Benedict points fingers. Ray Mouton points back. I'm with the writer, not the church hierarchy.

On several past occasions I've tipped my chapeau to writer Ray Mouton, author of the novel In God's House and a tireless crusader for institutional accountability amid the Catholic Church's seemingly endless pedophilia scandal.

Today I'll do it again, but first let's have a glance at the pope emeritus Benedict's diversionary tactics.

A former pope blames the swinging sixties for clerical crimes, by "Erasmus" (The Economist)

A jarring blast from the past

JUST AS Pope Francis struggles to stop his well-regarded papacy being overshadowed by charges of laxity over child abuse, his predecessor has emerged from retirement to make an unexpected intervention. Benedict, the pope emeritus who turns 92 next week, has blamed a surge of criminal acts against children by clerics on the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

He offered this diagnosis in an essay of nearly 6,000 words that was published in a German monthly, Klerusblatt, and rapidly retransmitted across the Catholic media. The stated purpose of this contentious piece of writing, which varies from personal reminiscence to dense theological argument, was to assist the deliberations of the current pontiff, who convened a global meeting on child abuse in February after reports of dreadful crimes and cover-ups in countries ranging from Ireland to the United States, and from Chile to Australia. But many supporters of Francis, as well as those who observe the church from outside, will find the older cleric’s analysis far from helpful. Benedict resigned unexpectedly in 2013, becoming the first pontiff to step down for 600 years, and he has lived quietly in Rome since then ...

The former attorney Mouton cross-examined at Facebook.

Though Pope Benedict was fully in charge of the cover-up from April 1981 when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and was appointed to serve as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until he ascended to the papacy in 2005 upon the death of Pope John Paul II, a papacy he resigned from in disgrace, Benedict casts himself as one who can contribute to "a new beginning" regarding this issue.

Totally overlooking the facts as proven by Vatican documents that pedophilia in the priesthood has been prevalent in the priesthood since the fourth century, Pope Benedict blames society form the 1960's to the 1980's, absurdly claiming that in 1968 pedophilia was diagnosed as "allowed and appropriate." If anyone but a pope or former pope made such a statement they themselves would be diagnosed to be a madman.

Following is my 2015 overview, including a bit about how I came to know Mouton.

---

Catching up with writer Ray Mouton, his novel, and the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been deeply wounded and even destroyed. This plague of destruction would have continued unchecked had there been no Ray Mouton. In 1985-1986, Ray and I worked together daily when I was a canon lawyer in the Vatican Embassy. Ray fought fiercely to save children from the church. This is much more than a novel. It is an answer to the painful “why?” Why did this happen? Why did bishops put image above innocent children? I remember all Ray gave of himself, how he fearlessly spoke truth to power, and was never intimidated by the formidable opposition he encountered.”
-- ​Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, Leading Authority On Clergy Abuse

This morning while making coffee the face of Ray Mouton popped into my head. I'm highly honored to know this man. Two years ago around this time, I was reading Ray's novel, In God's House. My subsequent review of the novel is reprinted below.

In 1984, Ray was the lawyer chosen by the state of Louisiana's Catholic Church hierarchy to defend the first priest ever to be charged in secular court with child molestation. Looking back on the perspective of the present day, we obviously know what became of all this, and that Ray's appointment with destiny was the first tiny peek inside a truly massive (and ongoing) scandal.

I wasn't expecting to be moved to such an extent by Ray's book, but I was -- and remain so. For more background, go here: Church abuse case haunts lawyer who defended priest, by Evan Moore (Daily World in Opelousas LA)

 ... Mouton no longer attends services — not since the case of the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, whose horrific crimes against children in the Diocese of Lafayette set off a wave of scandal in 1985 that reached across the USA all the way to the Vatican; not since Mouton defended Gauthe and almost ruined his life in the process.

Now, he enters churches only to light candles, candles for the children.

At Ray's page on Facebook, he still provides regular updates about a sad story seemingly without end, but his Thanksgiving message yesterday was decidedly upbeat.

It is with great gratitude that I reflect on the support all of you who follow this page have for the victims, the truth, and justice.

This has been a good year for the cause for all who stand on the side of people who were victimized as children and stand on the side of truth.

Thirty-one years ago when this journey began for me, Fr. Tom Doyle, and Fr. Michael Peterson, there were less than a handful of people on the right side of history.

Today, millions of people are on the right side of history, and progress has been made and will continue to be made.

Each of you should embrace yourself on this day and be grateful for the courage God has given you to confront the most powerful institution on earth on behalf of those who once believed they were powerless.

A lot remains to be done. A lot will be done. Justice will be done.

My review was published on January 30, 2014.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Ray Mouton and his novel, In God's House.

By virtually anyone’s reckoning, Ray Mouton’s non-fictionalized life story would have been noteworthy, even without The Case.

A native Louisianan with deep and colorful roots in the state, he lived the All-American dream and became a highly proficient, well-paid lawyer with all the trappings of success. Then, one day in 1984, Mouton was asked by the Catholic Church to defend an ordinary parish priest who’d gotten himself into a bit of a fix.

It proved to be more of a problem than anyone knew at the time – that is, anyone except the Catholic Church itself, because Ray’s appointment with destiny turned out to be with a wayward cleric named Gilbert Gauthe, who was a serial sexual abuser of young boys, and whose trail of tears had been repeatedly covered up by his superiors.

Now, for the very first time, the family of a victimized boy was refusing the usual hush money and insisting on their day in court, and the ecclesiastical higher-ups grudgingly realized they had no choice but to hire a mouthpiece.

Ray Mouton was that lawyer, and the rest is history.

In initially studying the case, Ray brought along his own prejudices. He’d been brought up solidly Catholic, and at the start he assumed that Gauthe was the exception to the rule, and a lone bad apple. Obviously, the priest needed professional psychological help (a concept barely registering with the Church at the time), and the best way forward seemed to Ray an insanity plea for his client, with time served in therapeutic custody, allowing for the children to become adults before Gauthe was again seen on the street.

