"if You Love Me, You Will Do My Will": The Stranger-Than-Fiction Saga of a Trappist Monk, a Texas Widow, and Her Half-Billion-Dollar Fortune

This is a story of a vast cattle and oil fortune left hanging by the thread of a widow's dying wish; a story of prodigious egos and ambitions competing for the fortune before the widow was even buried; a story about a legal battle that has lasted a quarter-century and has swept like a range fire from dusty cow-town courtrooms to the marble halls of the Vatican, pitting captains of industry against princes of the Church. And if it had happened anywhere other than Texas, you probably wouldn't believe a word of it.Sarita Kenedy East was the aging, melancholy mistress of a cattle kingdom as big as Rhode Island: La Parra, 400,000 acres of South Texas rangeland next door to the fabled King Ranch. She was the last Kenedy. And although she cherished the huge ranch founded by her grandfather, her life there oppressed her. Mrs. East's only solace was in her memories, her abiding Catholic faith, and her nightly tumblers of scotch.In 1948 Sarita received a surprise caller, a young and charismatic