Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 10: Boniface VI

The late 9th century was a turbulent time for the papacy, as it became involved in controversies involving the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Holy Roman Empire, and the throne of France. Pope Formosus was involved in all of these, and after his death the successor to his successor, Stephen VI, had Formosus exhumed and put on trial in the infamous Cadaver Synod 

But what of the successor to Formosus?

It's not clear why Boniface was elected pope, or what his role was in the church prior to election, or if he even had a role. Some sources credit him with being a subdeacon or a priest, but it's possible he held no clerical position prior to his election. He's also said to have been around 90 when he became pope. So it could just be that the cardinals, in a time of public unrest, decided to put someone on the throne of St. Peter who (a) wasn't involved in the various power plays going on at the time, and (b) wasn't going to be in the position long.

If that was the thinking, the cardinals got more than they bargained for in terms of a short reign. Boniface ruled for just 15 days, with him either dying (of gout or by poison at the behest of the future Stephen VI) or being forced out (also by Philip and/or his supporters). Bonfiace served the second-shortest reign as pope. Who had the shortest reign? You'll just have to keep reading!

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 9: St. Lucius I

We don't know much about Lucius, other than he served in 253 and 254, and was banished from Rome for part of his papacy due to an ongoing persecution by the Roman emperor Gallus. The assumption is that he was let back in after Valerian succeeded Gallus. 

There is some dispute as to whether or not Lucius was martyred. His death was attributed to a persecution started by Valerian, but Lucius was already dead when the persecution is believed to have started. 

Lucius was one of the popes buried in the tomb of Callixtus, but his relics wound up both in Santa Cecilia in Rome and in a cathedral in Copenhagen (the story goes that his skull drove a group of demons out of Roskilde). But it turns out the skull in question may actually belong to the Norwegian king Sigurd the Crusader. Both skulls were in the Danish national museum for a time, and apparently got swapped out when Lucius' skull was sent back to the cathedral.

Lucius was also made a saint at some point, likely due to his assumed martyrdom, but it's not clear when he was canonized.

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 8: Innocent IX

Born Giovanni Facchinetti (apparently not his actual last name, but what he was called based on his father's nickname), the future Innocent IX earned a doctorate in both civil and canon law before opting to join the priesthood. He quickly moved up the ranks - thanks in no small part to working for an influential cardinal named Alessandro Farnese - and would be made a bishop in 1560.

Six years later, Pope Pius V sent him to Venice as papal nuncio, where he worked to support the alliance between the Papal States and Spain against the Ottoman Empire. which would lead the Holy League defeating the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto.

Giovanni returned to Rome in 1575, looking to stay put so he could both further his career and improve his health. He would become a cardinal in 1584, and was an important figure in the administration of Pope Gregory XIV.

When Gregory died in 1591, the Spanish cardinals, perhaps remembering Giovanni's work in Venice, got behind him as their candidate for the papacy. He was elected on the third ballot (even though the Spanish had a majority of the voting cardinals) and took the name Innocent to honor Innocent III.

Innocent started his tenure by supporting Spain (payback, one supposes) against France in that country's Wars of Religion, and he named a couple of cardinals (one of which was his grandnephew). In December, he decided to make a pilgrimage to all seven of Rome's pilgrimage churches, even though he wasn't feeling well. And as you might have expected, his condition worsened afterwards, and he died a couple of weeks later, having served for about two months.

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 7: Benedict XI

Nicola Boccasini was destined for the clergy, if for no other reason than money. His mother was a laundress for the Dominican friars of Treviso, and one of them left her and her kids a sum of money, with half pledged to Nicola if he became a Dominican. At 14 he joined the local order, and would spend many of the following years in Venice and Milan, where he both taught his fellow brothers and served as lector.

He would go on to be elected the provincial prior of Lombardy, giving him responsibility over all of the convents in that region. He would later be elected the master of his order, where one of his rulings forbade any Dominican from doubting the legitimacy of Pope Boniface VIII's election. 

And as one good turn deserves another, Boniface made Nicola a cardinal. He served as a legate to both Hungary and France, and when Boniface was seized by troops loyal to French king Philip IV (whom Boniface had sort of excommunicated), Nicola was one of two cardinals also captured while defending the pope. All were released after three days, but confinement didn't appear to agree with Boniface (he was likely beaten), and he died about a month later.

Nicola was elected pope on the first ballot of the ensuing conclave, as he was considered unlikely to further antagonize Philip. Not being Roman also helped, as he didn't have a natural allegiance to any of the parties involved in that conflict. He reversed Philip's excommunication, but then excommunicated everyone involved in the abduction of Boniface. 

Benedict died just eight months into his papacy, with rumors that he was poisoned by a French minister of state that he excommunicated over the Boniface affair (there's no evidence either way).  The ongoing dispute between the papacy and the French throne led Benedict's successor, Clement V, to move the papal court to Avignon, where it stayed for most of the 14th century.

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 6: Marcellus II

Unlike Silverius, Marcellus II was well-suited to becoming pope. His father was friends with Clement VII, which got a pre-papal Marcellus a job at the Vatican, and he would later become secretary to Paul III. While in that role he was also made a cardinal, served as nuncio to Spain, and was one of the three presidents of the Council of Trent.

Marcellus was seen as a potential successor to Paul III, but the disfavor of the Holy Roman Emperor and a bout of malaria took him out of the running. When Paul's successor, Julius III, died in 1555, Marcellus was elected after four days of wrangling between factions supporting the French and the HRE. He opted to keep his birth name, and is the last pope to have done so.

Marcellus was keen to implement reforms, but quickly took ill due to the combined strains of Holy Week duties, the conclave, and the coronation ceremonies. He did manage to address the ambassadors of France and Spain on maintaining peace, and implemented some cost-saving measures to help the Vatican finances. But 22 days into his reign he suffered a stroke and died. 

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 5: St. Silverius

Silverius became pope under difficult political circumstances. The Ostrogoth leader Theodahad wanted a pope who was pro-Goth, and not finding someone he liked among the existing possibilities, he had Silverius elected and consecrated in 536. Prior to becoming pope, Silverius was a subdeacon, a position that does not usually lead directly to the throne of St. Peter.

Less than a year later, the Byzantine general Belisarius entered Rome, and while Silverius apparently welcomed his arrival Belisarius had him removed from office and banished (along with a number of senators, all of whom were adjudged as conspiring with the Goths).

Things did not improve for Silverius when he was returned to Rome for trial. He was instead put into the custody of his replacement, Vigilius, who promptly had him banished to an uninhabited island off the west coast of Italy, where he starved to death some months later.

Silverius was acclaimed a saint by the 11th century. One miracle attributed to him involved a fishing boat from Ponza that he saved from sinking during a storm. Not surprisingly this made Silverius a big deal on Ponza, and when a number of people from there settled in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, they brought their saint with them. Today, there's a San Silverio feast every June 20, but it's now held out of a church in Yonkers.

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 4: Conon

Conon was a seventh century pope, originally from Greece but educated in Sicily and made a priest in Rome (many Sicilian clergy wound up in Rome in this period due to Muslim raids on the island). His election as pope was seen as a compromise between military and clerical factions in Rome, and was likely helped by a large contingent of eastern Christians then resident in Rome.

There's not a lot of historical record for what Conon did during his time in office, though he did receive a group of Irish missionaries lead by Kilian, whom he made bishop. He was also apparently on good terms with the emperor, Justinian II. 

The Catholic Encyclopedia says Conon died of a long illness. 

