At the stroke of nine in the morning, Francis entered the UN office of Human Rights Commission. The representatives of Arch Dioceses, the Brazilian Ministry of Tribal affairs and the Ministry of Development arrived shortly. Francis had kept himself locked up in his office with instruction to his Administrative Assistance not to let anyone disturb him. He did not wish to come out until the beginning of the conference. He had reviewed the Plans submitted by the consultants hired by both the Government and Industry Association offices. There was nothing different than the previous plans of resettlements and most so called, " new approaches" were nothing more than rehashing of the old strategies with few more minor but important sounding concessions made like the '10 years moratorium' on deforesting and additional acreage to be brought into the reforesting schemes which were not identified in the previous maps of Amazonian jungles.

He knew the area where his parish had been and the people he had lived with and served very well. He was convinced that the industrial sector would begin deforesting the area several hundred miles away from the sectors coming under the ten years moratorium now but after that, they would begin in the protected parts also. The wait and persist is the game he recognized right away. The indigenous population in ten years would lose their habitats, first at the currently approved areas and later, in a decade, would lose in the protected acreage as well. They will get assimilated in the modern world was the premise upon which the whole plan was based. It had no input from the people who were supposed to get assimilated in the modern world or, preferably, just vanish in the thin air without a tress as has happened historically all over the world.

"The meek will inherit world!" My foot; Francis exclaimed in disgust. He knew there was no one in that conference, including the Church, really interested in those uncivilized, primitive people, still living off the land, rivers and the forest. They were seen as, 'mostly nonconvertible souls', living in the semi-animal state and conditions by their own choice. "You can bring them to The Lord but can't get the jungle out of them" he had read the remark in a copy of a report from a Bishop, on their lack of spiritual progress, when he had visited the parish Francis was managing in the past. He wanted no part of it and his position being that of advisor, really had very little impact on the final outcome; that was just the lip service for making it look like all parties involved in the projects, and had bent backward to accommodate the native culture, protect the environments and at the same time improve economy of the region. They had mastered the art of deception and were experts in doing just that; having done same thing in many rain forests of the world stretching from Indonesia to Equatorial Africa and the Himalayan Forest belt. In the battle between the corporate greed and the planet's environment, it is the greed that prevailed over all facts and figures projecting the hastening demise of planet earth as the supporter of life.

Francis knew he was wasting time but wanted to understand where the latest planned activities would commence and also to know if the Vatican had taken in consideration his pleas for not supporting the Brazilian interest which had the backing of the Bishop in Sau Paulo. He had typed and kept a resignation letter for delivery to the regional office located in Reo. He was planning to get out from under the bureaucratic UN office and the so called pragmatic approach of the church more interested in pleasing the Brazilian politicians than working for the meek and marginalized future inheritors of the planet as the Master had prophesied on the Mount in a far, far away land, a long, long time ago.

The conference began as planned on time and Francis sat there listening carefully what the officials of different outfits were eloquently speaking and presenting various charts, photographs and slides. At last his turn came to speak and he rose from his seat and spoke standing on the spot instead of walking to the podium.
" I read all the reports forwarded to me previously and also carefully listened to the presentations. I, with clear conscience cannot endorse this scheme as reported and presented here. My reasons are:
1. There is no consideration given to the needs of the natives who inherited the land before any and all so called civilized men arrived.
2. They have not asked you to interfere in their lives and bring changes to their ways and surroundings.
3. I see no benefits coming to them which are neither listed nor guaranteed here.
There was a pin dropped silence momentarily when he sat down without adding another word.
The convener of that conference; a Brazilian Bureaucrat rose from the head of the long oval conference table, cleared his throat and said,

" Well; that concludes the meeting now that we have heard from Mr. Mendez and we already have the go ahead from all parties concerned, we will begin the final preparation plans immediately and I will let you know when and where we will be meeting."

Before he could finish the usual formalities of closing the conference, Francis had left the room and in half an hour he was out on the road to his apartment. He had given the resignation letter to the secretary to forward it to the appropriate authorities.

He reached to his apartment and began packing a small suitcase. It was already half past noon and he had to catch a train for Sau Paulo as planned with Pascu to visit his family. He got out his formal attire which he used strictly for the office business and wore his overused duck-back, white trouser and light blue shirt. Then he grabbed the dark blue sport coat which he had tossed on the chair on the evening he returned from that accidental but a fateful meeting with his brother. An envelope fell out of the jacket and he bent down to pick up; that was that letter Senior Eduardo Giovanni, left for him and was hand delivered by the apartment building's page and he had simply ignored. He showed it back in the same pocket of his sport coat it fell from and dashed out to the railroad station.

