John definitely noticed Dracula at the back there and there might have been a momentary stumble of surprise when his presence registered. His curiosity is definitely up, and in fact he'd been hoping to catch Dracula in the library or somewhere anyway. So he greets him with a smile.

At the observation. his gaze drops a little, and he laughs softly.

"Oh, I've done my share of that," he admits. "But I've, well, obviously I've had to really think about what I'm doing here. And when I was preparing, when I was reading the Gospel and thinking about what to say..." He shrugged. "It hit me. And you're right—we priests, we have a history of telling people what to do—we have a history of being in authority. But here, I'm as far from being in authority as I've ever been in my life."

Part of him wants very badly to tell Dracula—who, after all, must have been touched by the divine in some way himself, even if he and his contemporaries don't see if that way—about the fact that his parishoners have been granted a gift—that death's dominion is no longer absolute, they have been chosen. But some instinct makes him refrain, at least in this moment.

"I've certainly been forced to re-evaulate a lot of what I thought I knew," he says wryly. "Still working on it, to be honest. But I do believe in redemption and salvation, and I have that belief to anchor me, at least."

Whenever he runs into someone else in the chapel, John generally gives them space and doesn't approach them first. But when approached, he smiles politely and nods in greeting. He's wearing his black collared shirt and jeans, and has an alb folded over one arm, in case there's enough people here for a devotional.

So, hello there.

"Oversees? Um, no, I wouldn't say that," he says. "The wardens who manage it are letting me use it. Which is very generous of them."

"Yes." He suppresses a small smile at the phrasing. "Specifically, I'm an ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church, one of the many faiths of our Lord."

John is grateful for Norton's help, and it shows plainly on his face. He really misses Ooker and Warren—no matter what those boys got up to, ordinary teenage shenanigans, they were always reliable altar boys. Riley had been the same way.

"Thank you. I've—"

Done a lot of them, he almost says, but stops himself. He's still hedging his bets on who he tells about his ... resurrection.

"—always liked public speaking," he amends smoothly. Any hesitation could easily be put down to his usual occasional stutter. "Though I guess I'd have had a hard time being a priest if I didn't."

John can draw inferences from the hands and former comments, but doesn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

"We haven't done Latin for a while. Catholics, I mean—definitely not many since the second Vatican. It's, well, there are still Tridentine parishes that do it the old-old fashioned way, but I've never been one of them."