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 3: St. Anterus

Anterus is the earliest-serving pope to have served for less than a year. He took the throne on November 21, 235, and died on January 3, 236.  There's some disagreement as to the manner of his death, whether it was natural or a martyrdom as part of persecutions carried out by Emperor Maximinus. Those thinking he was martyred attribute it to Anterus' appointment of notaries to collect stories of martyrs, which were then archived at the Vatican. Not surprisingly, Anterus didn't do much during his time in office, naming one bishop and not much else.

Regardless of how he died, Anterus was the first pope interred in a crypt overseen by the future pope (and saint) Calixtus, which became the final resting place for most (if not all) of the third century popes. What are believed to be his ashes were rediscovered some time later and reinterred at San Silvestro in Rome. Anterus was made a saint at some point, though it's not clear why (other than potentially being a martyr).

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 2: Leo XI

Part of the surprise over John Paul I's short run as pope came from the length of time between his papacy and the most recent one to last less than a year. For that you have to go all the way back to 1605, when Leo XI was on the throne for all of 26 days.

Leo was born Alessandro de'Medici, and as you might expect from that last name he was related to other popes (most notably Leo X, who was his grand-uncle). As you might also expect, his election involved significant politicking, as the Italian and French cardinals allied to vote for him over the objection of Spain's King Philip III. 

Similar to William Henry Harrison a couple of centuries later, Leo got sick after spending a significant amount of time outside while being installed into office. In this case, it was the ceremony marking his taking possession of the Basilica of St. John Lateran (which is the seat of the Bishop of Rome, one of the pope's many titles). Leo spiked a fever the following day, and never recovered. 

 Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 1: John Paul I

Might as well start with the person most people would think of when taking about short-term popes. 

Born Albino Luciani in Forno di Canale, he spent his pre-papal career in the Veneto, the northeast Italian region with Venice as its major city. At the time of his election he was the patriarch of Venice and cardinal-priest of San Marco in Rome. Prior to his election, he'd stated several times that he didn't want to be pope, and would reject the office if elected. But when the event actually happened, he said he felt obligated to serve.

For a short-reigning pope, John Paul set a number of firsts. He was the first pope to use a double name, which he adopted as a way of honoring both John XXIII and Paul VI, who had named him a bishop and cardinal. He was also the first pope to use a regnal number while being the first of his name. Previously, the first pope of a given name just used the name, no number or reference to being 'the First.' He was also the first pope to refused to be crowned (opting for a less regal inauguration), and the first to use the first person when speaking in public (though his speeches were often rewritten in more formal language for publication).

The latter firsts were part of his desire to humanize the papacy, which one expects would have been supported by his personal warmth and good nature, as evidenced by his quickly becoming known as "the smiling pope."

But 34 days into his papacy, John Paul died of an apparent heart attack. The surprise at his passing, and some ill-advised moves by the Vatican (such as not admitting that his death was discovered by a nun, fearing scandal over a woman being in the pope's bedroom) led to a number of conspiracy theories regarding his death, mostly involving financial irregularities with the Vatican Bank. 

With Ash Wednesday tomorrow, it's time to focus on what's really important in the coming season: this year's Lentorama. Here's what we've had so far:

2006: Saint of the Day
2007: The Non-Canonized Catholic Person of the Day 
2008: 40 Days, 40 Churches
2009: Great (?) Moments in Catholics on Television
2010: Two Millenia of Pointy Hats 
2011: Better Late than Never
2012: Know Your Dioscese
2013: There's a Name for That 
2014: We're Ready for Your Closeup, Your Holiness 
2015: sede vacante
2016: #Lent
2017: Lenten Observers of Instagram
2018: Second String Saints 
2019: Resurrect My Globe! 
2020: 40 Days of Food 
2021: Take Your Holiday to Go 
2022: It Happened on Easter Day
2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

I thought for this year we'd take a turn back towards the Vatican, so I give you:

Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

40 days worth of popes who didn't last more than a year. Expect a lot of sudden diseases and martyrdoms.

 Book Log Extra: New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

The New York Times took a break from trying to get Joe Biden to drop out of the Presidential race to slow-release its list of the 100 best books of the current century (it did it in groups of 20 over the course of the week). I was going to say that this seemed a little presumptuous, except that The Guardian did the same thing... in 2019 (their top pick was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which in true American fashion I've not read but have seen the TV adaptation). 

The NYT's list is paywalled, so no link for you. But here's the list, with the ones I've read in bold (17 as opposed to 22 on the Guardian's list, though I did start The Last Samurai and bailed on it).

100. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

99. How to Be Both by Ali Smith

98. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

97. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

95. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

94. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

93. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

92. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

91. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

90. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

89. The Return by Hisham Matar

88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis

87. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

86. Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight

85. Pastoralia by George Saunders

84. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

83. When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut

82. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

81. Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan

80. The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

79. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

78. Septology by Jon Fosse

77. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

75. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

74. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

73. The Passage of Power by Robert Caro

72. Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

71. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

70. All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones

69. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

68. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

67. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

66. We the Animals by Justin Torres

65. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

64. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

63. Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

62. 10:04 by Ben Lerner

61. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

60. Heavy by Kiese Laymon

59. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

58. Stay True by Hua Hsu

57. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

56. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

55. The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

54. Tenth of December by George Saunders

53. Runaway by Alice Munro

52. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

51. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

50. Trust by Hernan Diaz

49. The Vegetarian by Han Kang

48. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

47. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

46. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

45. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

44. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

43. Postwar by Tony Judt

42. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

41. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

40. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

39. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

38. The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolano

37. The Years by Annie Ernaux

36. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

35. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

34. Citizen by Claudia Rankine

33. Savage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

32. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

31. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

30. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

29. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

28. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

27. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

26. Atonement by Ian McEwan

25. Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

24. The Overstory by Richard Powers

23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro

22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

21. Evicted by Matthew Desmond

20. Erasure, Percival Everett

19. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

18. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

17. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

15. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

14. Outline by Rachel Cusk

13. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

12. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

10. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

9. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

8. Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

7. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

6. 2666 by Roberto Bolano

5. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

4. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

1. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

For want of anything better to post, here's a breakdown of if I've been to the most populous 100 cities in the US, and if so for how long:

More than a week in total: Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Orlando

More than a weekend, up to a week: New York, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Nashville, Atlanta, Tulsa, New Orleans, Anaheim, Pittsburgh

A weekend to a longish weekend: Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, Columbus, Indianapolis, Seattle, Las Vegas, Detroit, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis, Buffalo, Madison

In for the day: San Antonio, Virginia Beach

Less than a day, including being in transit only: Dallas, Jacksonville, San Jose, Charlotte, Denver, Long Beach, Oakland, Minneapolis, Henderson (NV), Newark, Toledo, Norfolk, Richmond

To the best of my knowledge, I've never been: Phoenix, Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, El Paso, Portland (OR), Louisville, Memphis, Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Tucson, Fresno, Sacramento, Mesa, Colorado Springs, Omaha, Raleigh, Miami, Bakersfield, Tampa, Wichita, Arlington (TX), Aurora (CO), Honolulu, Stockton, Riverside, Lexington (KY), Corpus Christi, Irvine, Cincinnati, Santa Ana, Saint Paul, Greensboro, Lincoln, Durham, Plano, Anchorage, Jersey City, Chandler, North Las Vegas, Chula Vista, Gilbert, Reno, Fort Wayne, Lubbock, St. Petersburg, Laredo, Irving, Chesapeake, Glendale, Winston-Salem, Scottsdale, Garland, Boise, Port St. Lucie, Spokane, Fremont, Huntsville

It's possible I've been in a few of these, even briefly (Chesapeake and Jersey City seem most likely). It looks like I could knock off a bunch of these by driving around the Metroplex and the Phoenix area for a couple of hours.

