me to be a Baby Doll, which in fact I was already going to be that year, but I didn't feel I could swear to be 100 percent "proper" and I strongly suspected she would not go for the Nixon head.

This morning, a bunch of us from Our Lady of Good Counsel met up at the church and caravaned over to St. Francis of Assisi on State Street to get ashes. Not long before we left the house, I received the news that my godfather, Warren Donald Henry, Sr., had also passed away yesterday. He had been very sick with cancer for months, so while this was terrible news, it was not a surprise. I only had the privilege of knowing Mr. Warren (as I called him) for a few years, but he and Rosary, his wife of 40 years, have been wonderful godparents who became the big Italian family I always fantasized about -- sort of a real-life Stubbs family without quite so many kids. I loved him dearly and am bereft.

[ETA: A couple of people have asked what I am giving up for Lent. Since I have already given up not only my church, but the certainty that my Church will not treat me like a criminal, the answer is nothing. But I am really going to try to get back on a regular weightlifting program, since it helps my back so much that it is foolish not to.]

From Angus Lind's story on the Chaos floats:

As we meandered through the den, it became very apparent that Chaos likes to keep things local, and being a Catholic city, it was inevitable that we would stumble onto one addressing the church situation.

"Oh my Gawd! The float's named 'Oh My Gawd!'" Float said. "Superb! It's about the churches Archbishop Hughes closed, and it seems he has a dollar sign wrapped around the cross on his archbishop's hat, as he smiles down benignly on the graves of St. Henry's, Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady of Good Counsel churches, all buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 with 'For Sale' signs on them."

"He won't stop those congregations from making life miserable for him with lawsuits and appeals," I said. "Chaos is clearly saying, as the storm clouds gather: Hughes on first? What's on second? And I Don't Know is on third."

Chaos rolls on the Uptown route Thursday at 6:30.

A recap, for anyone who's just tuning into our program: On January 6, 2009 (the Feast of the Epiphany), I and two other parishioners of Our Lady of Good Counsel were taken out of our church in handcuffs and arrested on the orders of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which had closed the church in October '08. We had been holding peaceful prayer vigils in the church since that date, and archdiocese spokespeople had falsely assured us that they would not use force to remove us. These tattoos on my wrists, done by Walt Clark of Nola Tattoo & Piercing, commemorate the event for me.



( See more ...  )

A cool thing that I didn't realize until hours after getting the tattoos is that each cuff contains a full decade (ten beads, not counting the ones between the crucifix and the separator). I could actually say the rosary on them!

I give Nola Tattoo & Piercing an A+ for talent, cleanliness, and fun. It was by far the jolliest experience I've ever had getting tattooed. (Also the first time I've been inked by a handsome young man, which may have had something to do with it.) I've never been pierced there and probably won't get the chance to be, as I don't currently want any more holes in my body, but if you do, piercer Pat made a good impression on me too. He has an excellent sense of humor, and if someone's going to poke sharp objects through your sensitive parts, he or she should definitely be able to laugh about it.

In today's Times-Picayune:

We who lost our churches have already made our points about family, history, and tradition. Those who still advise us to "just find another church" are missing (or ignoring) the fact that Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry's comprise over two blocks of prime real estate in the heart of the "sliver by the river," and that archdiocese spokespeople refuse to say what they plan to do with these properties.

They claim the archdiocese wants to use the buildings for "religious purposes," but this contradicts the fact that it closed two financially viable churches. It recently evicted Unity, an organization that helps the homeless and hungry, from OLGC space. These historic properties on Louisiana Avenue and General Pershing now stand vacant, deteriorating and vulnerable.

This is not just a Catholic problem. It should concern anyone who cares about the regrowth of New Orleans.

Poppy Z. Brite
New Orleans

"Vacant, deteriorating and vulnerable"? Whence my beloved Harvard comma? Ah, well; I've been urging my OLGC peeps to pound this issue, and here it is: the archdiocese is making a land grab, pure and simple.

