Chameleon (11 page)

“Our greatest hurdle,” Pam explained, “was his priesthood, of course. He’d been a priest twenty years. It was all he’d ever wanted to be from the time he was a small child. He loved his work. And he loved what his vocation had become just a little less—as it turned out—than he loved me. It wasn’t a matter of feeling guilty. It was a matter of feeling loss.”

“Seems like a case of seasickness and lockjaw simultaneously, to use the metaphor Daddy uses so often.”

Pam winced. “I guess so.” True enough, Fred did use the phrase with some frequency. But she’d always found it in poor taste.

“So,” Irma persisted, “how did he settle the dilemma? Or did you do it for him?”

“Oh, no. My only contribution was to urge him to stay functioning as a priest.”

“You did?” This came as a genuine surprise to Irma.

“Oh, absolutely. I could see down the line in the years ahead where that could be an insurmountable problem. I never wanted him to feel that I had put any pressure on him to leave the priesthood. I knew the way he felt about his vocation he would surely miss being a priest. And he has. So it had to be his decision. His alone.

“With me on the side of his remaining a priest, there wasn’t anyone even suggesting that he leave and marry me. No one but himself.”

“So it was his choice?” Irma asked.

Pam shook her head. “You don’t understand, dear. It’s what your Father was trying to tell you before, What he regrets is the Church’s inability or refusal to understand that there’s no contradiction in being a priest and, at the same time, being married.”

“I think I understand, Mom. He’s very comfortable about having married you …”

“And having you for a daughter,” Pam interjected.

Irma smiled. “Yeah. That’s neat. So he’s okay about all that. The problem is with the Church. He should be able to be a priest now—saying Mass and everything.”

“Think you’ve got it?”

“I think so. But I’ve got to think about it some more.”

“Good.” Pam began massaging her forehead.

“Headache? Let me do that for you.”

Pam smiled. “Know what you can do for me, dear? Maybe you could play something nice and soothing.”

Irma gave it a moment’s thought. “Sure.” She moved to the spinet and the beautiful strains of Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraunr” filled the room.

Pam relaxed, rested her head against the chair, closed her eyes, and let the memories flood over her.

Her daughter’s query had brought to mind those fateful days after she and Father Fred Stapleton had first met.

He was an attractive man, talented, handsome, well read, with an infectious sense of humor—and off-limits. On neither’s part was it love at first sight. She taught in the parochial school attached to the parish of which he was pastor. As a nun, she had taught for many years before leaving the convent. She was a gifted teacher.

Father Stapleton took an active interest in his school and, naturally, in its teachers. Of all the teachers, religious and lay, he managed to find more time for Pam Baldwin than for any of the others. She was such a good teacher, and attractive and fun—and off-limits.

Their relationship grew, as most authentic love does, gradually. By the time they realized they were, after all, an ordinary couple who wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, it was too late to turn back. If Pam had made the slightest suggestion that he leave the priesthood so they could marry, he would have started the process immediately. On the contrary, however, her resolve that he remain an active priest was far stronger than his.

So when the decision was finally made, it was his entirely.

In terms of staying in good standing with the Church, they were fortunate. Fred left at a time when the Pope happened to be lenient in granting laicization.

Pope Paul VI had inherited the legacy of his predecessor, John XXIII. The inheritance included the Second Vatican Council. There are those who believe Paul didn’t know what to do with it. Laicization, a modern phenomenon, at least in its frequency, was a case in point. Pope Paul vacillated from year to year in granting the request.

Laicization is the tortuous, complicated, and lengthy process by which a priest is “reduced” to the status of a lay person. And then some. Catholicism teaches that, “Once a priest, always a priest.” But in order to function—say Mass, absolve, marry, bury, etc.—the priest needs “faculties”—permission of his bishop, in the case of a diocesan priest, or of his religious superior, for a religious order priest.

The bishop giveth as well as taketh away.