But as Ray peeled back the dusty layers, the shape of things began changing. The Church hierarchy knew all about Gauthe, and had moved him from parish to parish to stay one step ahead of his irredeemable proclivities.

What’s more, there were numerous other pedophile priests in Louisiana alone, and it began to dawn on the lawyer that his own back yard was the metaphorical tip of an iceberg, one that we have since seen stretching to the horizon, as far as the eye could see … and the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, whether written or whispered, was to deny the extent of the problem, to bury it, and to seek to preserve wherever possible its own autonomous sacred position beyond the arm of the secular.

---

Shortly thereafter, amid a pea soup fog of legal warfare, Ray joined forces with two reforming priests, and they conducted their own investigation of the molestation scandal, presumably with the blessing of the Church. Predictably, their findings were suppressed, and it is likely that their chief opponent at the Vatican was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, who subsequently became Pope Benedict XVI.

Ray’s personal life became a casualty of these escalating revelations. It’s true that as a bayou Icarus, he might have crashed to earth in any event, but when he arrived at this intersection with history, the narrative current swept him along with it. He lost family, possessions and career. Significantly, he reclaimed his own life over a period of years living abroad, and then later took back the pedophile priest story in the form of a novel, In God’s House.

In God’s House, while a fictionalized version of real-life events, contains more than mere germs of overall truth. European reviewers (currently there is no American publisher) have called it a page-turner, and compared the novel’s tone to that of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, and these descriptions are apt. Perhaps more importantly, the novel is a Hollywood screenplay waiting to happen.

Destinations Booksellers might be able to score you a copy of In God’s House, and if not, it can be ordered on-line. I recommend it highly.

---

I’ve referred to the author as Ray because I know him, albeit casually.

In 1998, I checked off a personal bucket list entry by arriving in Pamplona, Spain, a day before the annual commencement of the Festival of San Fermin, and then remaining all the way through the revelry, until it was over -- eight days of hard partying even if one refrains from running with the bulls.

I probably wouldn't have gone to Pamplona -- wouldn't have tripped over the comatose bodies of Eurotrash, wouldn't have eaten Pyrenees trout stuffed with ham, wouldn't have drained bottles of anise-like Pacheran -- if not for my cousin Beak's trailblazing.

When Don landed his tenured position in Florida and started attending the festival on a yearly basis in the early 1990s, he immediately fell in with the anglophile expatriate coterie and met numerous and memorable aficionados, including a fellow American, Ray Mouton, author of a very well-regarded book about San Fermin.

That's why I have the pleasure of counting Ray among my acquaintances, and although I have not been to Pamplona for a while, and Ol' Paco still lives abroad, he's every bit as interesting as his press clippings suggest.

In 1998, on the festival's final night, with the week-long lunacy gradually settling into a post-coital reverie, the three of us had a quiet dinner for the first time in eight days, and then went for a cool, breezy walk at sundown atop the old wall that protects the old town from incursions from the valley below. Ray's arm was in a sling, because during the encierro, he'd been trampled -- not by a bull, but by another human being. The tales of his life's adventures were vastly entertaining, and it was an unforgettable end to an all-in.

I trust the novel helped exorcise a demon or two, assuming any still remained; Ray’s a tough hombre. Nowadays, you can follow him at Facebook and receive regular updates on pedophile cases, sadly as yet unfolding. He is a pitiless commentator as it pertains to the complicity of adults, and a tireless advocate for youthful victims.

One of the key passages in Ray’s novel comes when the fictional attorney is asked to describe his analysis of the situation. He replies simply: There are criminals, and there are children. As long as this continues to be the case, it is a case that Ray will continue fighting. I hope our paths cross again, some day.

---

(to conclude, a 2016 follow-up) 

Frustrated Europhile, second of two: "Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer."

As noted earlier today, it's time for the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. In 2018, we're experiencing a wonderful trifecta for Europhiles like me, with an all-European World Cup final four, bicycling's Tour de France, and the always epochal San Fermin occurring all at once.

Oh, to be on a veranda somewhere in the Pyrenees just about now. Instead, I'll be doing yard work most of the day. It's too depressing to contemplate, so here's a repeat of a previous Pamplona report, following a Le Tour remembrance.

I've never been to a World Cup match, although viewing the competition while touring Old Albania in 194 was a kick (pun intended).

Happy reading. Wish I was there.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

This column originally took the form of a considerably longer electronic essay from 2005, itself dating back to the year 2000 and the FOSSILS club newsletter. The 2005 version of 4000+ words includes much supplementary  information on food, drink and attendance at an actual bullfight.

In my travels, I've been fortunate to witness a May Day parade in Vienna, frenetic all-night Greek political rallies, Munich's fabled Oktoberfest, U2 performing live on stage in Ireland, selected soccer matches and small snippets of the Tour de France. The fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89 was an epochal one-time celebration, requiring three decades of preparation and packing a visceral punch, but I missed that one, just barely.

To me, the top Euro-fest of them all is the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, which runs from July 6 through July 14 each year. My fourth and last visit was in 2000, and I miss it very much.

Pamplona’s festival is a multi-hued hybrid. Spectacular public displays of orgiastic, besotted and scatological indecency occur alongside proud and dignified demonstrations of traditional values extending too far back in time to be consciously understood. Rather, they’re felt.

San Fermin is a primitive, almost mythological outburst balancing seemingly disparate elements. Confrontations between man and bull, gatherings of grandparents and grandchildren sharing hot chocolate, feasting and contrition, outpourings of religious and political conviction, incessant musical cacophony and extraordinary alcoholic lubrication all suffice as snapshots of the grandeur and debauchery.

I’m so glad that Papa “discovered” Pamplona.