 As a sort of follow-up to the post about cities I've only been to through their airports, here are the US states I've been to for less than 24 hours.

Arizona - when we visited the Hoover Dam, the wife and I walked across from Nevada to Arizona. There being nothing on the Arizona side but barren landscape, we maybe stayed for two minutes. Hands down the state I've been to but spent the least amount of time.

Colorado - as mentioned in that other post, I've only been to Colorado due to flying through Denver once. 

Idaho - on our road trip from Salt Lake City to Chicago, we went through Idaho pretty much so we could say we'd been there. We overnighted in Pocatello, and got to see both some of the Idaho State campus and the much improved city flag. 

Kansas - on a visit to Kansas City, some friends and I drove over to Overland Park to visit the NCAA headquarters. It was closed. We drove back to KC.

Kentucky - the sum total of my Bluegrass State visitation is time spent connecting through the "Cincinnati" airport in Covington.

Minnesota - on the same road trip where we stopped in Idaho, we stopped overnight in Minnesota mostly because the kids wanted to go to the Mall of America. This is probably the state on the list in which I've spent the most time.

West Virginia - all of my time in West Virginia has been due to Scout trips. In high school we cut through one of the spiky bits when driving from Shenandoah National Park to Gettysburg. As an adult, I spent an afternoon in Harpers Ferry while chaperoning a Scout trip to both Gettysburg and Antietam.

And while we're at it, the countries I've been to for less than 24 hours:

Bahamas - stopped at Disney's resort island while on a cruise, so no real experience with Bahamian culture or people at all.

Germany - one of our visits to the UK had us fly home through Frankfurt.

Mexico - same cruise as the Bahamas stop, spent a day ashore in and around Cozumel.

Turkey - flew through coming and going to Italy

Vatican City - same Italy trip, spent one of the days at the Vatican Museum and then in St. Peter's square while others went into the basilica (I passed as my knee wasn't up to standing in line for a couple of hours).

Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 40: Cadfael

Born in Wales, Cadfael left home to become as servant to a wool merchant in the English town of Shrewsbury, but would spend several years as a sailor or soldier, participating in the First Crusade and Henry I's conquest of Normandy.  After Normany, Cadfael returned to England in the service of a lord who kidnapped the abbot of Shrewsbury Abbey in an attempt to dismiss a lawsuit the abbey was bringing against the lord. Cadfael freed the abbot, and now being free of his oath to the kidnapping lord, opted to become a brother at Shrewsbury.

As much as Cadfael appreciates monastic life and his position as the abbey's herbalist, his secular experience and natural curiosity often lead him into conflict with the rules and expectations of religious life. Not surprisingly, those things that make him a less than ideal monk make him an excellent detective. His experience with the outside world also gives him the confidence and skill to venture outside the walls in pursuit of the truth, at some danger to himself during the time of The Anarchy.

And for all of the crime solving, Cadfael also finds time to attend to affairs of the heart, as many of the mysteries include a romantic subplot involving a murder suspect. He's also apt to mete out some rough justice, usually to the detriment of the authorities, though he is still great friends with the local sheriff (and godfather to his son).

I enjoyed the Cadfael series quite a bit, and found that author Ellis Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter) had an excellent handle on how to balance the religious and secular forces that weighed on Cadfael during his investigations. Both the period detail and local detail were outstanding, making me feel like I really understood what life was like at that time and in that place.

Thus ends another Lentorama, one of the few I actually finished on time. I apparently just need to pick topics that actually interest me, who'd have thought it? See you next year.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 39: Sister Agatha

Once investigative reporter and professor Mary Naughton, Sister Agatha is now a nun at the Our Lady of Hope monastery in New Mexico. She is an extern nun, meaning that she is able to interact with the outside world on behalf of her cloistered counterparts. This becomes important when one of the monastery's priests is poisoned mid-Mass, putting all of Sister Agatha's secular senses on high alert. She has to solve the murder before any attendant scandal pushes the financially unstable monastery into closing for good.

Sister Agatha goes on to solve other crimes - not always murder, but often - and becomes well-known locally for her skills in this regard. 

Unusually, this series was penned by a pair of authors, Aimee and David Thurlo. He is a New Mexico native, having grown up on a Navajo reservation, while she was born in Cuba but lived in New Mexico for most of her life. They also penned a mystery series where the main character is a former FBI agent turned Navajo police investigator, and another about a New Mexico state police detective who is both Navajo and a vampire.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 38: Reverend Martin Buell

The Rev. Dr. Martin Buell is dispatched to Farrington, Colorado to take on Christ Church parish. He was ambivalent about the assignment, and his attitude doesn't improve upon meeting Seneca Wibble, who considers herself the leading authority on the town and matters of Christ Church. And then on his first night, he finds a body. With more to come, all of which the local sherrif would like to pin on him.

This series was one of three penned in the mid-20th century by Margaret Scherf (the other two involved a couple that painted furniture and a retired pathologist). She also wrote some juvenile mysteries and a Nancy Drew mystery, all as part of a varied career of writing, editing, and administrative work. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 37: Father John O'Malley

John O'Malley is the priest at the St. Francis Mission, located on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. In addition to his usual duties he also solves murders committed on tribal land, or involving members of the Arapaho nation, usually assisted by attorney Vicky Holden. 

Author Margaret Coel is a native Coloradan, and her career as a journlist helped her find actual events and stories to adapt into her novels. Coel wrote 20 books in the series in total before ending it in 2016.

Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 36: Claire Fergusson

Claire Fergusson is the new priest at St. Albans Episcopal Church in Millers Kill, New York. She's not exactly what the parishoners expected, as she's a former Army chopper pilot with a no-nonsense attitude. When a baby is left at the church, she enlists the help of the town's police chief - ex-Army himself - to find the parents, a mission that uncovers secrets, murder, and perhaps a budding romance?

Author Julia Spencer-Fleming does not appear to have entertained a religious vocation or served in the military. She does originally come from upstate New York, but lives in Maine now. Unlike many of these series this one is still active.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 35: Elizabeth Elliot

Elizabeth Elliot is a lifelong Quaker, and has just been elected the clerk of her Harvard Square meeting. Where Quakers do not have clergy, the clerk takes on many of the administrative duties for the meeting that a priest or other religious would for a church or similar community (though the clerk may also record any agreement made during a worship meeting).

Elizabeth is worried about her ability to handle the clerk position, and her concerns aren't helped when another member is killed in his garden. The police arrest a homeless man who the member occasionally hired to help in his garden, but Elizabeth thinks that the killing was more likely inspired by the rumored changes the member was going to make to his will.  Using her natural investigatory talents, backed up by a lifetime of Quaker practice and moral teaching, Elizabeth solves the first in a series of murders, both in Cambridge and beyond.

And as is the case with so many of these series, the author writes from a certain area of experience. Irene Allen is the pen name of Dr. E. Kirsten Peters, a geology professor from Washington state who is also a practicing Quaker. She earned her doctorate at Harvard, and attended meetings in Cambridge.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 34: Father Mark Townsend

Father Mark is a Jesuit priest in the Seattle area who first gets involved in a murder inquiry when a lawyer is found stabbed to death with an artifact from an Alaskan tribe that he worked with during time assigned to that state. The priest has to return to the Last Frontier in order to find who the killer is, and how they are connected to the tribe and this particular object.

