A Catholic bishop running a gas station? Well, that was the story they told in Millbrook, New York. And it turned out to be true.

But the gas station is hardly the most interesting thing about this fascinating character. His is a story of catacombs in Rome, a failed bomb-building business in Connecticut and a sewer system in Cuba.

It is a story of allegations, from the serious to the sensational to the silly: that he shared in a million-dollar commission to sell Church property in Havana; that he was living with "a nun he stole from a convent in St. Louis;" that he was "running a hot dog stand" in upstate New York.

It is a story of a millionaire Congregationalist and his Catholic wife, an impeached governor of New York, quarreling siblings and quibbling Church hierarchy.

It is a tale of popes and politicians, business partners who throw inkwells at each other, and a lawyer who probes into a private papal conversation on behalf of a cardinal of the Church.

Strange, moving, funny, mysterious, exciting - this is a story that has fascinated Catholics for years. This is the first book that sifts through the evidence, digs into the mysteries, sorts the true from the false, and tells the whole story of the gas-station bishop from Millbrook.