The True Story of My Life #24 (Fr. Joachim McCann)

I emailed Josef now and then, and told him funny stories, and after I said I would like to speak with Fr. Joachim, I received email from him. He sent an introductory email, and asked how he might be able to help with questions he'd heard I had.

I have never known, to this day, what Fr. Joachim McCann's relationship was to Br. Ansgar Santogrossi, to this day. I don't know what Joachim's given (birthname) was. I believe he referred to himself as "Bill", "Mac" but I'm not sure. He was telling me a funny story once, about when he unloaded trucks for a living after being a successful Wall Street stockbroker with upperclass family. He imitated what his buddy said to him: "Hey! Bill.." or whatever. But I'm not sure. I later found out Fr. Joachim handled many of the Abbey's (or all) financial business and investments. He was also not, in his own way, just an ordinary monk. He was a monk with ties.

He had lived in New York City, living in penthouses, working in investments, traveling extensively. Possibly Merril Lynch. He almost died when he was nearly run over, or something like that, and began to consider the priesthood.

When he first contacted me, he wrote about certain popes being "bozos" but how they didn't detract from the truth of the Catholic church, and he said he would like to meet me. He wrote he imagined, from speaking to me over the phone and by email, that I would be a petite blond. I wrote a challenging question to him about doctrine and dogma, after he wrote about Mary and original sin and then introduced papal infallibility as well, and he responded with a very curt and abrupt answer. I should have taken offense, but although it hurt my feelings, I brushed it off and made fun of myself, ending my post with the non-threatening, "Well! that's me in a nutshell..." which was a play on my suggestion that perhaps I had some nutty ideas and what did I know. His response was to laugh and lighten up. We arranged to meet.

When we met, he took me into a room in the guest area, which was a reception house of sorts. Downstairs there were a bunch of rooms where people could hold conferences or meet privately. He offered me coffee and we filled up and then went into a room. Fr. Joachim and I hit it off right away, and spent a lot of time laughing, and I asked a lot of questions too.

It all started out harmless enough, or so I thought. If I had known then what I know now, I would have stayed far, far, away. The worst thing that has ever happened to me, in my life, was meeting those monks and getting involved with the Catholic church. Catholic laypeople, met in general, are one thing, but being made a target by this group is another thing altogether. I didn't realize, in my quest for "the truth", that I would be uncovering some things they wanted to keep covered.

I also think that at some point they thought I was a spy or something, because they and their lawyers and P.I.'s constantly hunted for evidence against me, and wanted my entire ID and social security number, and they even asked me, much farther down the road, if I was connected in any way to, and knew, "Dan Brown". I am not kidding. They thought I was much bigger or a bigger threat than I was, or, simply because I was a thinker, they believed I could be. They also asked me if I read anything by Jack Chick (no, I hadn't, not at that time), or the "Gospel of Thomas" and a bunch of other things.

So what was I finding? I'm going to write about what books I checked out and read, and what I was trying to figure out, and what I found, in the next post.

(to be continued)