The series sees Father Mark investigate cases that mostly involve indigenous people (with the last book in the series focusing on migrant farm workers). All of the books are set in the Pacific Northwest, which is where the author, Brad Reynolds (himself a Jesuit) resides.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 33: Rev. Lily Connor

Lily Connor is what's known as a "tentmaker," a priest who specializes in filling in when a parish is between permanent priests. She's home in Texas, where she had been helping care for her father, who recently died from cancer. A friend calls asking if she'll take a temporary assignment in the Boston area - their priest died of a heart attack - and she accepts the job. Only problem is that when she gets to the parish, she begins to suspect that his death wasn't what is seemed.

The Lily Connor trilogy was written by Michelle Blake, who was on the path to becoming an Episcopal priest herself but opted for writing as a career. She is primarily an essayist and poet, with these books being her only published prose works. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 32: Rev. Septimus Treolar

Another law enforcement officer turned cleric, the Reverend Treolar retired as a chief inspector of the CID and became the parson of the rural St.Mary's Danedyke. But when the locals suspect that the church is haunted, Septimus dusts off his investigatory skills to sort out who is behind what appear to be supernatural events. 

I've seen this series described as mysteries written for children or YA readers, which may explain the lack of a body count. The series is credited to Stephen Chance, which was the pen name of Philip Turner, who wrote a different children's series set in Darnley Mills, a town in northeast England. There is a prequel Septimus Treolar novel which follows his exploits during World War II, where the stakes are higher (he's trying to track down a spy) but still age-appropriate.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 31: Sister Lou

Louise "Lou" LaSalle gave up the bright lights of Los Angeles for the quieter precincts of Briar Coast, New York. She's looking forward to some peace, and her nephew works for the college her order founded in the area.

Of course, murder gets in the way of her plans. A controversial theologian, whom Lou invited to speak at a feast day observance, turns up dead. Lou, sensing that the local police are off track in their investigation, teams up with a local reporter to look into the dead man's past for something (or someone) that would lead to his killing.

There are only three books in the Sister Lou series, which see he involved in crimes both her sisters and the wider Briar Coast community. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 30: Father Brown

Perhaps the quintessential example of a clerical crime solver, Father Brown appeared in 53 short stories by G. K. Chesterton, written in the early 20th century.  Father Brown is Catholic, but that's about all we know about him personally. The stories shed little to no light on his parish, his bio, or even his first name (and what information we do get is often conflicting). 

What we do see in Father Brown is someone who can use his innate understanding of human behavior and vast knowledge of aberrant behavior (gained through a career of parishoner confessions) to figure out who committed the crime. He also benefits by his personal appearance and manners, which are unprepossessing and thus make him easy to undersestimate.

Chesterton created the characer based on John O'Connor, a priest and long time friend who played a pivotal role in Chsterton's conversion to Catholicism. As far as I can tell he did not solve crimes.

The Father Brown stories have been adapted several times for film, radio, and TV. The BBC brought Father Brown back in 2012, and are now on the 12th series of episodes (these are shown in the US on PBS). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 29: John Jordan

John Jordan was a cop in Atlanta, until the job got to be too much and he embarked on a major life change, as he put down his gun and picked up a Bible in becoming a prison chaplain in his native Florida. Now serving the inmates of the Potter Correctional Institution, he gets pulled into murder within the walls, combining his access as a chaplain with the investigatory skills honed on the force. 

Jordan shares a lot of his bio with his creator, Michael Lister, who was himself a prison chaplain on the Florida panhandle for years before turning to a full time writing careeer. Jordan also eventually leaves the prison (or at least he starts picking up cases outside of it), and later books have his father and daughter involved in the cases, too. 

One review I read suggested that the books would appeal to a Christian audience more than a general one, not sure if that was solely based off of Jordan being a chaplain or if the books have more of a religious or spiritual orientation than your average mystery. I didn't get a sense that the series was specifically Christian from the author's website. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 28: Brother Athelstan

Brother Athelstan is a Dominican friar, priest of St. Erconwald's in London's Southwark district, and secretary to the city of London's coroner.  Most of the mysteries that Athelstan gets involved in fall into the locked room variety - sometimes literally - where he has to figure out how someone was able to commit a murder under impossible circumstances.

As with many of the series set in English history, Athelstan also has to juggle his religious and detective work with political upheavals. The series is set in the 14th century during the reign of Richard II, which was never particularly stable, and covers the period leading up to and including the Peasant's Revolt, also know as Wat Tyler's Rebellion.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 27: David Winter

David Winter is an Orthodox rabbi in Los Angeles who, kind of like David Small on the opposite coast, gets into investigating murder when he becomes the prime suspect in one. In this case, it's the killing of a feminist rabbi who had been a guest on his weekly radio show. 

From what I can tell from reading synopses, though, Rabbi Winter's deductive process is a little more instructive in Jewish practice and folklore. This tracks with the interests of his creator, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, whose bibliography is largely non-fiction and covers a range of topics from Judaism. 

Note that Winter's first case actually appears in two different books, where the victim has a different name but the crime is more or less the same.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 26: Rev. Francis Oughterard

Set in 1950s Surrey, Oughterard is a little unusual among those we've encountered this Lentorama by being as likely to be involved in crime as he is in solving crime. The first book in the series sets up this dichotomy in later ones, with Oughterard not being a victim per se, but not really a willing participant in the various schemes that come his way. The series is also unique in that the stories are told from three points of view, two of which are from animals.

I have to admit I'm kind of intrigued by this series. There is also at least one spin-off novel featuring Oughterard's sister Primrose, an artist who gets into similar morally ambiguous situations. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 25: Theodora Braithwaite

Theodora is a deaconess and curate at Medewich Cathedral, and she gets pulled into her initial case when a woman interviewing to become the cathedral's secretary finds the head of a visiting - and controversial -priest resting on a baptismal font. Theodora reluctantly gets involved in the case, and her success in solving it sets her up for future cases, typically as she visits other cathedrals or takes on new positions.

The author of this series, D. M. Greenwood, once described herself as a "low level ecclesiastical civil servant," which makes me think that the series is in some respect semi-autobiographical. If nothing else, her career likely provided a wealth of source material from which she could develop mysteries.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solver

Day 24: Father Tom Christmas

Tom Christmas takes on a parish in the rural town of Thornford Regis after the murder of his wife in London, thinking that the change of scenery will help him and his nine year old daughter cope with their loss and regain a sense of security. Of course, those plans get blown up when a parishoner is found murdered in a drum. Father Christmas gets pulled into solving the crime as it appear that pretty much every member of his flock had some reason to want the man dead.

While the books in the series aren't necessarily set during the holidays, book titles and the general plot of each book are derived from "The Twelve Days of Christmas," though it's been a good ten years since the last novel in this series (there was a 2020 novella featuring Father Christmas that isn't part of the series). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 23: Sister Holiday

Sister Holiday teaches music at St. Sebastian's School in New Orleans, where she's settled in to life among the Sisters of the Sublime Blood, who took her in when she was at her lowest. She's not your typical nun, between the tattoos, smoking, and longing for an ex-girlfriend, but she's doing her best. Her foray into criminal investigation comes when a series of arson attacks hit the school, killing a friend. She looks into her fellow nuns, her students, and her own past, to figure out who is behind the fires.

This is the first novel in a planned series by Margot Douaihy, with a second book planned for this year. It's also the first book from Gillian Flynn Books, an imprint by the author of Gone Girl that seeks to publish books that are "propulsive and culturally incisive."

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 22: Bishop Henry Lapp

An elderly Amish bachelor dies in a fire, but it turns out that it wasn't an accident. The fire was intended to kill the man, and it's up to his bishop, Henry Lapp, to find the culprit and make sure that the man who was arrested - who Lapp knows is innocent - goes free. 

