As children, my brother and I were often told stories of life in New Guinea. My parents met there as Catholic missionaries, and dad in particular spent over a decade in the jungles. Often these stories would include mention of a priest named Father Feehan.
I never met him, and indeed was too young to remember him, but the mental image I had of this missionary priest was probably something like this:
From what I had heard over the years, Father Feehan was a friend and mentor to both of my parents. They spoke of him fondly, and he was even (I think) Godfather to my brother. He was a man of caliber, a man to trust and man to never forget.
Now my dad can tell a good tale, but occasionally he omits what I consider important details. In particularly, I question the fact he waited until I was in my late 30’s to tell me Father Feehan carried a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it!
The details are deliberately ignored vague, but you can imagine my surprise when dad regaled me with tales of Father Feehan striding through the jungles with a revolver on his hip fighting off things like man-eating cassowaries,
Headhunters,
and – although dad never mentioned was strangely elusive about this topic – surviving dinosaurs:
Father Feehan, as it turns out was a warrior priest, and someone possessed of the true soul of a man. It probably should have occured to me earlier, but someone doesn’t spend decades living in the Green Hell without having a spine, and once dad opened my eyes I was forced to reconsider my mental image of the man, which now more closely resembles this:
Father Feehan passed away last year. I wonder if he fondly remembered the lawless days he spent striding the jungles of The Lost World, six-shooter never far from his hand? Exploring the lost temples, fleeing from hoards of gibbering pygmies and eating animals unknown to science?
Father Feehan may have spent his last years in Boston, but I’m guessing his soul will forever reside in the still-unexplored jungles of Papua New Guinea.
