Illness and Mounting Costs

With the costs mounting for chemotherapy, radiation and craniotomies, Ms. Bond again turned to the church. The Franciscans agreed to pay 50 percent of any “extraordinary” medical costs, until he turned 23. Ms. Bond said she was greatly relieved. She was involved in a messy divorce with her third husband, and could not go back to work because caring for her son had become a full-time job.

She finally found a doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City who proposed an experimental treatment on Nathan’s tumors, which had returned despite all the previous treatments. They flew to New York for a one-week consultation, and ended up staying for three months while he was in and out of the hospital for treatment.

The Franciscans initially gave them $1,000 toward the trip, but then refused Ms. Bond’s further requests for reimbursements for lodging expenses for her and Nathan in New York. This is what pushed her over the edge, she said. Dozens of e-mail messages between Ms. Bond and church lawyers document the back-and-forth. Catherine A. Schroeder, the Franciscans’ lawyer, said Ms. Bond failed to provide proper receipts, an accusation that Ms. Bond denies.

The head of the province then was the Rev. Michael Perry, who was recently elected vicar general of the entire Order of Friars Minor. Reached at his office in Rome, Father Perry declined to speak on the record about the decisions he made, except to say, “Efforts were made not only to respect the law but to take into account the dignity and the rights and the care of the child.”

To pay for the New York trip, Ms. Bond’s daughter Carrie Milton liquidated her 401(k) plan and sold T-shirts that said, “Cancer Sucks,” and Ms. Bond’s son Christian Halbach emptied his savings account.

Ms. Bond prays to God constantly. But she has long left the Catholic Church and attends a Methodist church.

Nathan is now so ill that he rarely leaves his house except for hospital visits. The highlight of his day is lumbering to the mailbox, leaning on his mother, who was told recently by doctors that she had carcinoid tumors in her appendix and colon. Strangers who get Nathan’s name and address from Web sites for cancer victims send him dozens of cards, often homemade, urging him not to give up.

Recently the mail included a card from Father Willenborg.

“I never understood,” Nathan said, “why he thought cards could make it all O.K.”