---

During the Roaring Twenties, an adventurous native of Oak Park, Illinois chose a dusty Spanish market town and its unknown local religious festival as the setting for a novel that made him famous. He was Ernest Hemingway, and his book was “The Sun Also Rises.”

In it, Hemingway offered an enduring behavioral framework for self-aware but intelligent Anglo expatriates. At his San Fermin, foreigners respectful of local color and tradition are contrasted with others who’ve cross the sea for all the wrong reasons, unable to grasp why Pamplona is not Peoria.

Hemingway also established drinking norms for several generations of travelers. Imagine the effect on contemporary readers encumbered by the orthodoxies of Prohibition-era America to read about incessant aperitifs, teeming sidewalk cafes and sweaty pitchers of cool lager beer in the hot Iberian sun.

Eight decades after the novel’s publication and a half-century following Hemingway’s death, San Fermin remains intact, affording the opportunity to walk, talk and drink like Papa.

And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

---

As Hemingway undoubtedly would agree, the greatest two minutes in sports do not take place at Churchill Downs each May.

Each morning during San Fermin, muscular beasts and eager humans take to the streets of Pamplona to memorialize the death of the festival's namesake patron saint. The ritual is known as the "Running of the Bulls," as the six bulls scheduled to appear in the coming evening's bullfight (along with six heifers) are released into narrow, barricaded streets and driven 900 meters -- a little more than half a mile -- to the bull ring.

In the path of these bulls are thousands of thrill-seeking festival-goers, roughly divided into two groups.

A tiny minority of sober true believers makes the run each morning in quasi-mystical ecstasy, metaphorically reliving the primitive fears and urges buried in mankind’s collective subconscious, and now brought jarringly to the surface. These native purists and foreign aficionados genuinely want to run WITH the bulls -- to run near them, just ahead of the powerful animals, or alongside them.

Most other “runners” quite frankly are unconscious, having been consumed, digested and expelled by the singular intensity and alcoholic promiscuity of a festival that never sleeps. They desire nothing more than to tell their friends that they "ran with the bulls," and as accommodation, masses of humanity are advanced to starting positions near the end of the course, permitting most to jog a few drunken yards into the bull ring, declare victory, and begin drinking all over again.

At 8:00 a.m. a rocket explodes, signaling the release of the bulls from their pens. A second rocket indicates that all of them are out and running, driven by expert native runners who wield canes and use them -- not on the bulls, but to lash humans who attempt to create problems that might lead to the animals becoming separated.

This is important, because as long as the bulls stay together, chances are the only injuries will come as a result of humans falling over each other. But if a bull becomes separated from his brothers, he becomes annoyed and may begin flicking his massive head, ramming, goring and tossing people across the street with relative ease.

Indeed, someone is killed every now and then, and yet running with the bulls is surely less dangerous than bicycling in New Albany, where know-nothings texting, eating Rallyburgers and applying lipstick while simultaneously failing to properly navigate a vehicle prove far more deadly than a half-ton of rampaging meat on the hoof .

The run ends inside the bull ring, where the bulls are driven into their pens. A crowd of triumphant “runners” awaits charging heifers, their horns padded, which are sent into the ring to wreak havoc among the drunkards. Meanwhile, the true aficionados are absent, having already adjourned to bars like the Txoko on the Plaza de Castillo for post-run champagne and lengthy analysis.

Me? I’ve never run with the bulls, and neither did Hemingway, or so I’m told. There are three very good reasons why I haven’t done it.

First, I’d surely spill my drink, and that’s blasphemy.

Second, I couldn’t run 900 meters drunk, sober or anywhere in between.

Third, I’m a coward.

I’ve no idea what Papa’s excuses were, but in his stead again this year, I’ll spend a week in July remembering the good times and wonderful people in Pamplona, all the while craving a bowl of fresh toro stew, a glass of addictive Pacheran liqueur, and a sizeable stogie, one recommended for smoking during that special bull run voyeur's afterglow.

The Runner, a documentary film about Joe Distler and the running of the bulls during San Fermin.

I'd been holding this one in reserve for quite a while, then completely forgot to post it during the time of the festival of San Fermin, which runs from July 6 through July 14 each year. I've attended the festival four times, but not since the year 2000.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer (2012).

These were fine times, indeed. I was able to meet wonderful people like Warren Parker ...

The art of Warren Parker.

 ... and Ray Mouton ...

Catching up with writer Ray Mouton, his novel, and the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal.

 ... and larger-than-life festival habitues like the late Sexy Rexy.

Rest in peace, Sexy Rexy.

My cousin Don Barry made most of these introductions, and now, since his retirement, his brother Dennis has been able to experience the San Fermin phenomenon, too.

Denny provided the link to the video, which focuses on New Yorker Joe Distler and features a good many people whom I had the pleasure of meeting back in the day. If you've ever wondered what the running of the bulls is all about, this is a good place to start

Catching up with writer Ray Mouton, his novel, and the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been deeply wounded and even destroyed. This plague of destruction would have continued unchecked had there been no Ray Mouton. In 1985-1986, Ray and I worked together daily when I was a canon lawyer in the Vatican Embassy. Ray fought fiercely to save children from the church. This is much more than a novel. It is an answer to the painful “why?” Why did this happen? Why did bishops put image above innocent children? I remember all Ray gave of himself, how he fearlessly spoke truth to power, and was never intimidated by the formidable opposition he encountered.”
-- ​Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, Leading Authority On Clergy Abuse

This morning while making coffee the face of Ray Mouton popped into my head. I'm highly honored to know this man. Two years ago around this time, I was reading Ray's novel, In God's House. My subsequent review of the novel is reprinted below.

In 1984, Ray was the lawyer chosen by the state of Louisiana's Catholic Church hierarchy to defend the first priest ever to be charged in secular court with child molestation. Looking back on the perspective of the present day, we obviously know what became of all this, and that Ray's appointment with destiny was the first tiny peek inside a truly massive (and ongoing) scandal.