A fellow OLGC parishioner just e-mailed me, upset that people are saying mean things about me in the comments to this news story. I won't be taking part in any church-closing-related discussions that focus on me personally, because this isn't about me, my sordid past, or my disgusting personal beliefs. I got my friend calmed down and checked it out even though another friend had warned me not to. The comments are overwhelmingly positive, and those that aren't are actually pretty mild compared to what I've come to expect from the Internet. Still, the fact that they almost invariably focus on my having been a stripper/posed nude really makes me wonder if they were planted. Yeah, if I hadn't lived through the last three days, I'd think that sounded paranoid and self-aggrandizing too. As it is, we know the archdiocese has personal dossiers on Friends of OLGC personnel and that they used unmarked police cars to track our movements for at least two days prior to the Epiphany raid (great use of police resources there). Think about it. What fact about me (A) is easy to find out, even appearing in a few of my book bios; (B) would strike sexless, sex-hating, out-of-touch types as guaranteed to scandalize the public; and (C) is often used as a kind of "code" to prevent a female-gendered person from being taken seriously (she shows off her body, therefore she must be brainless)? I would hope they have better things to do, but I wouldn't put it past Catholic Barbie Sarah Comiskey or some other archdiocesan minion to do some "detective work" by, like, looking at my website. If so, their research is faulty, but that doesn't surprise me; it's amazing how many people claim to remember seeing me strip on Bourbon Street even though I never danced anywhere in New Orleans, only in Georgia between 1989 and 1991. I'd been wondering whether this was going to happen -- somebody dishing some dishy dish on me in an effort to embarrass OLGC -- but I thought it would be the gay/transsexual thing, or drug addiction, or goth = Satanism, or even the fact that I called the archbishop a dickless babyhead ... not the (to me) utterly boring fact of my youthful nakedidity*.

And to be honest, by Catholic standards, there are some legitimate criticisms in those "mean comments." All I can say is that I have never claimed to be a good Catholic. I find succor in the celebration of the Mass and the sharing of the Eucharist, not in dogma. I am a cafeteria Catholic of the exact kind that drives strict Catholics up the wall. I'm pro-choice, which automatically excludes me from some definitions of Catholicism. I'm unapologetically queer. I think the current Pope is an asshole. Hell, I even love Life of Brian. My pastor and my parish family are Christian enough to accept me anyway. I find it sad that so many so-called "Christians" are not. I'm sorry if my becoming Catholic hurts them in some way. I didn't do it to hurt anybody. We are all flawed people at OLGC. I wish these wonderful anonymous Catholics would send me the names of their churches full of perfect people so I could go and bask in their perfection.

However, while I know I am deeply flawed, I cannot believe that trying to help protect my church and my Church from bad leadership is wrong.

I'm not a good Catholic, but I am a seeking one, and if I hadn't had this particular church to turn to when I did, I might well be dead now. Very likely some of these types would consider that preferable to my filthy self sullying "their" precious Church, but they can put it on their T.S. list and send it to the archbishop.


*nakedidity, n. M*A*S*H (used by Radar O'Reilly), "Change of Command," written by Jim Fritzell & Everett Greenbaum, season 4, episode 75, 19 Sept. 1975

My favorite Times-Picayune columnist, James Gill, nails it as usual:

Storming a building to round up suspects can be a hairy experience, but it is unlikely that the cops had much trouble subduing Poppy Z. Brite.

The petite Brite, a novelist by trade, was collared Tuesday as a ringleader in the church vigil caper. She cut an unlikely figure as Public Enemy No. 1, except, apparently to Archbishop Alfred Hughes.

Parishioners had been occupying two churches in defiance of Hughes' order that they be closed as surplus to requirements. After 10 weeks of stand-off, Hughes decided that he could no longer forgive them their trespasses and called in the cops to do the heavy work ...

Click to read the rest; it's worth your time. This native Liverpudlian/longtime New Orleanian is an irreverent and incisive wit as well as a gifted wordsmith, and I should have expected that he would love this story. (I also like the ad that's showing up on this page right now -- a plug for the debut album by a band called The Priests.)

Meanwhile, Harold didn't have to go to court and the archbishop is at peace with his decision to have Catholics dragged out of pews and arrested. I guess that's why he refused to be in the same room with our parishioners during a taped WWLTV interview on the church closings today.

[ETA: Finally, the picture of me in handcuffs you've been asking for! ... and much more, on Karen Gadbois' excellent New Orleans blog Squandered Heritage. Harry T, in the picture of them dragging Hunter out, the plainclothes cop on the left in the pinstriped shirt is the one I asked you about.]

[ETAA: I did get some funny suggestions for text to accompany my mug shot icon, but ultimately I decided the picture speaks for itself.]

Today was dedicated to browsing/buying at my favorite nursery (where the resident parrot shrieked at the sight of my criminal countenance and the normally taciturn owner asked, "How was your ordeal?"), reading, and sleeping. Very luxurious. I hope to spend all day tomorrow in the garden. Things are still happening, but as far as time goes, we have a well-needed little respite -- probably until Sunday, when we will hold our 11:00am rosary service on the steps of the church. Right now I'm ready for more sleep, but just a quick update first:

I taped The Errol Laborde Show this morning and thought it went well. Errol is very sympathetic to our cause; if interested, you can read his wonderful pro-OLGC/St. Henry's article in the December issue of New Orleans Magazine. For once in radio, I felt I was getting to say more than twenty-second sound bytes. The show will air on WIST 690 AM four times this weekend:

Friday 6:00pm
Saturday 8:00am and 2:00pm
Sunday 5:00pm

To listen online, click on the Errol Laborde Show link above.