Lapp has the usual skills found by the protagonists in these series - keep observational skills, a good memory, and the logical ability to put things together - but he also seems to have an actual religious calling to solve cases, which is a little different from the other series that have come up here. Also different is that at some point Lapp suffered a traumatic brain injury, apparently the cause of at least some of his skills in this area. 

I did not know about the role of the bishop in Amish religious practice, and I thought this page did a good job of explaining what hierarchy there is in Amish congregations. I also didn't know that there was an Amish community in Colorado, but the San Luis Valley does in fact host a number of Amish communities.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 21: Sister Rose Callahan

Sister Rose is an eldress of a Shaker community of North Homage in Kentucky. Her first mystery involves the death of a "winter Shaker," a man who appears to have claimed Shaker beliefs in order to find shelter. While Rose wants to find the killer in order to serve justice and protect her fellow Believers, she also wants to minimize how much gets known about the killing outside of North Homage, as the locals are already suspicious about the community.

Future cases see Rose walking that same tightrope, but often with outside help provided by Gennie Malone, an orphan who was brought up at North Homage but opted to leave the community as an adult.

The series is written by Deborah Woodworth, using both her personal experience of growing up near Shaker sites in southern Ohio and academic experiencce from holding a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion. 

I'd always thought of the Shakers as a New York and New England phenomenon, but I think that's because the communities in those areas lasted the longest (including the one still operating in Maine). A number of communities opened in Ohio and Kentucky at the start of the 19th century, but they all closed by the time of the Depression (which is true of most Shaker communities generally). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 20: Sidney Chambers

Sidney Chambers is the vicar of the church of St. Andrew and St. Mary in Grantchester, a village near Cambridge. Chambers was reading theology at Cambridge prior to World War II, becoming ordained after the war. He is a bachelor, a fan of whiskey and jazz, and is friendly with a local police detective. That last bit comes in handy when a parishoner tells Chambers that they believe a recent death by suicide was actually foul play. Thus starts a series which not only sees Chambers solve crimes, but also deal with personal issues related to the war, his romantic life, and changes to British society.

Chambers was created by James Runcie, who was inspired by his father, former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.  He said he envisioned the stories winding up on the screen, which came to pass with the ITV series Grantchester (aired on PBS in the US).  The show became quite popular, and elevated its star, James Norton, to leave in order to puruse new opportunities. Out went Sidney Chambers, in came Will Davenport, another young vicar with a penchant for crime solving (who will himself be replaced for the upcoming ninth season).

The books, of course, do not see these changes, and detail how Sidney grows into his role as vicar and how he handles the various personal challenges that made his early years at Grantchester so difficult. I keep saying I'll read these, having watched Grantchester for a while, but still haven't gotten around to doing so.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 19: Simon Bede

The Rev. Dr. Simon Bede is an assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury who also solves crimes, with the help of his friend and internationally-known photographer Helen Bullock. Though it may be that Bede is the one helping Bullock solve crimes, as the synopses I could find online for these novels paints her as more of the main character. How Bede manages to get away to help her (one of the books is set in Morocco) is unclear.

It's a short series, only four books, and it seems like the first two may be out of print as there was very little information online about them. And, as with so many sleuths covered so far, Bede is an Englishman created by an American, Barbara Byfield. Wikipedia suggests that she collaborated on the books with another author, Frank Tedeschi, but I only found him credited on the first book. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 18: Felicity Howard

Felicity Howard is an American studying for the Anglican priesthood at the College of the Transfiguration in Yorkshire. She is stunned when she finds one of her teachers, Father Domenic, bludgeoned to death, and another teacher, Father Antony, covered in his blood. While the police want Antony for the killing, Felicity follows the clues left for ber by Father Domenic in a cryptic poen and leaves the college with Father Antony so she can solve the killing.

While Felicity continues to solve crimes, her vocation becomes less certain. Will she continue onto the priesthood, opt to become a nun, or remain part of the laity so she can pursue other professional (and romantic) opportunities? 

This is one of several series written by Donna Fletcher Crow, whose other series are set in England and Scotland in various historical eras. Which is probably more fertile ground for period drama and mystery than her native Idaho.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 17: Sister Mary Helen

At 75, Sister Mary Helen could have chosen to retire, but not looking to slow down she opts to take on a teaching role at a San Francisco women's college. Not long after her arrival an earthquake strikes, and a body found in the rubble turns out to have been murdered, Police make and arrest, but Sister Mary Helen thinks they have the wrong person, and sets out to find the real killer.

Sister Mary Helen is helped in future cases by Sister Eileen, an Irish nun who is often her traveling companion. Cases mostly take place in and around San Francisco, but at least one book takes place in Ireland.

This series is at least one example of a clerical crime writer, as the author, Carol Anne O'Marie, was herself a nun of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Her work as a nun centered on education (both teaching and administration), though she was also a newspaper editor for a time and co-founded a women's shelter. Which makes me wonder where she found the time to write.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 16: Father Robert Koesler

Bob Koesler is a priest at St. Joseph's in Detroit, and he gets into sleuthing when he helps solve the serial killing of priests and nuns, where the killer leaves each victim with a plain black rosary in their hands. From there, Koesler gets involved in solving crimes that primarily involve clergy or the church, often with the help (wanted or not) of other parish members.

There are over 20 books in this series, and it looks like Koesler ages in something like real time, as he's retired from being an active priest in the last few books. It also looks like the later books tackle some of the issues facing the contemporary Catholic church (maybe earlier books do, too, but in the synopses I read it didn't seem so).

The author, William X. Kienzle, was a laicized Catholic priest who reportedly left the priesthood due to the church's opposition to letting divorced people remarry. His post-clerical work focused on writing and editing, though he did make a foray into movies by adapting his first book, The Rosary Murders, into a film that starred Donald Sutherland as Koesler. Kienzle shared screenwriting credit with fellow Detroiter Elmore Leonard.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crim Solvers

Day15: Abbess Helewise

12th century England is apparently fertile territory for writers in this genre, as this is the third series mentioned in this Lentorama set in that era. In this case, though, the action takes place after the end of The Anarchy.

At the start of the series, Richard the Lionhearted is at the start of his reign, and he orders a release of prisoners in order to build up his standing with the public. Shortly after this release, a novice nun from Hawkenlye Abbey is found murdered, and Richard dispatches a knight, Sir Josse d'Acquin, to the abbey to deterime if one of the released prisoners may have committed the crime (thus reflecting badly on the king). It's at the abbey where Sir Josse meets Abbess Helewise, who gets pulled into the investigation and helps discover the perpetrator.

This is just the first of several deaths that Helewise and Sir Josse investigate, and as also often happens in these series we also get to see a fair amount of their personal lives and relationships. The series doesn't seem to be as involved with royal goings on as others, though kings and queens do make the occasional appearance.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 14: Father Dowling

Father Dowling is a Catholic priest in Fox River, Illinois, and shortly after taking up his parish he gets a call from a panicked elderly parishoner. He tries to calm her down, and whatever success he has is mitigated by the parishoner turning up dead. 

It turns out that the detective on the case was in the same seminary class as Dowling, but left after a year. Together, the pair solve the mystery, the first of many that they'd tackle together.

Written by Ralph McInerny, the novels spawned the TV series Father Dowling Mysteries, with Tom Bosley starring as Father Dowling. Other than the title and character names the show didn't use much from the novels, as the setting was switched to Chicago and none of the stories from the books were used for TV.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 13: Simon Ark

Simon is a man in his 60s who gets pulled into solving crimes that are often related or tinged with the supernatural or occult. This makes some sense given his background: Ark is a 2000 year old Coptic priest who was cursed to spend eternity roaming the Earth (either for not allowing Jesus to rest while carrying his cross en route to the crucifixion, or for writing a gospel so pious that God couldn't decide if Ark should go to heaven or hell).

