After Sullivan died, the Catholic presence lapsed for a while until one day when a clown died in New York and a circus employee knocked on the door of a port chaplain, David Hennessey. By now the circus chaplaincy is so established that Hogan has a stole and chasuble decorated with circus animals. In fact, the circus is such a sealed-off community that denomination, and even religion, pale in relevance beside familiarity. Hogan's predecessors have held mass with accompaniment by Jewish musicians and a Baptist-led choir. The point wasn't whether he was Jewish, but whether he was an insider.
Circus people are very, very difficult to break the ice with.
They're extremely reserved. In some ways, the circus gig is like ministering to an old-fashioned small town. Family relationships, entwined with art and business, are more intense than they are among the general populace. The darker side is that the profession doesn't always allow a smooth transition into old age, and performers sometimes don't know where they will fit in the world when they are no longer capable of being shot out of a cannon. Hogan tells the story of a Russian aerial couple, Sasha and Fatima Medikov, who used to do backward flips on the slanted wire until two years ago, when Sasha had a heart attack.