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Papa Nihil: He’s such an Italian grandpa. Out of his vestments you can find him down at the bocce ball court in Official Grandpa Wear: linen shirt; khaki shorts; sandals with white socks up his skinny chicken legs; & a white-straw stratoliner hat. When he’s there, he’s just one of the other fogies complaining about his idiot children (and known amongst the neighborhood guys as a sore loser). He has Sister Imperator drop him off and pick him up in her vintage car so he can keep his free time separate from Clergy business. She calls it “old man daycare.”
Papa I: He runs a mean book club. He’s down at the community center every Thursday with Gladys, Martha, Betty, Helen, & Dot giving nuanced and in-depth analyses of the historical context, common literary tropes, and death of the author rhetoric of such classic novels as: “The Flame and the Flower”; “The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty”; “The Notebook”; and “Flowers in the Attic” &c. The ladies have no idea where this serious, soft spoken man came from, but boy were their eyes opened when they began to read his novel pick: “The Darker Passions: Dracula”. He even gave a few of them an, ah, hands-on demonstration on how some of the steamier scenes could work logistically.
Papa II : Look, if anyone in the Clergy knew, he’d never be left alone about it, but: baking. He loves it! Everything is so precise, measured out, and strict . It’s no mystery then why he finds baking so zen—if you follow the rules, you get a reward. One of his rumored dungeons is actually a tricked-out kitchen. He’s even won some baking contests under a pseudonym (some French dishes you’ve never heard of, darling). His Ghouls are under strict orders to keep everything hush-hush, obvi—if the biddies at the Church found out, he’d be roped into no end of potlucks for the High Unholy orgies and the bake sales for new habits.
Papa III: Back in his youth, he was actually quite a skilled figure skater. There was even some talk bandied about with the Senior Clergy members if allowing him to compete could benefit the Church, but in the end it was deemed too risky, and he was pulled out of his training to learn Boring Church Stuff. He’ll wow a lover with a romantic ice-skating date on the frozen lake on Church grounds—him literally skating circles around them, then keeping pace backwards. He tries to get out every now and then incognito to a local rink on tour off-days, but Church business keeps him pretty busy whenever he’s back at the Abbey.
Copia: He’s in his heart a big softie. He loves his rats. He loves his feral children Ghouls. Why this man is no good with human children is a mystery, since he loves nurturing things, and—until he was chastised for it—he used to sneak down to the Ghoul Kit nursery to help the Siblings care for them. He’s channeled that into volunteering at an animal shelter no too far from the Abbey. It’s the worst kept secret in the Church: that the Cardinal’s “Saturday Liaison” is actually with a litter of mastiffs and a one-eyed cat that hates him. Sister Imperator can’t complain though—that’s how the Church gained it’s latest vet.