More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 18 - August 27, 2023
This cassock is the only thing coming between you and a bloody nose.” “The cassock and eight inches of air,” Marcus said.
“Fuck the cassock,” Father Ballard said. “Kneel down. I want to break your nose.”
Marcus had a bad habit of forgetting he was mortal.
“Good reasons? They can send us anywhere without having to move whole families. We can get closer to people because there’s no wife or children at home to get jealous of how much time we’re spending with the sick or the scared. Bad reasons? The Church wants to control its clergy. Control the cock, control the man. We fall in love, get married, have children…suddenly we have something in our lives more important than the Church.”
“I waited until we were done talking to beat him and fuck him.” “Oh God, you do this to me on purpose.” Ballard winced. “Of course I do. I’m a sadist.”
“It’s the liturgy,” Ballard said, glaring at Marcus. “Not ‘your lines.’ This is the Catholic Church, not Shakespeare in the Park.”
“There’s a spirit in her, something with wings, something that keeps her aloft, high above everything that would bring her crashing to Earth. At the very heart of her is a well of joy. She has a fearlessness to her I’ve never encountered before. She’s not afraid of me. She’s not afraid of anything. She’s smart, dangerous, manipulative, and utterly untamable. She is the freest person I’ve ever known.
“Marcus, my boy, you were a beautiful ruin when I met you eleven years ago. And I can’t tell you the joy it gave me to see you come back to life, to see how being a Jesuit healed something inside you. I have loved you like my own child. I want you to be happy and I want you to feel joy and be loved. And I never want you to be lonely or to make the same mistakes I did. That’s every good father’s wish for his child—be happy, be good, don’t get hurt. You are walking through a minefield, son. I can’t look. But I can’t look away either.”
Love is never a sin. If it’s a sin it’s not love. And if it’s love it’s not a sin.
“That was ten years ago. I have learned a modicum of humility and self-control since then.” “Not enough. You are a dangerous man, Marcus Stearns. I’m most grateful you’re a priest because I’d rather have you with us than against us. At no point should you let yourself lose control of your impulses with that girl. Not like you did with your Kingsley.”
“What about the erotic fantasies?” Ballard asked, a question he’d asked dozens of priests he’d counseled. Only with Marcus was he ever afraid of the answer.
“I want to tie her up, beat her black and blue, and fuck her until she bleeds. You know why that fantasy troubles me?” “Tell me.” “Because it’s the tamest one I have about her.”
“Son, we’re all idiots when we’re teenagers. You’ve repented, been absolved. Don’t throw God’s forgiveness back in His face. Don’t throw Kingsley’s back in his.”
“Sexual repression and suppression is the reason that we have priests in parishes who belong in prisons. I tell all my priests the same thing—vow of celibacy or not, you are a sexual being. God created you to be. Honor that part of yourself. Take care of your sexuality in a healthy way. If you’re having fantasies, have them. Enjoy them. Don’t fight them. Don’t deny them their place in your psyche. But don’t give them power over you.”
There’s a reason the hierarchy is notorious for looking the other way when priests have lovers, but excommunicate those who get married. Half the priests in Rome have lovers—openly. The bishops don’t care who you’re fucking as long as the Church comes first and they can still move you around like a chess piece. You get married and have children? Then the Church isn’t first in your life anymore.”
“You don’t have to tell me what the ‘other things’ are. I’ve been hearing his confessions since he was 18,” Ballard said. “I’m actually only 60 years old. I only look 80 because of him.”
“Do you take the Lord’s name in vain?” “I’m Catholic. Of course I do, God dammit.”
You must drive him mad, Stuart thought. You must make him wild for you. You are a teenage girl in a woman’s body with a woman’s needs and a teenage girl’s savage heart.
For Søren, his best is him being a responsible, caring and CAREFUL sadist. His worst is being the sadist he would be if it were suddenly proved the heavens were empty and there is no God. When he’s with Nora, God’s watching. When he’s with King, God is not looking. Or at least Søren hopes God isn’t looking. Hence the “God closed his eyes” line in The Prince.
TIFFANY: I’ll go on the record here to say I want Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to play Søren. I get asked that ALL the time.
TIFFANY: I have this vision of the Original Sinners movies (there are no movies in the works by the way) and the very last scene of the very last movie would just be Nora lying on her back in bed after having been fucked and she just says to the camera, “God, I love being Catholic.”
