Today, Joe Black was supposed to be a lector at his niece's wedding in Crafton.

Instead, he's sitting in a federal prison in Philadelphia, a man transformed by America's post-9/11 obsession from a reader of the Epistle into a prayer for intercession.

Here's how an innocuous man, once caught up in the violent politics of a place where violence and politics were long indistinguishable, ended up in jail on his way to church.

Joseph Henry Black, 47, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, arrived around 3 p.m. Wednesday at Philadelphia International Airport via a British Airways Flight. With him were his wife, Geraldine, their son, two daughters and one daughter's boyfriend.

"We got down the ramp and there were policemen there. They just asked us to show our passes. We showed our boarding passes. One young fellow said, 'That's it. We got them,' " Geraldine Black said yesterday.

What agents of the Joint Terrorism Task Force got was a middle-aged home remodeler with a past. Nearly 30 years ago, he was a soldier in Company D of the Irish Republican Army. Black was arrested at 20 for kneecapping -- firing a shot through the knees of a Belfast man who had run afoul of the IRA.

Three years missing from his life, Black left Long Kesh prison and the IRA simultaneously and got on with the life that this week was interrupted at the foot of the boarding ramp in Philadelphia.

"We didn't know what was happening until one of the policemen explained it to me. He said, 'We have information that your husband served time.' I said, 'Yes, 28 years ago,' " Geraldine recalled. "I said 'Is there not a cutoff period?' "

It is hard to tell if there is a cutoff period. I have personally met with former IRA men who breezed through American airports in recent years. One of them, Alex Maskey, was on an official stop as lord mayor of Belfast. During his Pittsburgh visit, Maskey showed off photos of his former cell in Long Kesh, a prison now closed.

Two things are clear about Joe Black's arrest. The first is that he signed an immigration form with two important boxes checked off falsely. The first, Question B, asked if he'd ever been convicted of an offense or crime involving moral turpitude. Question C asks if he has ever been or ever was involved in terrorist activities.

"I filled out the form," Geraldine Black said yesterday. "I filled it out. I just picked 'no' to everything and had them sign," she said. "I did the same for all the kids. I filled everybody's out. It's my fault."

Joe Black's problem is that he didn't bother reading the form. He just signed it, right below the line that certifies, among other things, that he has read the form.

The other thing that is clear is that whatever Joe Black signed on that form wouldn't have mattered. Federal agents -- Geraldine counted six in all -- were waiting at the foot of the ramp well before anybody was handed his immigration declaration.

"After 9/11, the message from America was 'Give us every single one of your intelligence files on everybody,' " said his brother-in-law, Sean McClorey, father of the bride. "They had to know."

What prosecutors also know is that now that they have him charged with giving false information, Joe Black has no room to plead for a deal. Last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft, himself a man fond of reading Scripture, issued a diktat to the offices of U.S. attorneys around the nation telling them that there was to be no more bargaining on charges when they had someone firmly nailed. The office in Philadelphia, headed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, follows it slavishly.

Before leaving Philadelphia for the final leg of the journey, Geraldine Black displayed an optimism the agents must have found startling. The Irish assume that when they are not wanted, they will be ejected forthwith. Under federal procedure, Joe Black will linger in jail as long as a month even to plead guilty, and up to another three months before he's deported.

His wife wanted to leave some money for her husband to pick up the car at the airport when he was sent home. They asked her how long she was staying. She told them 2 1/2 weeks.

"He said, 'That's all right. You'll be home long before him.' "