Totally Tossed

By Prosper Andre Batinge

Totally Tossed traces the journey of the Rev. Fr. Priestley Plubriuschola, SJ, a Jesuit priest, who is falsely accused of sexual harassment and defrocked, as he searches for a new life and identity, one totally different from his former life as a Jesuit priest and as a university professor. To his surprise, he succeeds in carving a new life full of meaning and even greater consolation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665737531

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Copyright © 2023 Prosper Andre Batinge.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-3754-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3753-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901093

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/23/2023

CONTENTS

Prologue

1 The Complaints

2 Who Is She?

3 Suicide Note

4 The Effect

5 The Curia

6 The Holy Mountain

7 The Call From The Curia

8 The Meeting

9 Still A Sense of Gratitude

10 Mentor Ponders

11 The Good Bye

12 The Governor

13 The Breakfast

14 The Bus Trip

15 Schola Meets Ms Harvanet

16 The College of Presidents

17 The Meeting

18 Right To A Jury of His Peers

19 Schola Returns Conner’s Call

20 Reactions –Jesuits and Presidents

21 Meeting

22 Room Above Schola’s

23 Examen in D.C.

24 Morning in DC

25 Considering the Offer

26 Schola Joins Defense Team

27 Temporary Office

28 Pre-marital agreement

29 Prosecutor Lucille Kast

30 Press Conferences

31 Schola Finishes Opinion

32 A Knock On The Door

33 Firm Discharges Senator

34 Hyatt Evicts the Senator

35 The Senator visits Schola

36 Discerning on Taking up the job

37 Client’s File Delivered

38 Help From Mr Conkling

39 Mr Conkling Returns Call

40 Preparing to Meet Schola

41 The Meeting

42 Opening Arguments – Court Scene

43 Similarities Church and Court

44 Old Trials

45 Prosecutor’s Opening

46 Schola’s opening

47 Recess/First Witness—Direct Exam

48 Cross of mother

49 Cross Continues

50 Second Recess

51 Cross Continues

52 Recess And Cross

53 Judge Kaufman On Recess

54 Defense On Recess

55 Cross Continues

56 Direct of Daughter

57 Exposé on daughter

58 Cross of Daughter

59 Cross Continues After Recess

60 Cross Continues

61 Judge’s Chambers

62 Judge Kaufman Recalls Late Judge

63 In Camera Hearing

64 Ms Pincus is Afraid

65 Cross Continues

66 re-direct

67 Cross of Re-direct

68 A Second Re-direct

69 Prosecutor’s closing

70 Schola’s Closing

71 Jury Deliberates

72 The Holy Mountain

73 The Soup Kitchen

74 The Handyman

75 The Transcripts

76 Fixing Her Affairs

77 Fixing Her Affairs 2

78 Cardinal Meets Dr Malus

79 Cardinal Hears Prof Duval

80 Cardinal Calls

81 Provincial in Nairobi

82 Mentor Calls the Governor

83

84 Provincial Meets Prof. Duval/Schola visits New York

85 The Trip To NYC

86 At the Cardinal’s Residence

87 The Meeting

88 Schola is Angry

89 Schola Meets Patient

90 Cardinal and Senator at Breakfast

91 Views of the Consultants

92 Flight Back After Hospital Visit

93 Senator Conner’s Seat

94 The Governor’s Medical Report

95 The Judge Muses on Schola

96 Mistrial Announced

97 Ananda is with Mother

98 The Senator

99 Schola Visits the Senator

100 The Chef

101 The Will

102 In Senator’s Study with Schola

103 Renewed Mr Conkling

104 The Governor, His Affairs

105 Ananda and the Governor

106 Dean as President

107 Indiana Supreme Court

108 The Disciplinary Hearing

109 Governor Updates Will

110 Updated Will

111 Schola to Deliver Letter

112 Ananda And Governor

113 Schola Meets Provincial

114 Ruling On Mr Conkling

115 Governor/Ms Stokes Tour House

116 Visit to the Family Cemetery

117 Governor Reads the Letter; Lunch of the Three

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

America wakes up to a mournful morning: Monday, October 23, 2017.