Ark was the creation of Edward D. Hoch, whose detective fiction included a few novels but was primarily focused on short stories. He had over 950 published, with at least a dozen series focused on different main characters. Simon Ark was one of those, with 39 stories in total (a Simon Ark story was Hoch's first published work). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 12: Dame Averilla

Dame Averilla is the infirmarer at the Benedictine Abbey of the Virgin Mary and Edward, King and Martyr, in Shaftesbury. While political unrest roils the countryside, Averilla has to track down a collection of herbal lore that has gone missing (hampering her ability to tend to the sick, one would think). She also gets involved in the perhaps related disappearance of Dame Agnes, whom many in the abbey believe is possessed.

If you noticed some similarities here between Averilla and another crime-solving healer located at a Benedictine abbey during the period of unrest known as The Anarchy, you would not be alone. There are a a couple of differences worth noting. 

The first is that Averilla has to also manage internal unrest between nuns of Anglo-Saxon background and the new, young nuns who are daughters of the Norman elite. We do not see this sort of tension at the Benedictine abbey in Shrewsbury, though there is some conflict there related to class and education.

The other difference is that there are only three books in the Averilla series, one a prequel. So if there is any ripping off being done, it didn't last.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 11: Brother Rodric Chandler

The throne of England is rumored to be under threat from Henry Bolingbroke, cousin to King Richard II, who is now back from exile in France. As tension between the two rise, a novice nun from Barking Abbey is found murdered, and the clerical connection leads the coroner to ask his friend, Brother Rodric, to help figure out why the nun was killed and who did the deed.

Rodric is reluctant to help, what with already acting as a spy for Bolingbroke. But he takes up the case, and as you might expect the murder and the political intrigue are related, and put Rodric in a difficult spot not only due to his loyalties, but due to the danger he is in if he's revealed to be in Bolingbroke's camp.

Rodric was created by Cassandra Clark, who has another, longer-running series which will show up later in this Lentorama. As far as I can tell the two series are not related.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 10: Mother Lavinia Grey

Either the abbess or vicar (or both?) of St. Bede's, an Episcopal church in New Jersey, Lavinia (or Mother Vinnie, as I've seen her called at least once) was the prime suspect in the murder of a bishop who was critical of her attempts to save her parish. But when she helped solve that case, she found herself using her newly-discovered detecting skills in other cases. Along the way she also enters into an on and off relationship with one of the local police.

There are, at least superficially, some similarities between Mother Vinnie and Callie Anson, the curate covered in a previous post. Both are Anglicans who don't always mesh well with the higher ups, and both have complicated romantic relationships with cops. Maybe the authors can work out a crossover novel? 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 9: Jabal Jarrett

Freda Bream created the Rev. Jabal Jarrett when she turned to writing in her retirement, turning out 13 novels featuring the Auckland clergyman that every page I can find about the book labels as 'eccentric.'

How he's eccentric is another question, as I can find not much more than the barest information about the character or his debut appearance in Island of Fear. I did come across this page which gives just enough information for me to think that these books were never published in the US (and likely out of print everywhere else).

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 8: Rabbi David Small

David Small is the new, bookish rabbi at a temple in suburban Boston. It's not clear that he's fitting in, and a murder on temple grounds - in which Small is a leading suspect - doesn't help his popularity. But he's able to help crack the case by applying his highly trained and logical mind to the facts at hand, starting a series that spanned several books and a TV adaptation.

I read the first book in the series a few years ago, had mixed feelings about it, and haven't gone back to the series since. Part of the problem was that the reading experience wasn't great, as I read the book using Hoopla and it didn't format that well on my phone. So if I can find physical copies of the books I may be more inclined to get back into them.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 7: Callie Anson

After the tumultuous end of her engagement, Callie Anson is looking forward to what she thinks will be the quieter life as the curate of a London church (which makes her more or less assistant clergy to the person already assigned). It turns out that the religious life isn't that much more peaceful, notably when she interacts with other male clergy who don't think women should be ordained.

When one of those dissenting vicars turns up dead, Callie's friend and mentor (who defended her choice of vocation to the dead man) is a prime suspect. Callie turns to her faith - and some innate sleuthing abilities - in order to prove her friend's innocence.

It looks like as the series goes on Callie is less involved with sleuthing and more with bringing her unique perspective to what's going on in the parish. There are still deaths, but it's not clear from the synopses I've read if she's materially involved with the investigations. 

I found it interesting that the author of the series, Kate Charles, isn't English at all, but from the American midwest. Maybe Anglican parishes here aren't conducive to crime solving prelates.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 6: Dame Frevisse

Set in 15th century England, Dame Frevisse is a nun at St. Frideswide's, a small convent in Oxfordshire. She discovers a talent for solving crimes, many of which occur in or around the convent and the neighboring town, while later books in the series see her sleuthing farther afield, either while accompanying another nun on convent business or while abroad on her own business. The later books also delve more into current events, most notably the tensions that led to the Wars of the Roses.

Frevisse is related to Geoffrey Chaucer, and each book shares a name with one of the Canterbury Tales. She also interacts with some of her Chaucer relatives during the series, though usually as part of a subplot rather than the main mystery.

The series is attributed to Margaret Frazer, which originally was a pen name shared by collaborators Gail Brown and Mary Monica Pulver Kuhfeld. They stopped working together after the sixth novel in the series, with Brown retaining the Frazer name. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 5: Father Anselm

Father Anselm is a lawyer turned friar of Larkwood Priory, and as with so many of the people in this series, he winds up solving mysteries on the side. Unlike many of his colleagues, the cases tend to be re-examining events that have already occurred rather than something current. The first novel in the series involves a man who may have committed war crimes during World War 2, while another has Anselm look into a death two years previous that an anonymous death claims was murder.

The character bears a strong resemblance to his creator, William Brodrick (minus the crime solving, I assume). Where Anselm is a lawyer turned priest, Brodrick is a priest turned lawyer (who then turned full time author). 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 4: Walker "Bear" Wells

Bear Wells is a minister in Sugar Land, Texas, an upscale suburb of Houston. His status among the locals is burnished by being a former University of Texas football player, and he finds his schedule jammed with commitments for both the church and the community. And, occasionally, dealing with a suspicious death.

Perhaps unusually for this genre, Wells doesn't have legal training or possess natural gifts for sleuthing. He's actually not that interested in playing detective - his focus is on his flock - but finds himself involved when the cases touch upon his family.

The series is written by Stephanie Jaye Evans, who brings significant personal experience to the page as the daughter of a Church of Christ minister and native Texan. While she appears to still be active in the Houston writing community, the series only has two books to date, the last published in 2013.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 3: Father John "Blackie" Ryan

Blackie Ryan - the nickname comes from his middle name, Blackwood - rose from being a parish priest to an auxilary bishop in Chicago, where he is the rector of the Holy Name Cathedral (which is the actual seat of the Archdiocese of Chicago). Among his less orthodox duties is solving various mysteries (almost all involving the Church somehow) at the behest of the cardinal, and often with the help of his Ryan siblings.

This series was written by Andrew Greeley, himself a priest from a large Chicago family of Irish Catholics. Rather than rise through the hierarchy of the Church, Greeley followed an academic path that saw him earn a Ph.D. in sociology and teach at the university level for many years, before transitioning into writing popular fiction and non-fiction books, almost all of which touched on religion or Ireland.

I've read a couple of his books and thought they were OK, though I've not read any of the books in this series.

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 2: Sister Fidelma

Today we jump back about 500 years to the time of Sister Fidelma, an Irish princess and legal advocate who solves murders on the side.