I wasn't expecting to be moved to such an extent by Ray's book, but I was -- and remain so. For more background, go here: Church abuse case haunts lawyer who defended priest, by Evan Moore (Daily World in Opelousas LA)

 ... Mouton no longer attends services — not since the case of the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, whose horrific crimes against children in the Diocese of Lafayette set off a wave of scandal in 1985 that reached across the USA all the way to the Vatican; not since Mouton defended Gauthe and almost ruined his life in the process.

Now, he enters churches only to light candles, candles for the children.

At Ray's page on Facebook, he still provides regular updates about a sad story seemingly without end, but his Thanksgiving message yesterday was decidedly upbeat.

It is with great gratitude that I reflect on the support all of you who follow this page have for the victims, the truth, and justice.

This has been a good year for the cause for all who stand on the side of people who were victimized as children and stand on the side of truth.

Thirty-one years ago when this journey began for me, Fr. Tom Doyle, and Fr. Michael Peterson, there were less than a handful of people on the right side of history.

Today, millions of people are on the right side of history, and progress has been made and will continue to be made.

Each of you should embrace yourself on this day and be grateful for the courage God has given you to confront the most powerful institution on earth on behalf of those who once believed they were powerless.

A lot remains to be done. A lot will be done. Justice will be done.

My review was published on January 30, 2014.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Ray Mouton and his novel, In God's House.

By virtually anyone’s reckoning, Ray Mouton’s non-fictionalized life story would have been noteworthy, even without The Case.

A native Louisianan with deep and colorful roots in the state, he lived the All-American dream and became a highly proficient, well-paid lawyer with all the trappings of success. Then, one day in 1984, Mouton was asked by the Catholic Church to defend an ordinary parish priest who’d gotten himself into a bit of a fix.

It proved to be more of a problem than anyone knew at the time – that is, anyone except the Catholic Church itself, because Ray’s appointment with destiny turned out to be with a wayward cleric named Gilbert Gauthe, who was a serial sexual abuser of young boys, and whose trail of tears had been repeatedly covered up by his superiors.

Now, for the very first time, the family of a victimized boy was refusing the usual hush money and insisting on their day in court, and the ecclesiastical higher-ups grudgingly realized they had no choice but to hire a mouthpiece.

Ray Mouton was that lawyer, and the rest is history.

In initially studying the case, Ray brought along his own prejudices. He’d been brought up solidly Catholic, and at the start he assumed that Gauthe was the exception to the rule, and a lone bad apple. Obviously, the priest needed professional psychological help (a concept barely registering with the Church at the time), and the best way forward seemed to Ray an insanity plea for his client, with time served in therapeutic custody, allowing for the children to become adults before Gauthe was again seen on the street.

But as Ray peeled back the dusty layers, the shape of things began changing. The Church hierarchy knew all about Gauthe, and had moved him from parish to parish to stay one step ahead of his irredeemable proclivities.

What’s more, there were numerous other pedophile priests in Louisiana alone, and it began to dawn on the lawyer that his own back yard was the metaphorical tip of an iceberg, one that we have since seen stretching to the horizon, as far as the eye could see … and the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, whether written or whispered, was to deny the extent of the problem, to bury it, and to seek to preserve wherever possible its own autonomous sacred position beyond the arm of the secular.

---

Shortly thereafter, amid a pea soup fog of legal warfare, Ray joined forces with two reforming priests, and they conducted their own investigation of the molestation scandal, presumably with the blessing of the Church. Predictably, their findings were suppressed, and it is likely that their chief opponent at the Vatican was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, who subsequently became Pope Benedict XVI.

Ray’s personal life became a casualty of these escalating revelations. It’s true that as a bayou Icarus, he might have crashed to earth in any event, but when he arrived at this intersection with history, the narrative current swept him along with it. He lost family, possessions and career. Significantly, he reclaimed his own life over a period of years living abroad, and then later took back the pedophile priest story in the form of a novel, In God’s House.

In God’s House, while a fictionalized version of real-life events, contains more than mere germs of overall truth. European reviewers (currently there is no American publisher) have called it a page-turner, and compared the novel’s tone to that of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, and these descriptions are apt. Perhaps more importantly, the novel is a Hollywood screenplay waiting to happen.

Destinations Booksellers might be able to score you a copy of In God’s House, and if not, it can be ordered on-line. I recommend it highly.

---

I’ve referred to the author as Ray because I know him, albeit casually.

In 1998, I checked off a personal bucket list entry by arriving in Pamplona, Spain, a day before the annual commencement of the Festival of San Fermin, and then remaining all the way through the revelry, until it was over -- eight days of hard partying even if one refrains from running with the bulls.

I probably wouldn't have gone to Pamplona -- wouldn't have tripped over the comatose bodies of Eurotrash, wouldn't have eaten Pyrenees trout stuffed with ham, wouldn't have drained bottles of anise-like Pacheran -- if not for my cousin Beak's trailblazing.

When Don landed his tenured position in Florida and started attending the festival on a yearly basis in the early 1990s, he immediately fell in with the anglophile expatriate coterie and met numerous and memorable aficionados, including a fellow American, Ray Mouton, author of a very well-regarded book about San Fermin.

That's why I have the pleasure of counting Ray among my acquaintances, and although I have not been to Pamplona for a while, and Ol' Paco still lives abroad, he's every bit as interesting as his press clippings suggest.

In 1998, on the festival's final night, with the week-long lunacy gradually settling into a post-coital reverie, the three of us had a quiet dinner for the first time in eight days, and then went for a cool, breezy walk at sundown atop the old wall that protects the old town from incursions from the valley below. Ray's arm was in a sling, because during the encierro, he'd been trampled -- not by a bull, but by another human being. The tales of his life's adventures were vastly entertaining, and it was an unforgettable end to an all-in.