Fox is streaming it live. CNN is streaming it live. ABC is streaming it live. NBC is streaming it live. MSNBC is streaming it live. Beyond America’s borders, BBC is carrying it live. So is Sky News as well as Aljazeera. Everybody is carrying it live on Facebook, Twitter.

The earth, it appears, pauses on its orbit.

She douses herself with gas. Then opens the lighter. She is burning. The image of a burning woman on live TV pauses the usual activities of this mournful Monday morning. Viewers watch in complete dismay. The otherwise talkative morning cable network anchors are too numb to comment. When news anchors manage a comment, a choked whimper echoes. Like their viewers, the anchors sit in disbelief and watch. It’s like an Oscar winning movie. Only this time, it isn’t a movie. It’s real.

Ms Corell Woolsey is self-immolating. She burns herself in the full glare of the public. Up until now, Ms Woolsey is unknown. Even in the office where she works, until fired a day ago, few people know her. She’s reclusive. She stays her lane. She minds her business. Her personal business is one: cater for her two kids and a sick, bed-ridden mother.

This mournful Monday morning, America watches as Ms Woolsey burns. And so does the rest of the world.

Helplessly.

1

THE COMPLAINTS

T HE COMPLAINTS STILL SIT ON the desk of the head of HR. Ms Woolsey reports that her supervisor sexually harasses her. Management looks into her complaint and finds no merit. Management warns Ms Woolsey for her frivolous claims and for tainting the reputation of one of the rainmakers of the company.

Ms Woolsey makes another complaint after the same man abuses her several times again. And again, management looks into her complaint, and again, management finds no merit. This time, Ms Woolsey gets more than a warning. She gets a final warning: another frivolous complaint, she’s out of the door! Lots of people desperately need her job. Ms Woolsey is ungrateful. If she doesn’t want to work here, she should go. Her petty lies are distracting the productivity of the company, management concludes.

The sexual assault finds a new reckless confidence with the findings of no merit in her complaints. Her supervisor doubles down on his pervert excesses. Her supervisor knows that his bosses have his back. His bosses’ hands are as dirty as his. The bosses have his back.

But Ms Woolsey doesn’t want to lose her job. She has a young daughter, a breastfeeding son as well as an aged and sick mother in the hospice. All three vulnerable persons depend on her sweat. She mustn’t lose her job; she silently tells herself. But even a caring mother and dutiful daughter like Ms Woolsey has a breaking point as we all do. Sometimes human resilience can’t withstand evil.

Ms Woolsey does well. She takes the abuses for a while. She won’t complain again. She doesn’t want to lose her job. Regardless, she is still fired when her supervisor no longer finds her attractive. She packs her things home. She won’t give up. She’ll look for another job.

But this morning: Monday, October 23, 2017, she changes her mind. Ms Woolsey can’t continue. She comes to the end of her endurance. She decides to end it all. Sometimes human resilience can’t withstand evil. With gas and a lighter, she sets herself on fire at Central Park. Ms Woolsey brings her heroic life to an end in the most painful of deaths–self-immolation.

She drenches herself with so much gas. The inferno takes one minute to envelope her and five minutes to completely burn her into ashes.

2

WHO IS SHE?

T HE MUTE ANCHORS FIND THEIR voices after the fire dies down. Is it suicide? Is there a suicide note? What could cause a woman in her prime to end her life in so barbaric a manner? Answers aren’t forthcoming.

Ms Woolsey is a quiet citizen. Works quietly. Pays her taxes quietly. Doesn’t care about politics. No presence in social media. Takes care of her daughter and son and dying mother. She’s friendless.

Media producers try in vain to unveil Ms Woolsey’s identity.

As well, media producers struggle in vain to find doyens on self-immolation to bring their expertise to bear on the event of this mournful Monday morning, which might well prove the event of the year, probably of the decade. It isn’t easy finding self-immolation experts. Not even self-styled connoisseurs. For once, the media doesn’t have experts on an urgent issue of utmost public interest.

3

SUICIDE NOTE

M S WOOLSEY INDEED LEAVES A suicide note. A signed letter in a white envelope tied to the right hand of her still sleeping son. The police finds it in her apartment—now a crime scene.