After he settled down in his chair, he pulled the envelop out and opened the letter in such a careless manner that anyone observing him would have thought it as a correspondence of minor importance but it was not. He began to read and suddenly straightened himself up from the,' sprawled out on the seat' position. The salutation part of the letter grabbed his attention instantly; it read:

" My dear Friar Mendez:
I am sure you will be astounded by the way this letter is addressed, however, this is the proper way to address an Ordained Priest, which I know for sure, you indeed are.
I was going to speak to you about this matter today after the musical soiree but you left abruptly before the intermission and no one expected you not returning back to the box. I had sensed your discomfort with the group and also was aware of bit of apprehension among some of the members of our circle. They were, in general have been feeling that you were a Roman Catholic Padre, who for some unknown reasons, was trying hard to bond with them. Although you did not wear any priestly habiliment, you couldn't shake off your mannerism and decor. This made them uncomfortable when you tried to be their friend, in a sort of intimate way and few thought you may be one of those sent to perform the exorcism type of rite like deprogramming efforts, some overzealous pastors undertook in the US and elsewhere. Only I knew the facts and I couldn't divulge them to anyone.

My reason to address you formally is this. By all accounts, you are not disqualified by the Vatican as an ordained priest nor you ever resigned from the Priestly Duties. I wrote to the Vatican office managing these affairs after you arrived in Rio and they took good number of months to answer my inquiries but the advantage of their delay was that they also forwarded the correspondence between your family members and the said office. Among those letters there was one from Senior Pascal Mendez address to me. It was about two years old. A Goan family from New Mexico, US, had written to The Church officials in Panjim, your birthplace, and asked them to locate your relatives who they suspected may still be living in that town. A retired Priest, Father DeMelo was in touch with the family members and to make it a long story short, they tracked your brother Pascal living in Sao Paulo. Somehow, he wrote to me, thinking I was still part of the administration while I was here in Reo. Since I resigned from the Church, they did not have knowledge of my whereabouts, hence the letter remained in the 'Dead Letter' box.
I received the forwarded information the day we were visiting the 'Cidade da Musica Artes' and I located Pascal and spoke to him about your presence here, with me in Rio and he insisted on coming right away. So I told him our evening program and asked him to join us. He arrived just before the intermission but you were gone. I gave him your address and telephone number which he took from me but rushed out thinking that he saw a person leaving the building when he was getting out of the cab and thought probably was you. I have no way to know if you are connected or not so I came to see you but you were not at home and therefore I wrote this letter to you with pascal's phone number and address.

I will be leaving for Rome day after tomorrow. I have wrapped up my business here in Rio and am planning to retire at my ancestral home, outside the City of Rome. I hope we will meet again before I leave. If not, I will get in touch with you; I have your home address and phone number. It was a great comfort for me that we crossed each other path and to great extent I feel relieved to see my action due to error of judgement and a colossal failure as an ordained priest, committed when you were so young, did not hurt you in the manner I had imagined. I just want you to know that I then loved you sincerely and still love you but only as a one human being should love another.

If you ever need any assistance, financial or otherwise, please let me know. You will always have a place in my heart and in my home. God bless you and give you all the success you deserve. If you chose to resume your responsibilities of an Ordain Minister of the Roman Catholic Church, all you have to do is to pick up where you left off. You are for all practical and divine purpose a true Shepherd of the Lord. Good luck."

He read the letter again, this time very slowly; lingering on a word here, stopping at a phrase there; he seems to be envisioning things and events actually happening to him. At last he took a deep breath and let go a sigh and said to himself," Father Mendez, I'm Father Mendez" and then fell into the realm of deep thinking as if he was hypnotized.
In that second class caboose, there was no one to disturb his meditative state. Apparently, his mind was wrestling with his self-drawn picture of himself and the picture of a fully habited Father Mendez performing wedding ceremonies. It was not the place, nor the religious act that was in conflict with the reality; the conflict he was trying to deal with was that, the two individual he was binding in the matrimonial bonds in front of The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost; they were of the same sex; they were those two American young men he had met on the restaurant on the beach.

The train had pulled into the station and most passengers had disembarked the train at least ten minutes ago but Francis was still locked up in his own strife filled world of that -top to bottom-imposed morality; one represented by the collar wearing Father Mendez and Francis, a man who was aware of his ardent desire to walk in the path of his Savior and serve those for whom He died on the cross; not as a cast aside abomination, but as a pure and self-sacrificing servant who is loved by the Master and not a despised gay priest, exiled away from the civilized world among the so called savages who have no knowledge of sin, the pearly gate and the heaven but are at peace with each other and self without any help from the civilized world.
"Oh my God! What in the name of Holy Mother you are doing? Lost in the meditations and I am running from one compartment to other to find where you may be!"

It was Pascu with an alarming voice, trying to get his kid brother to step outside from the space he was floating in at that moment. Francis snapped out of the trance, pushed the letter in his coat's inner pocket, grabbed his little suitcase and stepped outside the train. There was a calm and serene look on his face and that sort of alerted Pascu. His euphoria in seeing his brother again was dampened with the observation of his brother's visage. " It doesn't look like all is well with my celebrated brother", thought crossed his mind and he caught Francis' elbow and led him out of the station without speaking a word.