The Pope and I

Once more Father Columba takes up his pen to record another of his adventures-this time as much a misadventure. Once again he argues with God, encounters colorful characters, and bumbles his way to the solution of a riddle. Having found a missing monk from Melk Abbey near Vienna Austria, he has been ordered to go to Rome to do the same for the Abbey of San Ambrosio. Father Columba, who has been compared to G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, does not consider himself a sleuth, but he has taken an oath of obedience, so off he goes to the Eternal City. In Rome he uncovers still another puzzling dimension of the human dilemma, one that requires him, the host Abbot, and even Pope Paul VI to confront a moral decision none of them has been trained to treat. Once more it seems that Columba is opening doors to a New World. You are in for a treat as you read this memoir by a man who thought at the age of 65 he could retire to read a bucket list of books, only to be called to a new Holy Vocation: solving mysteries for his fellow Catholics great and small. If you like this elderly Sherlock Holmes, you will want to read his other memoirs, set in Oxford Mississippi, Seoul South Korea, the Isle of Iona, and Nashville Tennessee.