The new find is leaked to the press. She dies because of work-place sexual assault. The abuses span over the past decade. When she reports these abuses, she gets a severe reprimanded instead, then, a sack eventually. So she decides to end it all.

The suicide note ends with an apology. She apologizes to her daughter and son and her mother for failing them. She apologizes for her inability to keep a job to cater for them. She is sorry, the suicide note ends.

4

THE EFFECT

M S WOOLSEY’S GRUESOME DEATH CATCHES on like an angry, wildfire across the Amazon. Women mass up in every nick and crony of the United States of America. Crowds gather in every space, protesting sexual harassment.

Women start speaking. They speak about their own experiences of abuses. Nobody knows until now that many women are abused. Victims are dropping names of sexual predators faster than the pull of gravity on a gargantuan, falling rock.

The anger is profound and palpable. It vibrates the United States of America, the most powerful surviving republic on earth, the like of which no living person remembers.

A national demonstration is planned in Washington D.C. in the coming days. An ad hoc leadership of women are tasked with harnessing this unexpected energy for a cause they have been fighting unsuccessfully for years. Given its suddenness, they don’t know exactly what to do. But massive demonstrations emerge all over the nation.

Meantime, photos of Ms Woolsey’s two-year-old daughter and six-month-old son as well as her fifty-nine-year-old dying mother go viral. They are the new martyrs of the evil of sexual abuse. The pictures of a feeble, bed-ridden mother and helpless kids whose sole source of survival is forced to commit suicide pierce even the most hardened and uncultivated hearts. Evolved and civilized conscience is fuming with rage.

Sexual predators must account!

5

THE CURIA

L IKE THE REST OF THE world, the self-immolation of Ms Woolsey interrupts the quotidian strict routine at the Jesuits, the nickname of the Society of Jesus (a Catholic Religious Order), curia in Manhattan, New York City. Usually, the five priests at the curia, the nerve center of the Jesuits in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and Maryland States are up and about their core business of coordinating the missions of Jesuits in these states and beyond by 5:00 am. But Monday, October 23, 2017, isn’t an ordinary day in American’s history. So this mournful Monday morning isn’t an ordinary day for the Jesuits in the USA, more so for the Jesuits at the Manhattan curia.

At the pinnacle of governance of the Jesuits in these states is the provincial, Father Anthony Cantwell, SJ. Father Cantwell lives in the curia with four advisors–consultors–: Father Burle O’Connor, SJ, Father Andrew Clovis, SJ, Father Paul Aronson, SJ, and Father Thomas Procopius, SJ. The five priests all sit clued to CNN. Listening. Listening to one of their alumni, Rall Dover–a graduate of Fordham Law School, a Jesuit law school–try, unsuccessfully, to make sense of what’s happening. They listen in complete silence. These five Jesuits are listening to their inner selves than they are to the usually livid CNN morning host anchor, Dover.

One question is on the mind of these Jesuit priests with administrative duties. What does the self-immolation of Ms Woolsey mean for the works of the Jesuits in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and Maryland? What does this mean for their colleges, high schools, parishes, hospitals, refugee centers, and many others? Ms Woolsey doesn’t set herself on fire, she sets the world on fire. How can this fire be harnessed for the common good and the greater glory of God? These Jesuits wonder? But these Jesuits are also concerned that this fire might burn them.

But the provincial, Father Cantwell, has an additional issue on his mind. More immediate and important for Father Cantwell is what this means for the fate of one of his charges: a fine and resourceful young Jesuit priest. Not one given to emotions, the stoic Father Cantwell wipes suspicious moisture from his eyes. Honestly, not so much for Ms Woolsey or her dying mother or helpless daughter or hungry son who wakes up today to no warm natural breastmilk. Father Cantwell, weeps for a young Jesuit priest whose fate Ms Woolsey just might have sealed, and, not in a good way.

Ms Woolsey has never met Father Priestley Plusbriuschola, SJ, a priest-professor of Ethics and Philosophy at Harvard University. If she had, she would have loved this remarkable priest and great teacher. But Ms Woolseys’s self-immolation appears to seal the fate of this young and enterprising priest-professor.

Father Priestley Plusbriuschola, SJ, is totally tossed.

But in the design of divine providence, there are no coincidences. This is one of Father Cantwell’s unyielding creeds.

