Conan O’Brien Stalker Reassigned by Vatican
Nov 11, 2007, 14:01
BOSTON – David Ajemian, the Roman Catholic priest who was arrested last week in New York for allegedly stalking Conan O'Brien, has been reassigned to the Vatican, a papal spokesman announced today.
The Reverend Ajemian, better known as Father Flipper, will serve as the entertainment industry liaison under another well-known Boston-area prelate, Bernard Francis Cardinal Law, who reluctantly stepped down as the archbishop of Boston nearly five years ago at the height of a sex abuse scandal in order to serve as spiritual counselor to the altar boys’ guild at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
A distracted-looking Father Ajemian, 46, spoke briefly with reporters yesterday. Standing on a park bench near his parents' apartment in Boston's tony Back Bay section, he explained that he was “in a little hot water” for mailing hundreds of postcards and letters signed "The Passionate Padre" to the Mr. O’Brien's house during the last fourteen months.
In one letter Father Ajemian wrote, “I’m told by some of those officious little usher people that you’re overbooked. Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans? You owe me big-time, pal. I want a public confession—and you know what for—before I even consider giving you absolution.”
Father Ajemian is also alleged to have turned up in Tuscany while Mr. O’Brien was vacationing there. The troubled priest said he traveled to Tuscany after receiving a vision in which Jesus Christ appeared to him wearing the short-pants-and-bow-tie uniform of a Boston catholic grammar school student.
“Only instead of looking like himself, Jesus looked like Conan O’Brien,” Father Ajemian explained. “That’s when I knew God was calling on me to save Mr. O’Brien’s soul—and to do something about that cowlick.”
Father Ajemian was arrested on Friday November 2 as he stood in line waiting for a ticket to that day’s taping of Mr. O’Brien’s show in New York. He was released a week later and returned to the park bench near his parents’ house in Boston.
In related news, the Reverend Ajemian's father, Robert, a retired journalist, said he hopes his son will receive “the treatment that he needs” after he is reassigned to Rome.
"It worries me when Davie says he wants to meet Faye Dunaway and Paul Simon,” said the elder Ajemian. “That doesn’t sound good for the future."
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