Lord, make Us Instruments of Your Peace.

[collaronhisneck]

WHO: Father Francis Mulcahy
WHERE: The Church/House 26
WHEN: Beginning after the network shenanigans are known and continuing for as long as people want to come
OPEN TO: Anyone
WARNINGS: Likely going to be some serious topics in threads; please mark for any that show up.

---

He'd seen the way so many people reacted to the network showing things they didn't want known. Some people were entertained and laughing, and that was good - but not everyone was. There wasn't much he could do, he certainly couldn't seek out those who'd been disturbed and upset and force them to talk to him, that would entirely violate the sanctity of his calling and ruin the trust he's building within the community. He wants to help, but he learned long ago that no one can force someone to accept help.

The best he can do is make himself available. And so he does, making an announcement on the network (not caring that he outs himself and some of his decisions from the past), then waiting to see who shows up, if anyone does. When someone knocks, or simply walks in, they'll find Mulcahy either praying over the rosary he keeps in the front room or playing with his ragdoll cat, Martin.

Comments

cw: sexual assault & abuse, mental health issues itt

[fishermansweater]

a few days after the network names become known

It's the name that shows up on Mulcahy's messages that persuades Finnick to take his offer seriously. He doesn't know much about the priest's history -- or even what being a priest means -- but he does know that there's a black market in District Four, probably everywhere in Panem, and that it provides things to people who have no other way of getting what they need. Not that he thinks it's an entirely noble thing, but what is in Panem? The feeling of reassurance isn't about the black market itself, it's about what it speaks to, the willingness to defy rules that are only in place to keep people down.

He misses Mags. If she were here, if she were still alive, if he had anyone other than Annie to cling to, he wouldn't need to seek out Mulcahy. But all he has here is Annie, and she's already hurt enough by this and what it's done to him.

Finnick quietly lets himself in to the front room, his head down, his posture less confident, more stooped than usual.

"Father," he says, when he sees Mulcahy's already there, in the room.

"You said you were willing to talk to people."

Poor Finnick :(

[collaronhisneck]

Finnick's idea of a black market and why they existed and why people got involved with them didn't quite fit Mulcahy's circumstances, but the fact remained that trafficking in things that were regulated, and that said trafficking was technically illegal, was exactly on the nose. At home in Philadelphia, he would have never participated in it. In Korea, it became a necessity, one he made the best of. And if it helped convince people that he wasn't someone too squeaky clean to be of any use to them, then he would use that fact here in the village as well.

When Finnick walks in, Mulcahy's sitting in one of the chairs that had been moved into the front room to make a little gathering place, in front of the small table draped in a spare sheet to improvise an altar. The small mass kit he'd received before Christmas is always arranged on the altar, the crucifix front and center, and the priest himself is praying over the rosary he'd found in the room with Martin across his knees. He breaks off his prayer and turns to see who walks in, immediately noticing Finnick's hesitance and general discouraged, even beaten posture. There's no pause to consider before he answers.

"I always am, when people need someone. Talking can be a way to let out what's troubling you, and holding things in is damaging to the mind as well as the soul." He gives Finnick a small smile, meant to be encouraging, as he gestures to the cat in his lap. "Forgive me for not rising to greet you, but I'm afraid I've been occupied for a bit."

[fishermansweater]

Even after so long here, Finnick's only picked up the very vaguest idea of what it is that Mulcahy does, that being a priest entails. He's not sure what the church is there for, either, but he does know that Mulcahy is a kind man, that he'd agreed to marry Finnick and Annie even though they were strangers to him and he knew nothing about who they were or where they were from. That's important, to Finnick.

"That's okay," he says, quietly. "Sometimes our birds do that."

Mostly the peafowl, who they've been training to sit on arms and shoulders and now sometimes do it without being encouraged.

Finnick comes a little further into the room, eying the chairs, then the corners of the room, then the chairs again. He chooses a chair close to the edge of the group, sitting sideways on it so that his back is towards the wall, and he's facing Mulcahy.

"Some things are damaging whether you hold them in or not." There's nothing contradictory or confrontational in his tone: it's more resignation.

[digging]

Karen is not Catholic. Technically she's Protestant, but only in the vaguest, sometimes-we-went-on-Easter sort of way, and she couldn't say when the last time was she actually went to church for anything other than a funeral. Not since she left Vermont, at the very least.

