Tuesday, several of us had lunch at the wonderful Praline Connection on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, one of my favorite spots. It’s a small restaurant, maybe a dozen tables, and their menu is all about “Creole Soul Food.” We ate chicken livers and breaded pork chops and baked chicken. On the side, crowder peas and limas and greens–collards, mustard, etc. Dessert is usually a slice of sweet potato pie with praline sauce.

After that meal, you’re good for a week.

Off to the side of the dining area, I noticed a stack of magazines I’d never seen before. The editors seem to have entered the market to boost the local economy and pride-in-the-city, and we’re not against that. Flipping through the issue, I noticed a half-page ad supporting a local citizen with the unlikely name of Pampy Barre’. This man and several colleagues are regularly being featured on the front page of our daily paper as the objects of an investigation by the U.S.attorney in connection with corruption during the days when Marc Morial was mayor. C. Ray Nagin succeeded Morial who moved off to New York City to head up a civil rights organization. Morial was every bit as smooth as Nagin, and as one local columnist says, was as hands-on as Nagin is detached.

The investigation deals with a massive contract the city fathers signed just days before Morial left office, with a company called Johnson Controls. It was supposedly an energy-saving contract. For $81 million. That’s a lot of energy. A number of politically connected big shots around town–and that’s the only way to describe them–got their finger in that pie, refusing to let Johnson Controls get the contract unless they received kickbacks. Pampy Barre’ was in that number.

So, this priest at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church–also Mayor Nagin’s home parish–writes a big article in the local tableau defending Barre’. What a great guy he is. How generous he is to everyone who knows him. All he’s done for the community.

I never met the man. The priest may be right.

The paper hit the stands just as Barre’ and his buddies were pleading guilty in federal court. Barre’ admitted to using his connections and his “perceived connections” with Mayor Morial to convince Johnson Controls to pay him $273,000 to help land the contract. Then, Pampy funneled money from the pay-off to several buddies, including a project manager for Johnson Controls. As the scheme progressed–don’t worry if you can’t follow this; none of us can–one partner would issue inflated invoices to Johnson Controls, which they would pay, and then the money would be spread around. A whole cadre of corrupt Tony-Soprano-wannabes with their fingers in the pie up to their elbows.

“Guilty, your honor,” they all said.

Stephanie Grace writes in her column that now we’ll never get all our questions answered about how these guys carried it off and what roles other unindicted leaders had in all this. She says, “Although Morial was not indicted, U. S. Attorney Jim Letten made it clear after the pleas were in that the ex-mayor remains on his mind.”

I’m embarrassed for the priest who wrote that ad in the paper. And maybe a tad angry at him. I wish he had stayed out of what he knew nothing about.

Part of the reason for my slight anger is that I’ve sat in that priest’s chair. As a pastor in a county seat town with many of the community leaders in your congregation, sooner or later you find a church member being called before the grand jury and his professional life laid bare before the world.

That’s when one of his buddies phones to ask if you wouldn’t like to show your appreciation for all that man has done for your church over the years, the big offerings, the public favor. Wouldn’t you like to write a few paragraphs to rally the community behind him. Stand up for an honest man. After all, some of these areas where we deal are not black and white but grey. An umpire could call it either way; it’s a judgement call.

You write the article. It shows up in the next day’s paper.

You feel used. Slightly dirty.

You defend what you did by saying you did not mention the charges against the man, just put in a good word for his record in the church and community. And maybe it was the right thing to do.

Just maybe.

But I guarantee you there’s a priest in downtown New Orleans feeling compromised today.