Fidelma was born into the royal family of Munster, and studied criminal and civil aspects of the Brehon law. After completing her studies, Fidelma became a nun and joined the mixed Kildare Abbey (home to both men and women) founded by St. Brigid in the 5th century. It does seem that Fidelma joined more to further her career than to express religious devotion, as she leaves the abbey at some point and goes by "Fidelma of Cashel" rather than be addressed as a sister.

As the series moves along, Fidelma's legal work sees her traveling into various corners of the Celtic world and beyond, and getting involved in cases at the highest levels of society. She also winds up marrying the monk she often works with, Eadulf, with whom she has a son.

I've not read any books in this series, but I have to say I'm interested. 

 Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 1: William of Baskerville

Umberto Eco apparently wanted to leave no doubt as to the deductive powers of William of Baskerville, the main character of his 1980 novel The Name of the Rose. The name comes from both William of Ockham - whose Razor says the simplest answer to a problem that accounts for all the facts is likely the right answer - and Sherlock Holmes, as a refernce to The Hound of the Baskervilles.  And in case that wasn't enough, we also learn that William had Roger Bacon as a mentor, giving him plenty of opportunity to soak up his emphasis on empirical observation.

William gets the chance to apply his skills to an unexpected death at an Italian monastery, which the abbot asks him to investigate. When the body count begins to climb, William (with the help of the novice monk Aldo of Melk) has to figure out who is behind the deaths before the local inquisitor sends innocent people to their death (something William has experience with, having previously worked in that role).

This is likely Eco's best known novel, and certainly his best-selling (an estimated 50 million copies worldwide). If you've not read anything by Eco before, you should know going in that this is going to be much denser than your typical mystery novel. It's worth the work, even if you have to go back and re-read passages (which I recall doing more than once).

Or, if you'd rather watch the movie, cue up the 1986 film which stars Sean Connery as William and Christian Slater as Aldo. 

 As I was thinking about this year's Lentorama, I decided to take a look back at past years. In doing so, I was reminded that I've been doing this since 2006. A recap of each year's theme:

2006: Saint of the Day
2007: The Non-Canonized Catholic Person of the Day 
2008: 40 Days, 40 Churches
2009: Great (?) Moments in Catholics on Television
2010: Two Millenia of Pointy Hats 
2011: Better Late than Never
2012: Know Your Dioscese
2013: There's a Name for That 
2014: We're Ready for Your Closeup, Your Holiness 
2015: looks like I took this year off
2016: #Lent
2017: Lenten Observers of Instagram
2018: Second String Saints 
2019: Resurrect My Globe! 
2020: 40 Days of Food 
2021: Take Your Holiday to Go 
2022: It Happened on Easter Day
2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

Apparently I started off the 2016 Lentorama with a comment that it was almost the year where I stopped doing it. I didn't even remember not doing it the year before!

Anyway, for this year I am not going to roll into It Happened on Good Friday, as if I've learned anything over the last two years it's that hunting for things that are reasonably interesting that happened on the given day is a huge pain in the keister. So I'm going to dip back into popular culture with...

Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

A Lenten review of priests, vicars, nuns, and other religious who dabble in whodunits. Tune in tomorrow for the first of your forty frocked felon foilers.

Now that the college football season is over, it's time to address one of the new highlights of bowl season: the winning coach of the Duke's Mayo Bowl getting bathed in the game's namesake product. Thinking that all of the bowl games should get in on the fun, here are my suggestions for what their winning coaches should have to wash out of their hair. Selections are made based on bowl name, title sponsor, location, among other things.

Myrtle Beach Bowl: sand

New Orleans Bowl: gumbo

Cure Bowl: pink lapel ribbons

New Mexico Bowl: Hatch green chili salsa

LA Bowl: half caf soy latte

Independence Bowl: jambalaya

Famous Toastery Bowl: conch chowder

Frisco Bowl: Frito pie

Boca Raton Bowl: sunscreen

Gasparilla Bowl: sarsaparilla

Birmingham Bowl: Buffalo Rock ginger ale

Camelia Bowl: white barbecue sauce

Armed Forces Bowl: SOS

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: mashed potatoes

68 Ventures Bowl: Alabama Slammer

Las Vegas Bowl: Bellagio fountain water

Hawaii Bowl: crushed pineapple

Quick Lane Bowl: 10w30 motor oil

First Responder Bowl: Betadine

Guaranteed Rate Bowl: prickly pear margarita

Military Bowl: MRE chicken a la king

Holiday Bowl: egg nog

Texas Bowl: chile con carne

Fenway Bowl: wasabi

Pinstripe Bowl: Derek Jeter cologne

Pop Tarts Bowl: piping hot strawberry jam

Alamo Bowl: Lone Star beer

Gator Bowl: Gatorade

Sun Bowl: Frosted Flakes in milk

Liberty Bowl: dry rub

Music City Bowl: Goo Goo Clusters

Arizona Bowl: cactus water

ReliaQuest Bowl: Cuban coffee

Citrus Bowl: Five Alive

Cotton Bowl: dryer lint

Peach Bowl: bellinis

Orange Bowl: orange juice, with pulp

Fiesta Bowl: Tostitos salsa (medium)

Rose Bowl: rose water

Sugar Bowl: molasses

FBS Championship: $100 bills

 So the International Olympic Committee approved plans for the options sports being offered at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Before getting to those, though, let's take a look at the optional sports for next year in Paris.

Three of them were held over from Tokyo - skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing.  While I didn't see a lot of any of the competitions in these sports, what I did see varied from underwhelming (skateboarding) to meh (sport climbing) to fine (surfing). If nothing else, keeping surfing allows Paris to run the event in Tahiti,which is pretty cool.

The fourth sport, replacing baseball and softball, is breakdancing. I did see some of this when it was part of the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics, and I can say it was more entertaining to watch than skateboarding. I've come to think of competitive breakdancing as figure skating on cardboard. 

So what's on tap for LA?

Baseball/softball - which still have to travel together as they share an international federation. I'll be interested to see if MLB works out any allowances for its players to participate, though I don't expect they will.

Cricket - the planned venue will seat 10000, which I hope can expand to something much larger if the Indian team makes the gold medal match. The competition will be in a format called T20, which I now have just a little under five years to figure out.

Flag football - the NFL is already hyping this, to the surprise of no one. According to Al Michaels (reading from the NFL's press release during last night's Jags-Saints game, I assume), there are 20 million flag football players in over 100 countries. Who knew?

Lacrosse - which will finally make up for the lack of medal winners named Jaxxon.

Squash - of all the optional sports, this to me feels like it has the best chance of getting promoted to a core sport. It's popular internationally, and as an individual sport adds fewer athletes to the Games than the team sports (though it will require another venue, where you could play lacrosse, flag football, and rugby on the same fields).

All in all it's not a bad lineup, I think. I'd watch all of these.

For those of you looking for surfing, which seems like a no-brainer inclusion in one of the epicenters of surf culture, not to worry. It's now a core sport. What isn't a core sport for LA is boxing, as the IOC no longer recognizes the International Boxing Association as the federation for international amateur boxing. There's apparently a new federation that's trying to get recognized, so you may yet still get to see people punch each other in the face.

And while it's way too early to know what the optional sports will be for the 2032 Games in Brisbane, I could see baseball/softball, cricket, and squash making the list. I could see netball making it, but sadly not Aussie rules football. Unless there's a flag Aussie rules football that I don't know about.

 USA Today came up with a list of the 100 biggest tourist traps in the world, though I'm not a fan of their methodology. They looked specifically at Google reviews of the 500 most popular tourist attractions in 65 countries. I feel like they missed a lot of honest to God tourist traps by not looking at Yelp or TripAdvisor and not including smaller attractions.