6

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

T HE IGNATIAN HOLY MOUNTAIN IS ordinary at the nave.

Not so at its zenith. The top compels the gazer to look again. And again. And yet another sustained look again. The cross sits at its apex. And because the canopies of trees give the buildings a dark look, the lights are on day and night, especially, during winter, ensuring that the place is as bright as noonday, even at night. The view of the Ignatian Mountain, commonly called the Holy Mountain, is a big-lighted Christmas tree.

The towering sight is certain to draw the average casual looker to want to know more. The road up is not difficult to find. Except you want to climb the 11,000 feet on foot, which few do, a helicopter is the preferred means up.

The Jesuit Spiritual Center, which the Holy Mountain houses, gazes down at the small town of Rochester from its gilded perch at the edge of a cliff. Located at the out shirks of New York State, the remote town of Rochester surrounds the Holy Mountain. The Rochester Fall runs down the Holy Mountain through the little city, finding its way many miles later into the Niagra Fall.

The falling spring is not seen from the town, but its sound massages the ears. The sound compels the listener to want to hear more. And more. And a step a little closer even deepens the desire to want to hear more. The road to the spring side is not difficult to find, either. Another helicopter is ready to pull tourists up.

The breathtaking view of the Ignatius Spiritual Center reminds the keen historian of Earthrise–the photo of the earth that astronauts took on route to the moon on the Eve of Christmas in 1969. Earthrise reveals from space a blue ball so peaceful and so perfect. The beautiful, blue planet would have compelled, Michael Collins, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong, the astronauts from the earth on their way to the moon, to re-route to the earth if they were not citizens of the earth and knew it very well.

Earthrise didn’t reveal the turbulent events of that year: the cold war was dividing Europe; the Vietnam war was ongoing; and in America, we slain Dr Martin Luther King Jr. as well as John F. Kennedy. All on this beautiful, blue earth. But Earthrise reveals part of a cosmic beauty that is nothing but peaceful. 1969 is the year the Jesuits bought the mountain from native Americans and christened it St. Ignatius Holy Mountain, now popularly called the Holy Mountain.

Likewise, within the calmness of the Holy Mountain are wars and turbulences of a different sort: people seeking the face of God in their troubled lives. The beauty of the Holy Mountain and the silence of its guest retreatants conceal any internal turbulences on it. Like Earthrise, which of course portrayed the beauty of the earth, some retreatants radiate the goodness of God. Others radiate with gratitude God’s blessing. But quite a number are troubled souls seeking meaning and direction in life.

On October 29, 2017, at the Holy Mountain is a worried man. A Jesuit priest who until now was also a philosophy professor at Harvard. It has been excruciating weeks of waiting for him. The allegations are very damming, especially, if proven true. He won’t recover, either, if they’re proven false. So he is caught between the devil and the dead sea. He is totally tossed. The accusations take a toll on him.

Of course, none of these troubles are seen in his outward calmness—like earthrise— he is perfectly calm. The archbishop of Boston, the Most Reverend George Gaskell, orders him to stop teaching while the committee of investigators do their work. And he has also been asked to stop saying the Holy Mass until the investigations are concluded. Both deprivations do a terrible blow to Father Priestley Plubriuschola, SJ. He can’t say Mass as a Catholic priest; he can’t teach as a Harvard professor. The priest-professor is a fish out of water. And so seeks solace at the Holy Mountain.

Sometimes, Father Plubriuschola wonders which suspension is more severe: The teaching at the university or the saying of Mass at the parish. He loves both the classroom and the alter. He loves being a professor and a priest. The former allows him to engage younger and adventurous minds on the ultimate questions of life as a professor of ethics and philosophy in the leading university of the world.

The latter rekindles his life of faith as a priest. In fact, the two professions, nay, the two callings, are essentially the same for Father Plubriuschola. The teaching is faith seeking understanding; the Holy Mass is faith in action. He takes both callings–a professor and as a priest–seriously. That is his life. His only life.

The investigations are snailing on forever. Slower than the slowness of Rome in canonizing saints of yore. So Father Plubriuschola waits in great pain and anxiety for weeks now for a verdict that is a significant lost for him whichever way it goes. It’s a situation of complete hopelessness. Father Plubriuschola is done and over. Totally tossed.

