Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Rock 'n' Roll Priest Uses Music to Deliver Message.

By Morris Fraser, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

May 9--Father John Licari picks his plastic water bottle from his desk while asking a visitor if he would like something to drink. He mishandles the open bottle, which spills over the office carpet.

"Well," he mutters good-humoredly. "There it is, on the floor."

Licari is a combination of confidence and a certain searching.

Contradictions wear well on the 49-year-old newly ordained priest. Dressed in the standard black clothes and white collar of a parish pastor, his curly salt-and-pepper hair and residual Long Island accent hint at his previous life.

A former rock and roll band member and songwriter, he forsook touring …