Paula Messina Reviews: The Priest by Joseph Caruso

 Please welcome back author Paula Messina to the blog today. By the way, when I was looking for cover images for the piece today, I cam across this regarding the author and the West End Museum.

  

The Priest

 

by Paula Messina

 

 

I write historical fiction. One of my recurring characters and his family live in Boston’s North End. He occasionally ventures into nearby Scollay Square and the West End. Hoping to uncover some delectable morsel to use in my writing, I recently visited the West End Museum.

The museum was enjoyable, but I didn’t uncover anything I didn’t already know. That is until I spotted a dark blue, thin volume in one of the display cases, Joseph Caruso’s The Priest. Published in 1956, both novel and writer were new to me. I left the museum hoping that The Priest would provide that tasty tidbit I’d been searching for. I can’t say I found it. Instead, I discovered something far more rewarding, a gripping novel.

The priest in question is thirty-eight-year-old Father Octavio Scarpi, the eighth and youngest surviving son of an Italian fisherman. ‘Tavio is huge, so huge he cannot fasten his Roman collar. He is not Hollywood handsome, nor is he blessed with a plain face. A former boxer, fisherman, and World War II soldier, the priest has a “crooked, broken nose.” He’s an ugly giant whose exceptional strength is his undoing.

Father Scarpi is assigned to St. Dominic’s in the West End, where he grew up. He is haunted by the death of his brother Onofrio and a war-time rape. A priest who hears confessions and absolves others of their sins, he cannot forgive himself.

The novel begins as a jury returns to the courtroom with its verdict. Joseph Shannan, a gangster who unquestionably has earned a place behind bars, is found guilty of the murder of Ellen Greer. When asked by the judge if he wishes to speak before sentencing, Shannan tells the judge, “What’s there to say?...I been saying I didn’t do it.”

Father Scarpi is called to hear the confession of the dying Vincent Spinale. Grabbing the priest’s wrist, Spinale begs for absolution after divulging, “I have sinned….I killed a woman, father….Greer. I killed Ellen Greer. Save me, Father!”

Father Scarpi grants Spinale absolution as the confessor lapses into a coma. Bound by the seal of confession, the priest cannot reveal that Vincent Spinale is Ellen Greer’s murderer. All hope of convincing Spinale to confess to the authorities is doomed when he dies. Short of a miracle, the for-once-innocent Joseph Shannan will die in the electric chair.

His lips might be sealed, but that doesn’t keep Father Scarpi from attempting to right a wrong. He visits Shannan, whose real name is Peppino Schianno, in prison. Shannan recognizes ‘Tavio. Peppino and Onofrio were best friends. The meeting stirs Father Scarpi’s memory of the first time he and Peppino met. An enraged Octavio “poleaxed” his inebriated brother Onofrio. Their brothers Victor and Anthony as well as Peppino restrained the massive Octavio as he lifted Onofrio “to hit him again.”

The priest becomes obsessed with Shannan and disobeys his superiors in a desperate effort to save his dead brother’s friend. As he struggles to save Shannan from the electric chair,  Father Scarpi discovers Ellen Greer’s murder hinged on rape. Ultimately, Octavio Scarpi, who cannot escape his guilt in Onofrio’s death and the rape he committed during the war, cannot save Shannan. Devastated by his failure, the priest decides to leave the priesthood.

Caruso doesn’t sensationalize Father Scarpi’s dilemma. Instead, he depicts a very human, deeply vulnerable man haunted by his violent past. Father Scarpi has lots of company. St. Dominic’s other priests suffer from the same affliction as do others, including Beneditto Scarpi, the priest’s father, who blames himself for his wife’s early death. These Christians, who all believe God forgives sins, cannot forgive themselves.

Beneditto tells Octavio, “There is guilt in all of us, but at times the feeling of guilt is more than the act that brought it on.”

Because of his failure to save Shannan, ‘Tavio resoves his Roman collar and leaves the priesthood. His brother John is unable to convince him to return to St. Dominic. He tells the priest, “What I am doesn’t matter. It’s you that matters. You are another man’s hope….Would you deprive your parishioners of their hopes just for your own feelings of guilt?”

John sees what his brother Octavio, blinded by guilt, cannot see. Father Scarpi is respected by his parishioners, who seek and need his comfort and guidance. The priest, who believes his physical strength is his greatest weakness, fails to recognize his real strength, his faith.

The Priest portrays a vibrant community of Sicilians, Southern Italian immigrants, and their American children in the early 1950s. The men don’t attend Mass, but they and their wives have a deep faith that guides their lives. The men are “calfoni: fruit peddlers, laborers, fishermen.” In other words, they are uncivilized and crude. They may have accents and lack polish, but they live their Old World values, work hard to support their families, and trust in a God they pretend to eschew.

There’s another homicide that hovers unspoken over The Priest: the premeditated murder in the first degree of the West End by the City of Boston. In the name of urban renewal, Boston Mayor John Hynes targeted the destruction of the West End and exiled the calfoni. According to the West End Museum, in 1958 and 1959, more than 12,000 West Enders were evicted. Forty-six acres were leveled. Like the Joni Mitchell’s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” the city tore down a thriving community to create a parking lot.

That gigantic parking lot remained until 1965 when two towers with 477 apartments were erected along with a gigantic sign that proclaims, “If you lived here, you’d be home now.”

Only the families that had occupied the land for decades could not go home. They couldn’t afford the luxury apartments. To this day, former West Enders lament the destruction of their homes.

Joseph Caruso (1924-2008) was born in Sicily and immigrated to the West End when he was seven years old. A writer, filmmaker, and painter who worked as an Art Director for the Post Office, he received a Bronze Star for bravery during World War II. Caruso was one of the founders of The Committee to Save the West End.

The families that lived in the West End couldn’t stop the government, nor could they stop the inevitable change already underway. The calfoni’s sons and daughters assimilated and abandoned the Old World ways of their parents and ancestors.

Those who lived in the West End still mourn for the vibrant community that was taken from them. Little of Caruso’s West End remains. One exception is St. Joseph Parish, the novel’s St. Dominic. It is still an active church. 

 

Paula Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.