Still, they gave us a list, so here's my two cents on the places on the list that I've been to (in reverse order, to build the suspence!).

99: Cloud Gate, Chicago. Better known as The Bean. I don't know how this rates as a tourist trap. It's a sculpture in a public park. It costs nothing to see. You can spend five minutes there, look at your funny reflections, and move on. There are souvenir places nearby, but if you want to buy stuff that's on you.

96: The Grand Old Opry, Nashville. OK, I've been by this but never inside. I'm not really a country music person so the odds of my actually attending a show is vanishingly small. So it could be a tourist trap, I guess.

95: Cliffs of Moher, Ireland. I can see this, given how the area's been tarted up.  On my first visit you could just park and walk out to the cliffs. Now, it's a much more structured (and costly) experience. I still think the view is worth the hassle, though there are equally dramatic (if not moreso) cliffs at Slieve League, though you have to hall yourself up to Donegal to see them.

83: Stonehenge, UK. Similar to the previous entry, going to see the stones is more of a pain than it used to be. They've recently opened a new visitor's center, which is nice, but it's a fair distance from the site, so you either have to walk out or take a shuttle bus.  I'm guessing people moaned about not being able to go right up to the stones.

81: Kennedy Space Center, Florida. I agree with this, and would move it up the list if I could. It's gotten very expensive and they've cut back on the actual space stuff. 

75: Cable Cars, San Francisco. I had fun riding them the one time I had the chance. I think of these as less of a tourist trap and more of an attraction that is priced above what you might normally expect to pay. 

63: Niagara Falls, Ontario. I know people say the Ontario side is better than the New York side, but there are definately more tourist trap-type attractions over there. The New York side may be depressed and a little grungy, but you can at least see the falls with fewer distractions.

57: Old Faithful Geyser, Wyoming. Bullshit. Yellowstone is great and Old Faithful is fun to see. Plus you can get the whole family into the park for seven consecutive days for $35, and see Old Faithful - and all the other natural wonders on offer - as many times as you like. 

56: Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Yeah, it kind of is. But if it's still set up the way it was when I went, you can walk around the site for free (going into things requires a pass).

52: Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. I liked the town, and what attractions I did see were worth the money. Maybe I just didn't go to the more obvious tourist traps. Or maybe people didn't like reading Shakespeare in high school and took it out on the town.

50: Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. It's pretty disappointing. The sculpture is underwhelming, and the concessions are tacky. 

48: The Alamo, San Antonio. Was fine, but I visited 15 years ago or so. Maybe it's become more tourist trappy since then. 

47: The World of Coca-Cola, Atlanta. Touristy? Yes. A trap? Maybe. But I like Coke and love getting to try drinks from around the world, so I'm willing to give it a break.

46: San Antonio River Walk, San Antonio. The entire area is designed to get you to spend money, but is at least pleasant. I probably wouldn't recommend the boat tour, not much to see other than shops and restaurants. I will say that I liked San Antonio quite a bit for the short time I visited. If you want to see something less touristy, try the San Antonio Missions.

43: Times Square, New York. Probably should be number one.

29: Hollywood Walk of Fame, Hollywood. It's in a gross part of town and isn't much to look at (they're stars set in the sidewalk), but I don't think it's much of a trap unless you get roped into taking pictures with the fake movie stars.

27: Space Needle, Seattle. Was fine, like many things on the list I feel like it was more money than that it was worth going up. But I'd go again, I think.

23: Winchester Mystery House, San Jose. It is, but I was happy to spend the money to go in as I read about the house as a kid and always wanted to see it. The house was built by the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, who also believed that the people killed by Winchesters were out to get her. So she never stopped building, hoping to confuse the ghosts. There are also a number of odd spiritual/occult references throughout the place. I don't think I'd go back, but I'm glad I was able to see it.

21: Blarney Castle, Ireland. Very much a tourist trap. The castle has little historic value, and is only popular for people kissing the stone (which has no real connection to what backstory the castle has). I've been a couple of times, only went in once, would probably go back if I was with people who've never been (but would more likely hang out on the grounds than go in again).

19: Skylon Tower, Niagara Falls Ontario. Went by it rather than in it, some of the people in our group did go in and said it was fine. Though they only went in to kill time while I got the car, so I think it met the minimum requirement of being a time waster.

17: Navy Pier, Chicago. I guess is a tourist trap the same way the Riverwalk or Quincy Market in Boston is a tourist trap. It's a place specifically designed to get you to spend money, and if you don't know that going in you didn't do your homework. It was fine for what it is.

15: Fisherman's Whaft, San Francisco. See the entry for Navy Pier.

13: Guinness Storehouse, Dublin. Absolutely a tourist trap. People go for the bar on the roof and to buy stuff, the "museum" or whatever it's supposed to be is crap (or at least it was 20 years ago). Save your money and go drink Guinness at a nice pub.

4: Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota. It's a fair amount of money for what it is, and I expect people are mad that the statue isn't anywhere close to being done. You do get the sense there that the infrastructure around the memorial is now more of the focus than the memorial itself. Still, there are cultural and entertainment opportunities here involving indigenous Americans that you won't get elsewhere.

2: Salem Witch Museum, Salem MA.  Funny to think I live one town over from the second biggest tourist trap in the world. But it is, in fact, a tourist trap. It also gets a ton of visitors, so I have to think it earned its spot here through volume. Problem is I think most of the witch-related stuff in Salem is tourist trappy.

I think my doubts about this list are confirmed by South of the Border not being on this at all. It is the living, breathing, anachronistic definition of a tourist trap, and somehow escaped notice.

 Apropos of a recent trip, a list of places I've been to... but only in the airport.

Denver - After attending a wedding in Santa Barbara in 1992, I flew home through Denver. Got off the plane, walked about three gates down, and got on the other plane. I have never been back to Denver (or Colorado for that matter), though I thought we might go through Denver for a family trip. Turned out it made more sense to start in Salt Lake City. Sorry, Denverinos!

Cincinnati (or Covington, Kentucky) - there were a few years where I mostly flew Delta, and these flights almost always required a change in the Cincinnati airport, which is actually in Covington, Kentucky. I've been to other places in Ohio, but not the Queen City. I don't think I've been in Kentucky since the last time I flew through this airport.

St. John's, Newfoundland - this was an unscheduled stop, as there was a medical emergency on a flight to Dublin. We spent five hours on the ground, as the baggage handlers wouldn't take the sick passenger's bags off until they didn't have any Air Canada baggage to deal with (I've often wondered how much baggage they had to deal with at 3 am). In any case, as much as I am interested in visiting Newfoundland, I am still spiteful enough that I won't do so by plane.

Frankfurt - a cheap(er) flight home from a trip to England went through Frankfurt. I can't say I got the greatest exposure to German culture during the three hours we were there, but we did get a reminder that if you order a sandwich, it's probably coming out on rye bread (the wife is not a fan). I would like to go back (to Frankfurt or Germany, doesn't matter), and at this rate may do so before I ever get back to Denver.

Istanbul - flew through here during the recent trip mentioned at the top. It's a new airport, and is massive. You can easily spend 20 minutes walking between gates, with only moving sidewalks to help you on your way. Not surprisingly, there are a multitude of shops and restaurants along the way where you can take a break. 

I feel like Long Beach should get an honorable mention here, as I flew through there for a work trip to Anaheim, but only passed through in the shuttle van. I suppose I can list Dallas/Ft. Worth here for the same reason, depending on how much you want to differentiate DFW from Grapevine.