But Father Plubriuschola is a man of great hope and faith. A hope and faith almost incompatible with his great intellect. The truth, he knows, always has the last say. But he isn’t naïve. The truth could take too long to emerge, sometimes a millennium. Sometimes not in a man’s lifetime. And while waiting for the truth to surface, an innocent life could be destroyed.

7

THE CALL FROM THE CURIA

T HIS MORNING, FATHER PLUBRIUSCHOLA GETS a call from the Jesuit curia in Manhattan, New York City, summoning him to a meeting with the provincial, Father Cantwell, SJ, the following evening at 5:00 pm. The provincial’s secretary delivers the message in a weeping tone over the phone. Many love Father Plubriuschola. And the allegations against him disappoint so many; and deeply sadden those closest to him. Father Plubriuschola’s teaching assistant faints and is taken to the hospital upon hearing the news. Much of Father Plubriuschola’s pain is the pain of others rather than the pain to himself.

Upon receiving the call, Father Plubriuschola goes straight to the chapel to pray. On his knees, Father Plubriuschola prays as is his habit, but especially, during moments like this.

The following afternoon, Father Plubriuschola emplanes from Rochester to Manhattan for the decisive meeting. His guts tells him it is over. Yet, his faith tells him God would never forsake him. Father Plubriuschola, a flightphobic, doesn’t know when the plan takes off from Rochester and lands at the JKF airport in New York City. And neither does he recall how he gets from the airport to the curia in Manhattan. But as always, Father Plubriuschola arrives one full hour ahead of schedule.

8

THE MEETING

T HE MEETING STARTS WITH THE Provincial, Father Cantwell, SJ, rumbling on and on in his opening remarks. Father Cantwell is visibly saddened. It appears that this might be the most difficult decision he’s making since assuming duties as leader of Jesuits of the four states. Still rumbling on, Father Cantwell, SJ, expresses his gratitude for Fr. Plubriuschola’s cooperation, obedience, and openness during the investigations.

Father Cantwell, SJ, eventually brings the turbulent plane to a sad landing: he is compelled to have to let Fr. Plubriuschola leave the Jesuits as well as recommend to Rome that he leaves the priesthood because of the gravity of the allegations against him.

Yes, Fr. Plubriuschola is fired. De-roped. Laicized. Defrocked. He’s no more a Jesuit. He’s no more a priest.

The promise of Melchizedek—you are a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and it is forever—isn’t true for Father Plubriuschola. Or so it appears at the time.

Father Plubriuschola isn’t expecting this decision. He doesn’t even think of it as one of the reasonable outcomes. He’s dazed. He hears Father Cantwell but isn’t listening to him at this point. The provincial mentions something about the growing spat of scandals after scandals in the Church in the United States and the larger world. Father Cantwell again mentions the current climate of sexual harassment. Father Cantwell emphasizes the recent self-immolation of Ms Woolsey. And also mentions that people think that the Church is covering up for offending priests. The Church must do something. The Church must set some examples.

Father Plubriuschola has always wanted to be a priest all his life. He has always wanted to be a Jesuit. In fact, he has no other alternative vocation to the priesthood. And he never thinks of himself leaving the priesthood. Nor that he might be defrocked one day. Hence, the decision leaves him genuinely confused about what to do with his life. He always considers himself dying a priest. Often, he jokes that he would like to die in Rome and be buried next to the saints. He considers his teaching job an extension of his priestly vocation. He can’t think of an alternative life to a priestly life.

More troubling is the directive that he packs out of any Church, Jesuit residences immediately. The provincial agrees that he be gone by morning the following day. Just like that, twelve years preparing to be a priest, five years of serving as a priest, and he can hardly be allowed another day in residence. God, this isn’t fair. Fr. Plubriuschola tells the crucified Christ on the cross. The bleeding crucifix replies: Look at me, they aren’t fair to me, either. But Fr. Plubriuschola takes no consolation in that reply. For the first time, he feels that Jesus is dumping him.

That night, Mr Plubriuschola, who can’t believe the sudden change in his identity and social status, is consumed with one question: where to go from here? For the first