Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism - By Christopher Golden Page 0,6

Father Gaetano offered a nervous grin and then seemed to summon up the gravity that came along with his collar.

“Hello, children,” said the priest.

“Good evening, Father,” they replied.

He started out all right, Sister Veronica thought. Smiling in the right places, he told the orphans how much he looked forward to getting to know them and invited them to come and see him any time they wished. He tried to connect with the boys by talking about football and promised that they would spend enough time in church and talking about the Bible during class time that he would be happy to discuss whatever interested them. He appealed to the girls by mentioning a love of music and movies and a weakness for chocolate.

It should have worked, really. But these were children whose parents had been killed months earlier, taken by bombs or bullets or collapsing buildings, and they were wary about anyone new coming into their lives, no matter who had sent them on the errand. Father Gaetano might speak on God’s behalf, but Sister Veronica knew the pain in these young hearts. The children had put their trust in God, and now they didn’t know what to make of Him.

Sister Veronica and Sister Teresa exchanged a look. The mother superior saw it just as clearly as Sister Veronica, but it would have been inappropriate for one of them to interrupt, and Father Gaetano was going to have to establish his own relationship with the orphans, whatever that relationship might be.

Suddenly, the priest let out a quiet laugh. “I can see that you’re all very bored with me already. Not the best way to begin, is it?” He threw up his hands in surrender. “Well, at least now there’s no need for me to warn you that I talk a lot.”

Several of the children laughed. Little Sebastiano smiled—he, at least, seemed charmed—and a few of them nodded, agreeing that they were bored.

“You’re probably also hungry,” Father Gaetano went on. “And I hear Sister Maria’s fish soup is quite … memorable.”

More of them laughed this time, looking around guiltily to make sure Sister Maria wasn’t in the room. The priest took off his glasses and cleaned them with a kerchief from his pocket, a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye as he regarded the children again.

Maybe he won’t have trouble with them after all, Sister Veronica thought.

“Dinner will be ready soon, I presume. Before we eat, do any of you have questions for me?” he asked.

Alessandra raised her hand. She was ten, but looked no more than eight, a slight little wisp of a girl with large eyes. Her hair hung across her face much of the time and she often used it as a veil to hide behind.

Father Gaetano pointed to her and asked her name, which the girl promptly provided.

“What’s your question, little one?” the priest asked, smiling.

Alessandra fixed him with a pleading gaze. “Where is God?”

Father Gaetano spread his arms. “Why, He’s all around us, of course. Everywhere.”

The little girl’s lip trembled, but she frowned and forced it to stop. “Is He there when I cry at night?”

The priest’s smile vanished, his eyes filling with understanding. “Yes. He is there with you.”

“Then why doesn’t He try to make me feel better?” Alessandra asked, her voice breaking.

Since he and Sister Teresa had entered, Father Gaetano had stood with the mother superior at one end of the room, as if it were a classroom rather than the dining room, creating a sort of invisible barrier between themselves and the children. Now Father Gaetano broke that barrier. He walked to Alessandra, who stood beside the table where she was assigned to sit for dinner, as all of the students did.

Father Gaetano crouched before her and reached up to touch her face. He looked into her eyes.

“Open your heart to Him and He will give you comfort,” the priest said. “You will feel Him there if you have faith in Him. But that does not mean you will not cry, Alessandra. There will be tears. Your parents are with God, now, and He will take good care of them. One day, you will meet them again, but I know for a young girl that time seems very long from now. You cry because you miss them terribly, and that is only right.”

Father Gaetano glanced around at the other children. Several of them were wiping at their eyes. Alessandra had been the one to ask, but they all felt the same pain. Some of