P.S. Re: the mugshot icon several of you have suggested, I'm working on it, but I can't decide what I want the caption to be. Suggestions welcome (I probably won't use a goofy one, but I'll enjoy reading them).

Just came from court. All charges against us were dropped, which I suppose is good, but it would have been great to have this go to trial and get the archbishop up on the stand.

Stay tuned for the next installment ...

HEAUXLY CRAP YOU GUYS WE MADE THE NEW YORK TIMES!

Also the front page of the Times-Picayune. You can see extra pictures on this page too.

Going to the arraignment at 3:00.

This is working out beautifully for the archdiocese so far, isn't it? Wasting the resources of an overworked police department to drag praying parishioners out of a church is definitely one of the teachings of Christ as I understand them. /sarcasm

This morning at about 11:00 AM, the Archdiocese of New Orleans ordered the police to enter Our Lady of Good Counsel. They broke down the 100-year-old sacristy door and came in along with archdiocese kommandant "Father" Michael Jacques:



(I know this is a crappy picture, but Harry T, do you recognize this guy? He's the only cop who was at all rude, putting his hands on me and threatening to carry me out.)

Parishioner Hunter Harris and I slipped into the pews and began to pray. They hauled us out, cuffed our hands behind our backs, and escorted us out to the police car. I walked because I didn't want them to hurt my back, but Hunter went limp and was dragged, losing his shoes. You can read the story and watch the news video, including us being led away in handcuffs, here and here (same news, different versions).

Other than the one guy, the police were obviously embarrassed and ashamed to be doing this, and they couldn't have been nicer to us. The young lady from the city attorney's office who led me out was almost crying, and I actually found myself comforting her: "We know it's not your fault." We were taken to Central Lockup, a cavernous but clean room with blaring TVs and various desks where you had to jump through the legal hoops. We were both charged with "criminal trespassing and resisting arrest." They never put us in a cell, just let us sit in the holding room until Judge Frank Marullo signed our release an hour or so later. I think my mug shot came out all right, especially considering that I hadn't even had coffee yet. Chris says I look "sardonic," and I felt pretty damn sardonic:



Shortly after we were taken away, parishioner Harold Baquet was arrested too. As you can see in the news story, Harold is a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. Apparently they weren't willing to look quite that evil, because they just gave him a citation and took him to his house nearby. By 2:00 or so we were all back outside the church giving interviews and planning our next steps.

We have to go to court tomorrow, where we'll be pleading not guilty. I'll keep you posted. Happy Epiphany -- at least we have Haydel's king cake!

The same link I posted yesterday now has a more detailed and up-to-date story. The comments are great too; I'm thrilled that locals seem to overwhelmingly support us.

I'd like to say more about my church vigils in general and this incident in particular, but unlike most of the other events I've chronicled in my journal, this isn't just The Continuing Adventures of PZB. This affects a lot of other people as well, most of whom have been at Our Lady of Good Counsel far longer than I have. Not that anyone would ever pull seniority on me, but as my co-vigilist Harold Baquet once said of the 90-year-old ladies who were christened, married, and had hoped to be buried out of OLGC, and who still come to our weekly rosaries, "We stand on their shoulders." And I stand on the shoulders of people like Harold. Also, in light of the aggression shown to us by the archdiocese, the OLGC parishioners feel that it's vital for us to stand united at this time rather than putting individual spins on it. But I can give you the bare bones of what happened:

Just after 2:00 AM on January 3, four people from the Archdiocese of New Orleans entered the darkened church. The vigilist sleeping near the altar could only see flashlight beams moving in the choir loft and up the aisle toward him. Naturally, he was scared to death, and unfortunately, when they threatened to call the police unless he left, he chose to leave. Fortunately, he was not the only vigilist on duty, though the archdiocese raiders failed to find anyone else. After searching the church, they did not "change the locks" as they told the Times-Picayune, but simply nailed all the 100-year-old wooden doors shut with four-inch wood screws that made enormous, ugly holes. One of the doors split so badly that a long section cracked off the top.

We gathered at the church yesterday, gave a unified statement to the media, held our rosary service at 11:00 this morning as we do every Sunday, and plan to continue our vigils until Archbishop Hughes can treat us like the committed Catholic parishioners we are instead of fallen criminals who deserve to be raided in the night.