Chameleon (12 page)

A precious few were slightly entertained, the rest merely grumbled in muted tones.

“We now turn to the main topic for today’s meeting,” Bash proceeded unmindfully. “Our schools and our school system. For this part of the meeting you need only state your opinion—no advance work needs to have been done. So we can count on the meeting livening up.”

More grousing.

“For greater clarity,” Bash added, “we will not be discussing any of our colleges or universities, and we’ll reserve comment on the central highs. Let’s begin with our parochial grade and high schools. Anyone?”

Monsignor Del Young took the floor and hung on tight. A throwback to a former time, he’d been superintendent of Catholic schools in Detroit for twenty years. Ordinarily, he would have moved out of that specialized job long ago. But he was so comfortable as superintendent on the one hand, and fearful of becoming a pastor on the other, that he fought the notion of a transfer each time the issue was raised.

It was not all that unusual for a priest in special work to want to remain there. Over the years, attending conventions, regional and national meetings, it was natural to become acquainted with almost everyone in the field. The continuing phone contact and correspondence tied them all together in a tidy subculture. It got to be cozy. The routine was reassuring.

Even so, a diocesan or secular priest such as Del Young had attended a diocesan seminary in order to become a parish priest. That’s what diocesan seminaries produced. Thus, even if parting from a superintendent’s position could be sweet sorrow, it shouldn’t have been that hard. That parting with a preferred job could be painful is easily understood. Still, he would be moving into the position he had ostensibly started out to hold in the beginning—the office of a parish priest.

The final phenomenon contributing to Monsignor Young’s durable dalliance with the superintendent’s job was that the priesthood had become a buyer’s market. This state of affairs had been generated by the priest shortage. Bishops needed—in growing desperation—warm priestly bodies.

At one time, Detroit priests were moved about the diocese when they received a letter from the Chancery which invariably began, “For the care of souls, I have it in mind to send you to …” Where followed the name of the parish the priest would move to and serve in.

No longer. Parishes advertised in the priests’ newsletter, and priests applied for the position—or did not. There were exceptions, but considerable choice on the priest’s part was the rule, not the exception.

So Monsignor Del Young wanted, and was able, to hang in there. Because he’d had the job for as long as many could remember, he feared getting into a parish where his authority would be unaccustomedly diminished, and particularly at age sixty-five, ten years from mandatory retirement, he was not about to be receiving a “For the care of souls …” letter.

Del Young could see only one possible fly in the ointment: What if they closed the schools? He would be superintendent of nothing.

As the first speaker in this morning’s staff meeting, Monsignor Young spoke long, ardently, and with some eloquence on behalf of everything from self-sustaining schools to those whose income was minuscule.

Everyone in the room knew whence Del Young was coming and took all he said with huge doses of salt. Because, after he finished, there was still the matter of what to do about parochial schools. About one thing there was no doubt: parochial schools were in trouble. In some cases, lots and lots of trouble.

Sister Joan Donovan was next to raise her hand. She was recognized by Father Bash.

“I’m afraid we’re slowly creating an elitist school system,” Joan said. “For the past twenty years schools have been closing. First there was a trickle, then a torrent closed; now we’re back to that trickle.”

“We still have the fifth or sixth largest school system in the country!” Monsignor Young interjected.

“We know that, Monsignor,” Joan replied. “My point is that it has come down to the issue of affordability alone. Costs are skyrocketing, and as we keep pulling our belts tighter it’s going to be more and more obvious the Catholic schools are going to be found exclusively in the suburbs for little white boys and girls.”

Young’s face was reddening as if he were slowly choking on his clerical collar. “The reason the costs are skyrocketing—to use your word, Sister; I don’t agree with such a blanket statement—the reason for the costs is the disappearance of the teaching nun. I should think the delegate for religious would not only know that, but be in a position to do something about it.”

Joan smiled as she might have at a slow pupil. “Monsignor, that was a different day.”

“A different day,” Archbishop Foley mused. “Ah, remember when it was a mortal sin not to send your kids to the Catholic school?”