Permission to function is withdrawn if, for any reason, a priest’s superior punishes him with a penalty called “suspension.” Should a priest “attempt” marriage without having been granted laicization, he is automatically excommunicated, in addition to being forbidden to function sacramentally.

There were times when Pope Paul’s policy would grant laicization for good cause; times when he tightened the restrictions by granting it, say, only to homosexuals; and times when he would not grant it at all.

In Fred Stapleton’s case there was good and bad news. The good news was that at the time he applied, permission was being granted quite liberally. The bad news was that, outside of emergencies, such as when someone was in danger of death, Fred would never again be able to function as a priest.

They were married in the Church by a priest who was a mutual friend.

Fred continued teaching while he earned the degrees necessary for a psychology practice. Irma was not planned but she was made very welcome.

Fred became a very competent and popular psychologist-counselor. His clientele included many celebrities of the Detroit metropolitan area. Often he was quoted in the media, and his photo would appear in the paper or on TV. The Stapletons lived comfortably, though not lavishly. By Pam’s standards, all was well—with the notable exception of Fred’s attitude toward his enforced laicization. And that attitude had blossomed and hardened through the years.

In the beginning, laicization had been an O. Henry sort of gift. Fred thought Pam wanted everything to be kosher. Pam thought Fred would be distressed were he excommunicated. Neither assumption, as it turned out, was true. But each hesitated to talk about it. So Pam endured the months of delay and uncertainty and Fred endured the endless questions of the MMPI test.

Because he was put in the posture of a beggar, that which he sought—permission of the Church for him to function as a layman without the obligation of reciting the breviary daily, and a dispensation from his promise of celibacy—took on heightened desirability.

It was only after the permission had been granted and they were married that Fred could calmly and in clearer focus assess the “favor” the Church had bestowed. In the light of reexamination, it didn’t appear all that beneficent.

As a result of his research into the history and rationale of clerical celibacy, Fred grew increasingly certain that he and others like him had been robbed. He could and should have it all. So, when CORPUS was founded and established in Minneapolis, Fred became a charter member.

Pam was far less enchanted with the organization’s purpose.

Due to their status, Fred and Pam became familiar, and in many cases friendly, with other inactive priests and their spouses. By and large, thought Pam, these were excellent men. And, because it was so often true, she came to expect priests’ wives to be strong, intelligent, capable women.

In Pam’s eyes, CORPUS took a suppliant stance.
Dear Church: Have you looked lately? You’re running out of priests. Have you noticed the current median age of your priests? Dear bishops and Pope: Unless you are theologically and historically naive, you know there is no legitimately compelling reason for mandatory celibacy in your clergy. And here we are, thousands of well-trained priests, waiting on the sidelines to go in there and win one for Mother Church.

What galled Pam most about CORPUS was that there was seldom any sort of
demand
on the part of its members to return to a fully functioning ministry. Rather, she felt the group was willing, almost eager, to settle for some—any—small crumb of their once full ministry.

In short, she felt that good men were demeaning themselves by pleading for something each of them believed was due them by right.

But she sensed Fred’s dedication to the organization and the cause. So she kept her feelings to herself, pondering them in her heart.

So lost in these thoughts was Pam that she was unaware that Irma had concluded “Liebestraum” and had added the unsolicited encore of Schumann’s “Traumerei.”

Irma had turned on the piano bench and was looking at her mother. Pam had no clue as to how long this had been going on. But now, conscious of Irma’s gaze, she said, “Thank you, dear; that was marvelous. Just what the doctor ordered.”

“You didn’t hear a note I played.”

“Oh, but I did. I found it so soothing I got lost in my own reverie. It helped, dear; honest it did.”

Irma wore a concerned expression. “Mama, would you do something special for me?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Would you make sure Daddy doesn’t do anything foolish?”

Pam was startled. “What?”

“He scared me tonight when he was talking about doing something he never thought he would do. It wasn’t so much his words as his tone of voice. I was almost afraid of him. I’ve never felt like that before.”

