Thank you, Father Gallagher, for giving me my first orgasm. I'm glad that it was a man of God who popped my cherry. Somehow, it makes me feel cleaner.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned--with you. Again and again and again. And I don't feel dirty about it. I want to shout it from the mountaintops. I have an evangelical thirst to spread the Good News of your holy, holy, lovin'. You turned me on. You turned me out. You turned this altar boy into an altar man. You made me the whore that I am. You showed me joy. You showed me pain--both physical and emotional--of a magnitude I thought impossible. You reached up under my frock and taught me the meaning of tough love. As I stood eagerly perched on manhood's hairy cusp, you caressed my muscular ass as if my buttocks were twin golden goblets filled with Christ's blood.

You said that you had spoken with God, and that he approved of what we were doing. You told me we were just sharing the bodies that God had created. You said that God the Father and God the Son did this sort of stuff together all the time when the Holy Ghost wasn't around. You said that God insisted on an Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Mary because God was a homosexual who was physically repelled by women's bodies. You called physical intimacy between priests and boys "the eighth sacrament." You spoke of Bible passages that the church had suppressed, passages which told in graphic detail what God actually did on the seventh day when he "rested." You said the Bible was using sexual symbolism when it said Jesus "rode into town on a donkey." You mentioned other apocryphal passages which detailed wild parties featuring Jesus and his apostles. "Thirteen men living together, working together, praying together," you'd say with a sly wink. "Think about it. From time to time, they'd need some physical relief."

You were a good man, Father Gallagher--I don't care what they say. You listened to my problems. You bought me things. You left me cute little notes. You played miniature golf with me and took me to the zoo. You taught me Latin and I showed you how to play Nintendo. And we had hot, steamin', Old Testament-style monkey sex. You nailed me in the ass like Christ was nailed to the cross. You split open my buttocks like Moses parted the Red Sea. It was a gas, mi padre. Thanks for the good times, dude.

Remember the lazy afternoons by the riverside, sipping sacramental wine and munching on a bag of eucharists? Remember the time we got kinky with a crucifix? Remember the time we did it right on the altar? Remember the party where we snorted poppers with the Cardinal? Remember the embarrassing trip to the Emergency Room to pry loose the rosary beads from where they were lodged? Remember how turned-on you'd get when I wore the Roman soldier costume? We didn't just have sex. What we did was a form of prayer.

I doubt that rabbis do such things with young Jewish boys. I can't see Buddhist monks doing anal with little Buddhist boys. Muslim clerics, well, I'm not so sure about them. But this I know--you did it with me, Father Gallagher.

When I read about you in the paper the other day, I felt like crying. It's really unfortunate about those sex charges. I'm saddened to see that boys who once claimed to be your friend have grown into men who seek to put you behind bars. I can't see how they can so easily banish so many tender memories from their minds. I remember how it was back then, and they were just as into the sex as you and I were. I hope you beat the rap and continue ministering to the flock. And I hope that one day we can get together, if only for one magical night, and relive old times.

That is, if I'm not too old for you now.

Just kidding, ya big lug.

Call me on my cell phone some time, ya hear?