No one responded. Regarded as redundant and without clout, Foley was present at this meeting for the same reason he was residing in Detroit: Cardinal Boyle had invited him. Few others paid him much mind.

“It’s not just a different day,” Young snapped. “It’s all your nuns abandoning their vows, their orders, their schools.”

“Monsignor,” Joan replied, “even if we had back all the Sisters who have left, we still wouldn’t be able to staff the school system we once had. By now, too many would be retired, too many would have died. It’s not just the Sisters who have left. And before you bring it up,” she added, “it’s not the ones who have gone into other apostolic work, nor even the girls who are no longer entering religious life. And, finally, it’s not the teaching orders of men who, as good teachers as they are, never constituted the staple of Catholic primary education.

“It’s a new day for women in the world. Not all that long ago, Catholic women found complete fulfillment as wives and mothers, keeping the house and kids orderly and clean; cooking, washing, repairing, doctoring, being understanding and supportive. Or they found completeness in a convent and in the community of other nuns, teaching in a parochial school—for nothing really, since their entire tiny salary went directly to their religious orders.

“Look about you, Monsignor. Women are prime ministers, rulers, doctors, successful authors; leaders in science, banking, law. Granted, women are still victims of injustice and discrimination. They still do not have complete parity with men by any means. But they are worlds ahead of where they were.”

“All this from a lady whose sister was a hooker,”

Bash spoke so quietly that only a few heard him. His murmured comment elicited a few feigned chuckles, but nothing wholehearted.

Though she could not make out what Bash had muttered, Sister Joan, aware that he’d said something and probably something shabby, was momentarily disconcerted. “I’m afraid I’ve lost my train of thought,” she apologized.

“Like it or not, look at it as a bad thing or good, it
is
a matter of money.” Father Bash, who, as chair, did not have to be recognized, picked up the theme. “We understand completely that without the generous sacrifice of teaching nuns the Church would not have had the courage to start the parochial school system. And now, they’re gone. For whatever reason, maybe for the reasons Sister Joan mentioned. They want to be presidents, regents, tycoons, priests … .” He smirked, knowing well that of all the prospects for equality with men, priesthood was undoubtedly the most remote.

“Whatever the reason for their no longer supplying the basic element in parochial education,” Bash continued, “the fact is they’re gone. And it’s simply going to be survival of the fittest. If that means—and I agree it probably does—that eventually the only parochial schools will be suburban—then, so be it. If we Americans can’t understand that, who can? Survival of the fittest. Capitalism. A reflection of our country.”

Archbishops, even when separated from their archdioceses, can develop the habit of speaking without benefit of recognition. “Capitalism!” Archbishop Foley’s shoulders seemed to sag as he spoke quietly and deliberately. “What in the world has capitalism got to do with Christianity?”

“Excellency …” Bash’s tone was that of the adult who deigns to speak from his level to that of a child, “… my point is that we have to face facts and make the best of reality. Realistically, the city of Detroit has experienced ‘white flight’ for decades now. And it was mostly white Catholics who built these huge churches in the city—and white Catholics who supported them.

“For whatever reason—it’s immaterial here—we never have made much headway with the blacks. The Catholic Church endured in the city because Catholics were there. They are no longer there in any significant number. But they didn’t evaporate. They’ve relocated to the suburbs and there they’ve built new schools and they support them. Supply and demand. Demand and supply. Capitalism, Whatever you want to call it, Catholic schools will close in the city because there are too few Catholics there to support them. They’ll be alive in the suburbs because that’s where the Catholics are.”

Bash wore a pleased smile. The archbishop’s teacher had completed his pupil’s lesson.

Those present no longer waited for an official recognition by the chair. Sister Joan spoke up. “That’s simplistic, Father Bash. The core city schools that remain open may have a majority of black and non-Catholic students, and the tuition
is
high, but the parents are sacrificing tremendously to pay that tuition. They value that quality education easily as much, maybe more, than the people who sacrificed and built those schools.”