“You’ve got to have more confidence in your father, dear. Of course he wouldn’t do anything foolish. Just put that out of your mind.”

Pam would not mention it to her daughter, but Irma had put into words the exact fear that increasingly plagued Pam. She could not nor would she worry her daughter. But Fred
had
changed in subtle ways. Pam was concerned. She would do her best to make sure Fred did nothing foolish. She shivered as she prayed that even now it was not too late.

Cardinal Mark Boyle offered sister Joan condolences on the death of her sister.

The Cardinal’s speech pattern, on almost all formal occasions, brought to mind a technically and carefully worded textbook. And so it was now. In her mind’s eye, Joan saw the Cardinal’s words framed in hearts and flowers mounted on an antique greeting card.

The others at today’s meeting murmured their agreement with Cardinal Boyle’s expressions, which he had tendered immediately after opening the meeting with a prayer.

That is, at least most of them concurred.

That business completed, there came the shuffling of papers and scraping of chairs. This was a regularly scheduled meeting of “the staff,” which included the heads, leaders, directors of almost every bureau or department in the archdiocese. It was an unwieldy group of some thirty people. Three were women: Sister Joan; the director of continuing education, Joan Blackford Hayes; and Irene Casey, present editor of the
Detroit Catholic
, Of the men present, almost half the number were lay.

It had not been that way in the beginning.

Father Koesler, as editor of the
Detroit Catholic
when these staff meetings first began, could testify that in the beginning there had been present only about a dozen people, all of whom were clergymen. In time, the number grew as departments were either added or recognized. And, reflecting the profound vocation shortage, more and more departments were headed by laypeople.

The staff meeting had two basic functions. Each department head reported in writing what his or her agency had accomplished in the past month. And each department head detailed future plans.

The chief topic of today’s meeting was to be Catholic schools of the archdiocese, with emphasis on the ever-shrinking number of parochial grade and high schools.

There had been a time, up to the early 1970s, when almost every parish had its own parochial school. That was an era when teaching sisters were plentiful and some public school services were made available.

Then, in the wake of Vatican II and a judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court, both these staples of parochial education were made unavailable.

The Sisters vanished. Many left the convent for lay careers and/or marriage. Some remained in the religious life but opted for Church positions other than teaching.

And simultaneously, few, very few, were entering religious life.

In 1971 the Supreme Court ruled that any use whatsoever of public funds for private education was unconstitutional.

The virtual disappearance of these two essential resources might imply that the parochial school system would collapse. It hadn’t, but it was leaning more steeply than that tower in Pisa. That it was still even limping along was a tribute to Catholics dedicated and sacrificing to keep it going somehow. In the meantime, it was draining the budgets of those parishes still subsidizing schools.

Today, it was Father Cletus Bash’s turn to chair the meeting, albeit with deference to Cardinal Boyle, who never left any doubt who was in charge.

Boyle’s position as archbishop—sweetened by the title of Cardinal—gave him overwhelming power in the local Church. All the property in the archdiocese was held in his name. Church law gave him authority in the archdiocese second only to the Pope. In addition, Detroit was the metropolitan see in the state of Michigan, which gave Boyle some degree of clout over the other six dioceses in the state. Someone said it: Bishops in Rome were a dime a dozen; a bishop in his own diocese was a power to be reckoned with.

Father Bash called on the various departments one by one. Each director had previously submitted a one-page report for the month. Each director was expected to read all the others’ reports prior to the meeting. Typically, few had done their homework. For those few, now, as Bash paged through one sheet after another, this was their opportunity to ask questions or comment concerning the reports. Instead, most everyone was blearily one or more pages behind Bash in trying to digest all the proffered information. There were few questions.

Bash was brusque and slightly caustic, as always. “I see everyone has pored over the reports as usual and, as usual, conditions among all departments are so good there aren’t many questions.”