Bill Dantini

Thou Shalt Not Bill Dantini

Thou Shalt Not is a story of faith, forgiveness, and spiritual redemption. The prime mover is Father Thomas Delaney, an errant priest, who, in the throes of renouncing his vocation, works a miracle. The story is told against the backdrop of a Roman Catholic Church witnessing a 40 percent falloff in ordinations since 1965, child abuse, evolving sexual orientation among its clergy, and the stifling vows of celibacy and obedience. A 38-year old nonconformist, Father Delaney is torn between the vows he took at his Boston seminary and the debilitating doubts that plague him. Unable to rationalize his commitment to the centuries' old dictates of the Vatican, he lashes out against everything he once held sacred, including his vow of celibacy. Delaney reaches a point where he can no longer define what it is to be a priest. He suspects that his salvation can only come at the hands of divine intervention, in a booming voice, from a billowing cloud, that tells him unequivocally which way to go.