I trust the novel helped exorcise a demon or two, assuming any still remained; Ray’s a tough hombre. Nowadays, you can follow him at Facebook and receive regular updates on pedophile cases, sadly as yet unfolding. He is a pitiless commentator as it pertains to the complicity of adults, and a tireless advocate for youthful victims.

One of the key passages in Ray’s novel comes when the fictional attorney is asked to describe his analysis of the situation. He replies simply: There are criminals, and there are children. As long as this continues to be the case, it is a case that Ray will continue fighting. I hope our paths cross again, some day.

Photos of the Running of the Bulls, 2015.

The Fiesta de San Fermin came to a close on July 14. I've written about it many times, most recently here:

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer (2012).

 ... As Hemingway undoubtedly would agree, the greatest two minutes in sports do not take place at Churchill Downs each May. Each morning during San Fermin, muscular beasts and eager humans take to the streets of Pamplona to memorialize the death of the festival's namesake patron saint. The ritual is known as the "Running of the Bulls," as the six bulls scheduled to appear in the coming evening's bullfight (along with six heifers) are released into narrow, barricaded streets and driven 900 meters -- a little more than half a mile -- to the bull ring.

My cousin Don, who attends each year, e-mailed me with the following link. The breathtaking photos there vividly capture the spirit of the running. It's a crazy spectacle, and hard to describe. I've no desire to run, but wouldn't mind going back some day to watch from a balcony with a soothing adult libation in hand.

Running of the Bulls 2015: The Fiesta de San Fermin, by Alan Taylor (The Atlantic)

The annual Fiesta de San Fermin began in Spain this week. The festival, including the famous “Running of the Bulls,” attracts thousands of visitors to Pamplona every year. Lasting nine days, the festival kicks off with massive crowds at the Chupinazo in Pamplona town square, followed by a carnival, fireworks, the running of the bulls, and many bullfights. Held since 1591, San Fermin remains a popular, though dangerous and controversial, event—two Americans and a Briton were gored on Tuesday.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer (2012).

ON THE AVENUES: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

This column originally took the form of a considerably longer electronic essay from 2005, itself dating back to the year 2000 and the FOSSILS club newsletter. The 2005 version of 4000+ words includes much supplementary  information on food, drink and attendance at an actual bullfight.

In my travels, I've been fortunate to witness a May Day parade in Vienna, frenetic all-night Greek political rallies, Munich's fabled Oktoberfest, U2 performing live on stage in Ireland, selected soccer matches and small snippets of the Tour de France. The fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89 was an epochal one-time celebration, requiring three decades of preparation and packing a visceral punch, but I missed that one, just barely.

To me, the top Euro-fest of them all is the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, which runs from July 6 through July 14 each year. My fourth and last visit was in 2000, and I miss it very much.

Pamplona’s festival is a multi-hued hybrid. Spectacular public displays of orgiastic, besotted and scatological indecency occur alongside proud and dignified demonstrations of traditional values extending too far back in time to be consciously understood. Rather, they’re felt.

San Fermin is a primitive, almost mythological outburst balancing seemingly disparate elements. Confrontations between man and bull, gatherings of grandparents and grandchildren sharing hot chocolate, feasting and contrition, outpourings of religious and political conviction, incessant musical cacophony and extraordinary alcoholic lubrication all suffice as snapshots of the grandeur and debauchery.

I’m so glad that Papa “discovered” Pamplona.

---

During the Roaring Twenties, an adventurous native of Oak Park, Illinois chose a dusty Spanish market town and its unknown local religious festival as the setting for a novel that made him famous. He was Ernest Hemingway, and his book was “The Sun Also Rises.”

In it, Hemingway offered an enduring behavioral framework for self-aware but intelligent Anglo expatriates. At his San Fermin, foreigners respectful of local color and tradition are contrasted with others who’ve cross the sea for all the wrong reasons, unable to grasp why Pamplona is not Peoria.

Hemingway also established drinking norms for several generations of travelers. Imagine the effect on contemporary readers encumbered by the orthodoxies of Prohibition-era America to read about incessant aperitifs, teeming sidewalk cafes and sweaty pitchers of cool lager beer in the hot Iberian sun.

Eight decades after the novel’s publication and a half-century following Hemingway’s death, San Fermin remains intact, affording the opportunity to walk, talk and drink like Papa.

And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

---

As Hemingway undoubtedly would agree, the greatest two minutes in sports do not take place at Churchill Downs each May.

Each morning during San Fermin, muscular beasts and eager humans take to the streets of Pamplona to memorialize the death of the festival's namesake patron saint. The ritual is known as the "Running of the Bulls," as the six bulls scheduled to appear in the coming evening's bullfight (along with six heifers) are released into narrow, barricaded streets and driven 900 meters -- a little more than half a mile -- to the bull ring.

In the path of these bulls are thousands of thrill-seeking festival-goers, roughly divided into two groups.

A tiny minority of sober true believers makes the run each morning in quasi-mystical ecstasy, metaphorically reliving the primitive fears and urges buried in mankind’s collective subconscious, and now brought jarringly to the surface. These native purists and foreign aficionados genuinely want to run WITH the bulls -- to run near them, just ahead of the powerful animals, or alongside them.

Most other “runners” quite frankly are unconscious, having been consumed, digested and expelled by the singular intensity and alcoholic promiscuity of a festival that never sleeps. They desire nothing more than to tell their friends that they "ran with the bulls," and as accommodation, masses of humanity are advanced to starting positions near the end of the course, permitting most to jog a few drunken yards into the bull ring, declare victory, and begin drinking all over again.

At 8:00 a.m. a rocket explodes, signaling the release of the bulls from their pens. A second rocket indicates that all of them are out and running, driven by expert native runners who wield canes and use them -- not on the bulls, but to lash humans who attempt to create problems that might lead to the animals becoming separated.