“Ah, yes, Sister,” Bash replied, “but it is not only white flight that’s taken place in Detroit: It’s economic flight now. Of course there are a few—a very few—areas in the city that are still fairly affluent, notably the riverfront, but most of the people who still live in the rest of the city are there because they can’t afford to move out.

“Sister, my point is that it’s not only Catholics—white or black—that are moving out; it’s almost anyone who can afford to. As all of these people leave there won’t be any possible support for the high cost of maintaining a parochial school. Parochial schools in the city are terminal.”

Sister Joan regarded Bash. She’d never had the impression that he was particularly effective in the public relations arena and surely he was ineffective as a communicator. With his hubris and his macho facade he might have done well somewhere in the secular world, but, try as she might, she could think of no reason whatever why he should have become a priest.
Brash Bash.
It was difficult to say. She almost laughed aloud.

“I think there is something that can be done about the schools.” The Reverend Mr. Quentin Jeffrey seemed almost disinterested, as if he were the only speaker so far who had no particular ax to grind. “I’m not sure any of you want to go in this direction, but … we might play on suburban guilt feelings.”

“Guilt feelings?” Monsignor Young echoed.

“Uh-huh. White flight, or the odyssey of white
and
black affluence to the suburbs has been mentioned. What has not been addressed is that those who have fled—at least those among them who have sensitive consciences—are well aware that in moving they were abandoning the city. In other words, many of them have guilty consciences.”

“That’s true.” Sister Joan nodded in agreement. “Priests who are responsive to social justice and the like preach about the need for Christians to identify with victims—victims of injustice, victims of indifference and abandonment. And many of these priests speak specifically of our literal neighbors suffering in the city. Sensitive Catholics must feel some sort of guilt, especially about the separate and unequal educational opportunities of suburban and city children.”

“Exactly,” Jeffrey continued. “There are precedents galore. Cities ‘adopt’ other cities. Adults ‘adopt’ children in other countries, without ever seeing the kid. They just send money. This would be a case of a well-to-do parish with a parochial school ‘adopting’ a hard-pressed school in the core city.”

“That would never work. Before you came on the scene”—Fadier Bash tried to belittle Jeffrey by insinuating seniority—“there was an effort to link city and suburban Catholic schools by having an interchange of kids,”

“You mean,” Jeffrey said, “having the suburban kids attend the city schools and vice versa?”

“Exactly.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“The core city people.”

Jeffrey snorted. “That’s an idea whose time not only has not come, it’ll never come. A good number of parents with school-age kids moved to the suburbs for the express purpose of escaping from city schools. For good measure, add the fear that their deteriorating parochial schools in the city were likely to close. They’re not going to return to the city or send their kids—not by a long shot.

“But their conscience still bothers them. So they don’t send their kids; they send money. They ‘adopt’ a parish school and help subsidize it.”

“It won’t work!” Bash repeated himself. “If you were a priest instead of a deacon”—Bash tried to diminish Jeffrey by pulling rank—“and if you were in one of those suburban parishes, you’d know that most of those parishes are strapped for money Go on out to the trenches sometime and ask the pastors out there if their people have enough money to support two schools! You’ll find out soon enough there isn’t any money.”

Jeffrey smiled and slowly shook his head. “Father Bash, there’s always more money. Money has a peculiar talent for self-multiplication. How many times do workers go on strike while management claims it’s made its best and final offer? ‘There isn’t any more money anywhere.’ Then the strike goes on, hurting everyone. Finally, management miraculously ‘finds’ more money.

“Or a family wants some luxury—a high-priced car, a summer home, a cruise—but they can’t afford it. Happens all the time. You know it as well as I. When the family gets around to wanting whatever it is badly enough, voila: They come up with it. All it needs is a decent piece of P.R. work.”

Bash hit the ceiling. “Decent P.R.! Are you intimating that my office lacks professionalism? Are you suggesting that we are incapable of carrying on an effective campaign? I resent such insinuation, sir! I resent it deeply!”