In this, she's never felt lacking, never had some kind of metaphorical hole in her heart that only Jesus could fill, but the truth is that the last several years have been hard. Really, really hard. And it's beginning to press in on her in a way it never quite has before. The fact that she doesn't really have anybody to simply be utterly and completely open with has finally made itself painfully clear.

So when she's having what is quite possibly the worst of her days since that first day she showed up here (or in the here that was) and she sees the message at that perfectly right, precisely-needed moment, she thinks of Matt and his confessionals, and she just goes. If she stops to think about it, she knows she might not make past the front steps of the place.

At the front door she softly knocks, and then pushes it open enough to peek inside. "Hello?"

[collaronhisneck]

"Just a moment, please come in and get out of the rain and the wind," a voice calls back from the further reaches of the house. The door is open, and indeed in very little time the father emerges from one of the doors a bit down the way, brushing off the front of his white scrubs and in general looking not entirely like the man of the cloth he really is, though the cross made of twigs hanging from a thread necklace is on the right track. When he sees Karen, though, he smiles at her, inviting her to laugh at the situation with him, because it really is silly.

"Please forgive me - my cat somehow managed to wedge himself under the dresser. I'm not sure how he managed to do it, but I think a rolled-up towel or two will stop it from happening again. Can I help you with something?"

[digging]

Standing in the doorway, hand poised on the knob, Karen hesitates. "You know, I..." she begins with a vague gesture of her free hand. "I don't even know why I'm here. I don't want to bother you, so just don't worry about it." Her smile apologetic, she turns to leave.

What had she been thinking, going to a priest? This isn't her, this isn't going to bring her closer to her dead ex-boyfriend. She needs to just get her shit together and move on.

[ethnobotany]

Beverly isn't really sure what makes her turn up at the makeshift church aside from the fact that Francis is a friend of hers, a good man, and she hasn't really had a reason to come to this location before. Maybe she should have, despite the fact that she isn't really religious at all. She slips inside quietly today, making her way into the main room and glancing around as she does so, to make sure she isn't interrupting anyone else's sessions.

If Deanna were here, they would be having a lot more talks and counseling sessions than Beverly has admittedly thought about since she got here. She hasn't had the time or found the right person she can trust and there was the Prime Directive at first. Now it's... less of a concern since the Observers put that truth curse on her. Still, there are still some things that are hard to talk about.

So it's likely for the best that Beverly finds Francis playing with the cat this time. A smile crosses her face as she makes her way slowly over. "Playing with a cat can be the best medicine," she says in opening, her attention on the cute fluffball to start.

[ex_assertiveness90]

Stella's not religious, not anymore. Her mother's family had been devoutly Anglican, and when she was small she'd dutifully gone to Mass on Sundays and holy days because it was what her parents did and what she'd thought she was supposed to do. And then her father had died when she was fourteen, and Stella had abruptly decided to stop believing in God.

Nothing she's seen or done since has successfully convinced her otherwise, so she always feels slightly awkward in holy places, including the village church, makeshift as it might be. The last time she was here must have been more than a year ago, when a group of people were considering offering rudimentary counseling services to anyone in the village who might have needed them and Stella had thought about offering her time. It's strange to be here for the same reason now, except on the other end of the metaphorical equation. Stella doesn't even know what she'll say, if anything at all of consequence, but the alternative is to sit at home and stew in her anger, and she's done enough of that over her time here.

She raps her knuckles on the door by way of alerting Mulcahy that she's there, but doesn't actually wait to be invited in — possibly she should have, because as she enters the sanctuary she realizes Mulcahy's praying, and this might not be a good time.

"Father Mulcahy," she says, "I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt your prayers. Is this a bad time?"

Stella might not believe in God anymore, but she can respect those who do as long as they don't go around forcing their religion on other people. The very least she can do is be polite.

Or maybe she's just stalling, looking for an excuse to put this off. It could be either.

[borneinblood]

It's the announcement on the network that catches Druitt's attention. Not that he has any particular problem with the name that he's been saddled with - he's long since come to terms with that aspect of his history - but he can't deny being curious all the same. Not just for the offer that's being made, but also for the fact that there's a church at all.

(He's not immediately assuming that the person who made the post is a priest, but he can't deny that the username has him a little curious on that front also.)

Even just stepping in the front door, he cuts an undeniable figure. In deference to the fact that it is a church, he's settled as much as he can back into the shadow of the man he was before he'd left his mark on history, but even then he's more than a little tall and wears the black of his scrubs as if he were wearing something else besides.

"I heard there was a friendly ear to be found here?"