Paramount is not Ireland or Greg evades the snare

 Paramount is not Ireland or Greg evades the snare

Most of us remember Greg as a man who vehemently opposed Catholicism and referred to their dogma as a fairy tale. Yet, his Dad was a devout Papist who went to mass, followed the path of Mary and believed in the existence of such faith-stretching stuff as the virgin birth, limbo, hellfire and the purity of the clergy. A true Catholic believes that a priest is a representative of God on earth and as such should be obeyed and respected. Like most of us who were steeped in Catholic lore the foundations of that teaching began to unravel as we became more educated. For some it was earlier and often coincided with a choice between the sacred species or a Winchel's donut. Those who are straying are first known as lukewarm Catholics and Greg began to find his faith waning around the time his teen hormones began to heat the blood and raise the libido. By his senior year at Pius X he was driving a car and ditching mass to hang out with pals or cruise past girl's homes he liked. He dared not let his Dad know he was becoming a fallen-away and he hid the fact by manipulating his mass-going to the 5:30 pm services at St. Emydius. St. Emydius, named for a 4th century bishop who was beheaded by the Roman Empire was also ironically the patron saint of  the intercession of earthquakes. I would assume no one at St. Emydius knew that fact but they did know the fearsome Monsignor Patrick J. McGuinness who came from County Roscommon and ran a painfully tight ship in Lynwood for 13 years. He was so humorless and overbearing that we used to say he chased more souls out of the church than he brought into the bosom of Christ. He would walk down the center aisle before mass and inspect each parishioner to make sure they had a missile or rosary in hand. If they did not he would snap his fingers to alert their attention to proper worship. McGunness also often spoke from the pulpit saying that when God called him home he wanted to be in Roscommon, back home in Mother Ireland. So the year is 1970 and Greg had almost completely stopped going to mass but is  hiding the fact from his Dad who has a sense of his son's straying from the path. The poor boy has now been tainted by his association with older boys like Kevin Smith or Glen Creason with the beer and cigarettes and such that have more appeal than hosts and kneeling for way too many minutes during worship. However, on this Sunday Greg decides he will go to the mass, probably to check out some chick he had a crush on but he was there when the priest announced the thunderbolt of news that Monsignor McGuinness had dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 67. He had not cashed them in at Roscommon but in a emergency room in Paramount, California. Back on McNerney John  knows about the biggest story ever at St. Emydius but has remained mum to check his son's attendance at mass. Greg comes back home whistling to himself and when he pops in the front door he says to his Dad in triumph "isn't that something about McGunnness!" Whew.