Father Drinan had returned from Italy in the summer of 1955. He was assigned to Boston College Law school as a faculty member. He would be named the dean the next year in 1956.
Bill Bulger returned from the Army in the summer of 1955. He would start his second year as an undergraduate at Boston College. He was not in the law school. It is possible that they may have interacted because of the prior relationship Drinan had with the Bulger family. Even then, there is no record that they did at the time or that it would have been anything more than chit-chat.
A Catholic priest being friendly with a Catholic family and trying to help out one of the family members who gets in a jam is something quite ordinary. Father Drinan visiting Whitey after he was sentenced considering his interest in prisoners and his relationship with the family would be something expected. Even without that relationship, he would simply be following the teachings of Jesus who said: “when I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”
However with the Whitey Myth the ordinary is turned sinister by those fanning the fires of the Whitey mania. No matter what happened in the life of Whitey they seek to find something evil not only in Whitey but also his brother Bill or any associate. These people seem caught up in the idea that what we would learn about Whitey after the late 1990s was known about him in 1956. In truth what was known was he had been arrested a couple of time and was just sentenced to a heavy bit having pleaded guilty to armed robberies.
David Boeri wrote an article in May 2012 on WBUR News exclaiming how Whitey wrote a letter in October 1956 when he was 27 years old from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He had been in prison for only a few months. The letter was to Father Drinan asking him to see if he could do anything about him being in an eight man cell. He hated the noise and chatter. He said if he complained about it he’d end up in a fight. He was looking for some way to get a little peace and quiet. Obviously, never having been in prison he was having a hard time adjusting. The letter was never forwarded to Father Drinan but was found in his prison files many years later.
When the media got a hold of his letter you can see the effects of the mania. Boeri writes:“How in the world would Drinan be connected to the “habitual criminal?”” It was suddenly wrong for a priest to receive a letter from a guy in his twenties doing his first sentence in prison. Boeri asks as if some dastardly plot was afoot.
He then answers the question. He stated that it was because Drinan knew Whitey’s brother Bill. Not having anything to back that up he explains that Bill “may have been one of Drinan’s favorite students.” We know that is absurd. Drinan never had Billy as a student. Boeri plain out manufactures a situation that could not have existed.
It gets worse. Here’s what one of the author’s of the Black Mass book, Dick Lehr, said about this letter. “The inference is that it’s through Bill Bulger there’s established a beachhead with Robert Drinan.” Aside from not making any sense, what is it supposed to mean. It sounds like Bill, Whitey and Father Drinan are preparing to make a D-Day type of landing on Carson Beach.
Boeri then starts going off the rails. With the little information he had he tells us he talked to Drinan’s former congressional aides. He tells them that Drinan had a relationship with Whitey Bulger. I guess that’s all he told them because he reported: “they were stunned.” It gets worse.
Ya’ get why that’s complicated, right Bill ?
Of curs you do !!!
Bill:
Carr is no less convinced that he is right than you are that you are right.
Carr : Complicated . ( Just leave it there Bill ; balanced views require some oxygen in the room )
Carr, unbidden and , unheralded, if you will permit a chuckle, included in a column Steve Flemmi’s telephonic confession to Johnny Martorano that he strangled his paramour, Debbie Davis.
COMPLICATED .
“Carr is no less convinced that he is right than you are that you are right.”
The difference might be motive.
More cowbell !!!
Abe:
Only Carr and Martorano knew that. Carr is Johnny’s confidante. That spontaneous confession by Flemmi to an old friend, who was used to getting the straight dope, did not have to be published. That Carr countered the … Fake News … of the Federal sham show that was the Bulger trial to this extent is noteworthy. And, to his credit. PERIOD
” The difference might be the motive.”
Talk about havin’ been fucked over by Metaphysics !!!
Who’s on FAUST ?!?
BEAT THAT !!!
Kinda like a favahhhh’ … Ya’ don’t know ?!?
This old house builder in Dublin was thinking of coming out of retirement and getting back into building. His friend Shamus said, “Things have changed since you were in the business, Johnny. Today you have to know a lot more about architecture. I’ll bet you don’t know the difference between joists and girders, do you.”
Johnny looked amazed at his buddy. “Of course I know the difference, ya twit. Joist wrote Ulysses and girder wrote Faust!”
And that’s how he spelled it, SHAMUS !
Abe:
Standup double. Still not handling my Faust ball !!!