This is important, because as long as the bulls stay together, chances are the only injuries will come as a result of humans falling over each other. But if a bull becomes separated from his brothers, he becomes annoyed and may begin flicking his massive head, ramming, goring and tossing people across the street with relative ease.

Indeed, someone is killed every now and then, and yet running with the bulls is surely less dangerous than bicycling in New Albany, where know-nothings texting, eating Rallyburgers and applying lipstick while simultaneously failing to properly navigate a vehicle prove far more deadly than a half-ton of rampaging meat on the hoof .

The run ends inside the bull ring, where the bulls are driven into their pens. A crowd of triumphant “runners” awaits charging heifers, their horns padded, which are sent into the ring to wreak havoc among the drunkards. Meanwhile, the true aficionados are absent, having already adjourned to bars like the Txoko on the Plaza de Castillo for post-run champagne and lengthy analysis.

Me? I’ve never run with the bulls, and neither did Hemingway, or so I’m told. There are three very good reasons why I haven’t done it.

First, I’d surely spill my drink, and that’s blasphemy.

Second, I couldn’t run 900 meters drunk, sober or anywhere in between.

Third, I’m a coward.

I’ve no idea what Papa’s excuses were, but in his stead again this year, I’ll spend a week in July remembering the good times and wonderful people in Pamplona, all the while craving a bowl of fresh toro stew, a glass of addictive Pacheran liqueur, and a sizeable stogie, one recommended for smoking during that special bull run voyeur's afterglow.

---

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On the Way of St. James, and a film depicting it.

The Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago) is a major Christian pilgrimage route in Europe.

The Way of St. James was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during the Middle Ages, together with Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned; other major pilgrimage routes include the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Legend holds that St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where he was buried on what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela. (The name Santiago is the local Galician evolution of Vulgar Latin Sanctu Iacobu, "Saint James".)

The Way can take one of dozens of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at one's home and ended at the pilgrimage site. However a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly traveled. However, the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th century Europe led to its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims per year arrived in Santiago. Later, the route attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. The route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in October 1987; it was also named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

My first experience of the Fiesta de San Fermin came in 1994. Pamplona is astride the "main" pilgrimage route, which historically began in Paris and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain near Roncesvalles.

Those (like me) traveling from France to Pamplona by train always at Irun, along the Bay of Biscay, this being an "alternate" pilgrimage route to the north, running nearer the ocean. During the course of that first visit to Pamplona, the older hands taught me many valuable lessons, among them the delightful existence of sloe-flavored patxaran liqueur, the Basque history of the world, and the significance of the Way of St, James.

Ever since then, I've wanted to follow the pilgrimage route some day. Although I've become somewhat of a walker, my original choice of transportation remains the bicycle; at 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the border to Santiago de Compostela, a leisurely month riding is easy to contemplate, allowing for noteworthy stops in between.

Now, finally, to the point: There is a movie about the Way of St. James, directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen, and it's quite good. The Way was released four years ago, and we watched it last week. My resolve to make the journey at some point in my life has been strengthened, with niggling details concerning time and money yet to be resolved. 

A Trek From Loss and Grief to a Life Given Greater Meaning, by Neil Genzlinger (New York Times)

One thing you quickly realize when you sit down to watch “The Way”: Martin Sheen is a very compelling actor. Another thing you realize more slowly as the film goes along: His oldest son, Emilio Estevez, is a very sensitive director.

ON THE AVENUES: Ray Mouton and his novel, In God's House.

ON THE AVENUES: Ray Mouton and his novel, In God's House.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

By virtually anyone’s reckoning, Ray Mouton’s non-fictionalized life story would have been noteworthy, even without The Case.

A native Louisianan with deep and colorful roots in the state, he lived the All-American dream and became a highly proficient, well-paid lawyer with all the trappings of success. Then, one day in 1984, Mouton was asked by the Catholic Church to defend an ordinary parish priest who’d gotten himself into a bit of a fix.

It proved to be more of a problem than anyone knew at the time – that is, anyone except the Catholic Church itself, because Ray’s appointment with destiny turned out to be with a wayward cleric named Gilbert Gauthe, who was a serial sexual abuser of young boys, and whose trail of tears had been repeatedly covered up by his superiors.

Now, for the very first time, the family of a victimized boy was refusing the usual hush money and insisting on their day in court, and the ecclesiastical higher-ups grudgingly realized they had no choice but to hire a mouthpiece.

Ray Mouton was that lawyer, and the rest is history.

In initially studying the case, Ray brought along his own prejudices. He’d been brought up solidly Catholic, and at the start he assumed that Gauthe was the exception to the rule, and a lone bad apple. Obviously, the priest needed professional psychological help (a concept barely registering with the Church at the time), and the best way forward seemed to Ray an insanity plea for his client, with time served in therapeutic custody, allowing for the children to become adults before Gauthe was again seen on the street.

But as Ray peeled back the dusty layers, the shape of things began changing. The Church hierarchy knew all about Gauthe, and had moved him from parish to parish to stay one step ahead of his irredeemable proclivities.

What’s more, there were numerous other pedophile priests in Louisiana alone, and it began to dawn on the lawyer that his own back yard was the metaphorical tip of an iceberg, one that we have since seen stretching to the horizon, as far as the eye could see … and the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, whether written or whispered, was to deny the extent of the problem, to bury it, and to seek to preserve wherever possible its own autonomous sacred position beyond the arm of the secular.

---

Shortly thereafter, amid a pea soup fog of legal warfare, Ray joined forces with two reforming priests, and they conducted their own investigation of the molestation scandal, presumably with the blessing of the Church. Predictably, their findings were suppressed, and it is likely that their chief opponent at the Vatican was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, who subsequently became Pope Benedict XVI.

Ray’s personal life became a casualty of these escalating revelations. It’s true that as a bayou Icarus, he might have crashed to earth in any event, but when he arrived at this intersection with history, the narrative current swept him along with it. He lost family, possessions and career. Significantly, he reclaimed his own life over a period of years living abroad, and then later took back the pedophile priest story in the form of a novel, In God’s House.

In God’s House, while a fictionalized version of real-life events, contains more than mere germs of overall truth. European reviewers (currently there is no American publisher) have called it a page-turner, and compared the novel’s tone to that of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, and these descriptions are apt. Perhaps more importantly, the novel is a Hollywood screenplay waiting to happen.

Destinations Booksellers might be able to score you a copy of In God’s House, and if not, it can be ordered on-line. I recommend it highly.

---

I’ve referred to the author as Ray because I know him, albeit casually.

In 1998, I checked off a personal bucket list entry by arriving in Pamplona, Spain, a day before the annual commencement of the Festival of San Fermin, and then remaining all the way through the revelry, until it was over -- eight days of hard partying even if one refrains from running with the bulls.

I probably wouldn't have gone to Pamplona -- wouldn't have tripped over the comatose bodies of Eurotrash, wouldn't have eaten Pyrenees trout stuffed with ham, wouldn't have drained bottles of anise-like Pacheran -- if not for my cousin Beak's trailblazing.

When Don landed his tenured position in Florida and started attending the festival on a yearly basis in the early 1990s, he immediately fell in with the anglophile expatriate coterie and met numerous and memorable aficionados, including a fellow American, Ray Mouton, author of a very well-regarded book about San Fermin.

That's why I have the pleasure of counting Ray among my acquaintances, and although I have not been to Pamplona for a while, and Ol' Paco still lives abroad, he's every bit as interesting as his press clippings suggest.

In 1998, on the festival's final night, with the week-long lunacy gradually settling into a post-coital reverie, the three of us had a quiet dinner for the first time in eight days, and then went for a cool, breezy walk at sundown atop the old wall that protects the old town from incursions from the valley below. Ray's arm was in a sling, because during the encierro, he'd been trampled -- not by a bull, but by another human being. The tales of his life's adventures were vastly entertaining, and it was an unforgettable end to an all-in.

I trust the novel helped exorcise a demon or two, assuming any still remained; Ray’s a tough hombre. Nowadays, you can follow him at Facebook and receive regular updates on pedophile cases, sadly as yet unfolding. He is a pitiless commentator as it pertains to the complicity of adults, and a tireless advocate for youthful victims.

One of the key passages in Ray’s novel comes when the fictional attorney is asked to describe his analysis of the situation. He replies simply: There are criminals, and there are children. As long as this continues to be the case, it is a case that Ray will continue fighting. I hope our paths cross again, some day.

Rest in peace, Sexy Rexy.

The annual festival of San Fermin begins today in Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. It will be without Rex Howieson, resident of Nottingham, who died in June. His death was reported by my cousin Don Barry, who introduced me to Rex and so many others during those grand old times in Pamplona.

Earlier this summer I elected to rediscover the considerable virtues of the gin and tonic as soothing, cooling libation, and once in a while while imbibing, Rex popped into my mind. I'd been fortunate to have been included on a Pamplona "pig walk," an excursion to a grill restaurant specializing in whole roast pig, led by and fully annotated by Rex. The pig walk included long layovers (both coming and going) in a bar called the Savoy, which serves the finest gin and tonic in memory.

The following  article mentions Rex. It's a matter of significant pride to me that I have had the chance to meet most of the other persons spoken about therein, for which I thank Don and his pal Warren Parker.

Noel Chandler, The Champagne Count of Pamplona's San Fermín (Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel)

At a typical Chandler Champagne party, it common to see many of the following people: Noel Chandler’s long time companion, Nancy Fortier of Atlanta; Jim Hollander, a crack wire photographer based in Tel Aviv; Davey Crockett, a descendant of the famous American frontiersman, a veteran at San Fermín, and survivor of many encierros (bull runs); writer Jesse Graham, a relative of the great Gerald Brenan; the fine New York artist Warren Parker; and British bullfight guru Michael Wigram, all of whom would salute each other with a clink of Champagne flutes. The late Charles Patrick Scanlan, a long-time resident of Spain and one of the most knowledgeable aficionados would be in a corner working out the disposition of season bullfight tickets with Rex Howieson, the group’s semi-official social director.

For those about to enjoy the fiesta, I salute you. For the fallen ... you are remembered. Thanks for teaching me so much about the tradition.

At NAC: ON THE AVENUES: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer.

At Potable Curmudgeon: From 1998: "Being, Pretending and Other Assorted Daydreams of an Outsider."

ON THE AVENUES: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer.

ON THE AVENUES:
Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer.

A version of this column originally
was published in 2009

In my travels, I've been lucky to witness a May Day parade in Vienna, frenetic all-night Greek political rallies, Munich's fabled Oktoberfest, U2 live on stage in Ireland, selected soccer matches and small snippets of the Tour de France. The fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89 was a epochal one-time celebration, requiring three decades of preparation and packing a visceral punch, but I missed that one, just barely.

To me, the top Euro-fest is the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, which runs from July 6 through July 14 each year. My last visit was in 2000, and I miss it very much.

Pamplona’s festival is a multi-hued hybrid. Spectacular public displays of orgiastic, besotted and scatological indecency occur alongside proud and dignified demonstrations of traditional values extending too far back in time to be consciously felt.

San Fermin is a primitive, almost mythological outburst balancing seemingly disparate elements. Confrontations between man and bull, gatherings of grandparents and grandchildren sharing hot chocolate, feasting and contrition, outpourings of religious and political conviction, incessant musical cacophony and extraordinary alcoholic lubrication all suffice as snapshots of the grandeur and debauchery.

I’m so glad that Papa “discovered” Pamplona.