You Kant be serious. Hume must be kidding. Heidegger into second and take third on the Uber-throw. The final play most think is Hobs-solete but I take off on the pitchers move and steal Homer Plato!
Your move.
Yes, you are a Platonist !!!
Even a crazy bitch can crease Homer Plato , time to time, Abe .
Where is that boy Tadzio? I hope he is well. He reminds me of the nuns that use to beat me in Hebrew School.
Only kidding, Tadzio. How you doing? Everything OK? Need any money?
I agree with Matt’s insightful comments and NC’s insightful comments and John’s crisp comments, all on the mark.
The Boston Media, especially the Boston Globe and Howie Carr, Howie Cur, Mr. Smear, Mr. Schadenfreude who delights in persons’ sufferings and tries to smear the Kennedy Family which gave three sons to America and Rosemary’s husband died in combat with the British Army in WWII, and the whole family has dedicated their lives for generations to public service . . .while Howie’s every step has only been to serve his own pocketbook . . .and now he pretends he’s a conservative, when no one has attacked with more venom Conservative Politicians, Silber, Ed King, Bill Bulger, that Howie Cur. . . .yes he’s a selfish attack dog, attacking generally the defenseless, for one reason: So he can put more cash in his back pocket.
You think you get any truth from Howie Carr, the cur’s, books: You don’t know how to read through the lines; you don’t know history; you don’t know the facts; you fall for spin, cruel spin, spin that defames the honorable, a talk show that mocks the dead and dying, a talk show that runs weekly a diabolical “death pool”
And Cullen and Lehr are no better . . .masters of deceit and duplicity . . .and they all are now being exposed.
Do you think you’ll ever read a CORRECTIONS column by these three calumniating columnists? “We apologize for the falsehoods, the false spins, the character assassinations; we apologize and want to set the record straight.”? Don’t hold your breath.
And whoever wrote that completely false biopic of Tony Veranis is Wikipedia should be given 40 lashes at least . . .I’d have them walk the plank . . .as it was a deliberate fabrication . . .to begin with Tony is half-Lithuanian and half-Irish, not Italian . . .his stellar boxing record was 26 wins, half by k.o 2 losses, 2 draws . . .Howie Carr is cited as a source in the that fallacious Wikepedia Article, a complete fabrication . .. Howie Carr believed Martorano incredulous account of him killing Tony . . .Carr dismissed contemporary accounts as “puff pieces”, dismissing the words of Father Hart, another priest serving Correctional Institutions and a most celebrity Boston Sports Reporter all attesting to the fact that Tony Veranis was on the straight and narrow, working construction, helping his ailing dad and mom, and taking many friends and neighbors to the fight game . . .Tony was one our local heroes . . .a guy like Mark Wahlberg who turned his life around . . .and Howie Carr, the smear artist, mocks Tony’s death and give us the John Martorano’s lying version of events . . .that Martorano said he had quicker hands than a clean, sober professional boxer working construction, and the fat slob killer said he outmuscled, outdrew Tony (Tony would never be carrying a gun) and then Martorno said he shot him on the top backside of his head, where he shot everyone he snuck up on and killed . . .sneakily, from behind, cowardly
And Howie Carr, the cur, repeats Martorano’s lies as if they were Gospel . .why? to make a buck . . .and Cullen repeats every word of Martorano as if they were Gospel, too . . .and the both withhold material facts adn the true story from the public . . .
You are correct. Priests visit prisoners all the time. Toni Veranis had a friendship with Fr. Hart while incarcerated. Veranis was on the straight and narrow when he was murdered by Martorano. How naive is Howie Carr to believe Martorano’s fantasies? Cullen and Carr. Dumb and Dumber. Donnie Wallberg was befriended by a priest while in the Plymouth H of C. He credited the padre’s efforts for showing him a better way. The rest is history. On the subject of Whitey, Billy, their neighbors, the Catholic Church, Trump and his friends the press engages in a relentless campaign to denigrate and smear them. The facts and the truth are ignored. The Walter Duranty style disinformation effort and media frenzy persists. One can’t believe what he reads in the newspaper. Ever.
Wasn’t Drinan a Jesuit ?
Boeri, in the heady rush of being a Whitey chronicler with an eye on bagging the Triple Eagle, exaggerated facts and implied sinister connections. These are the bread and staff of life for the Jesuits. His imagination was simply not lurid enough when it came to out-intriguing a Jesuit priest. I doubt not Father Drinan knew young James. As to how :
Jesuits: 1 Boeri: 0