---

During the Roaring Twenties, an adventurous native of Oak Park, Illinois chose a dusty Spanish market town and its unknown local religious festival as the setting for a novel that made him famous. He was Ernest Hemingway, and his book was “The Sun Also Rises.”

In it, Hemingway offered an enduring behavioral framework for self-aware but intelligent Anglo expatriates. At his San Fermin, foreigners respectful of local color and tradition are contrasted with others who’ve cross the sea for all the wrong reasons, unable to grasp why Pamplona is not Peoria.

Hemingway also established drinking norms for several generations of travelers. Imagine the effect on contemporary readers encumbered by the orthodoxies of Prohibition-era America to read about incessant aperitifs, teeming sidewalk cafes and sweaty pitchers of cool lager beer in the hot Iberian sun.

Eight decades after the novel’s publication and a half-century following Hemingway’s death, San Fermin remains intact, affording the opportunity to walk, talk and drink like Papa.

And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

---

As Hemingway undoubtedly would agree, the greatest two minutes in sports do not take place at Churchill Downs each May.

Each morning during San Fermin, muscular beasts and eager humans take to the streets of Pamplona to memorialize the death of the festival's namesake patron saint. The ritual is known as the "Running of the Bulls," as the six bulls scheduled to appear in the coming evening's bullfight (along with six heifers) are released into narrow, barricaded streets and driven 900 meters -- a little more than half a mile -- to the bull ring.

In the path of these bulls are thousands of thrill-seeking festival-goers, roughly divided into two groups.

A tiny minority of sober true believers makes the run each morning in quasi-mystical ecstasy, metaphorically reliving the primitive fears and urges buried in mankind’s collective subconscious, and now brought jarringly to the surface. These native purists and foreign aficionados genuinely want to run WITH the bulls -- to run near them, just ahead of the powerful animals, or alongside them.

Most other “runners” quite frankly are unconscious, having been consumed, digested and expelled by the singular intensity and alcoholic promiscuity of a festival that never sleeps. They desire nothing more than to tell their friends that they "ran with the bulls," and as accommodation, masses of humanity are advanced to starting positions near the end of the course, permitting most to jog a few drunken yards into the bull ring, declare victory, and begin drinking all over again.

At 8:00 a.m. a rocket explodes, signaling the release of the bulls from their pens. A second rocket indicates that all of them are out and running, driven by expert native runners who wield canes and use them -- not on the bulls, but to lash humans who attempt to create problems that might lead to the animals becoming separated.

That’s important, because as long as the bulls stay together, chances are the only injuries will come as a result of humans falling over each other. If a bull becomes separated from the others, he becomes annoyed and may begin flicking his massive head, ramming, goring and tossing people across the street with ease.

Indeed, someone is killed every now and then, and yet running with the bulls is surely less dangerous than bicycling in New Albany, where know-nothings texting, eating Rallyburgers and applying lipstick while simultaneously failing to properly navigate a vehicle prove far more deadly than a half-ton of rampaging meat on the hoof .

The run ends inside the bull ring, where the bulls are driven into their pens. A crowd of triumphant “runners” awaits charging heifers, their horns padded, which are sent into the ring to wreak havoc among the drunkards. Meanwhile, the true aficionados are absent, having already adjourned to bars like the Txoko on the Plaza de Castillo for post-run champagne and lengthy analysis.

Me? I’ve never run with the bulls, and neither did Hemingway, or so I’m told. There are three very good reasons why I haven’t done it.

First, I’d surely spill my drink, and that’s blasphemy.

Second, I couldn’t run 900 meters drunk, sober or anywhere in between.

Third, I’m a coward.

I’ve no idea what Papa’s excuses were, but in his stead again this year, I’ll spend a week in July remembering the good times and wonderful people in Pamplona, all the while craving a bowl of fresh toro stew, a glass of addictive Pacheran liqueur, and a sizeable Cuban cigar – street legal in Spain, and recommended for smoking during that special bull run voyeur's afterglow.

It didn't happen at the Public House, but maybe it should.

It's a "surprise performance of AGAO's Opera Choir 'Premier Ensemble' in Café Iruña of Pamplona, Spain," in May 2010, as part of the celebration of the European Opera Days 2010. Thanks to the Beakster for the link.

To me, it's the Spacecakes vs. Rioja finale for the World Cup.

My co-conspirator Bluegill says to nix "versus," as we should not have to choose between the two. Indeed, I'm fortunate have visited both Netherlands and Spain on multiple occasions, and can't really make a pick.

One thing I know for sure is that if Spain wins, Pamplona will experience an even larger party than the one currently being held there. That's because the Fiesta of San Fermin, a.k.a, the Running of the Bulls, is concurrent with the World Cup every fourth year. In 1998, Don Barry and I enjoyed a meal of couscous at a North African restaurant in Pamplona, and remained there in the bar to watch France win the final.

It isn't clear to me how the street party could get any larger, but perhaps where there's an excuse to drink even more, there's a way. At the same time, it would be a mistake to bet against the Dutch when it comes to intensity of the potential celebration (or, for that matter, the drowning of sorrows following a loss). Perhaps the only difference between Pamplona and Amsterdam is that in the former, the bulls shooting past the fallen on Monday morning will be flesh and blood, while further north, they'll be jostling for space tonight in the bars, alongside the other denizens of numerous Star Wars cantina scenes.

Me? I gotta pull for the Netherlands, at least on the pitch itself. Amsterdam is better known for other substances, but there's plenty of good beer there once you get past Heineken -- and some damned fine Spanish restaurants, to boot.

Today's Tribune column: "Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer."

BAYLOR: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer

I’ve been lucky to witness a May Day parade in Vienna, frenetic all-night Greek political rallies, Munich’s fabled Oktoberfest, U2 live in Ireland, selected soccer matches and small bits of the Tour de France. The fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89 was a one-time celebration, requiring three decades of preparation and packing a visceral punch, but I missed that one.