In God's House (45 page)

Father Matthew Patterson wore a large topcoat. The color in his face was good. The heavy clothes masked his emaciated state. He had pulled himself together for what he knew was the final scene of the final act of his life. His step was steady as he made his way down the cobblestone walk with his escort, Monsignor Josef Majeski.

As they walked, Monsignor Majeski put his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “I work with the Holy Father in the Papal Office. We would always grant any request of John Wolleski. And the men you asked to meet with – our cardinals Kruger, Bertolini and Paginini – they always grant any request of the Papal Office.”

“Thank you,” Matt said.

“It was only this morning that I told them the subject of this unusual meeting. The secretary to Cardinal Kruger telephoned me. The cardinal insisted on knowing what the meeting was to be about.”

Matt nodded. They walked on in silence until they reached two heavy wooden doors. Monsignor Majeski rapped his fist on one door and took his leave.

The door was opened by an old man whose complexion was nearly the color of the crimson sash around his waist. Extending his hand, he said, “I am Cardinal Gregorio Bertolini, Father. Come in.”

He led the way to some parlor seating in front of an oversized
desk, where Matt was introduced to the small, rotund, and rather odd-looking Cardinal Paginini. The cardinal held his hand out for Matt to kiss his ring. Instead, Matt took a chair opposite him, and said, “Pleased to meet you, Your Eminence.”

Cardinal Bertolini sat in the chair nearest Cardinal Paginini. “I am sorry to say it, but Niccolo – Cardinal Paginini – is not comfortable speaking English. He understands. He will listen.”

“Are we waiting for Cardinal Kruger?”

“No!” blurted out Cardinal Paginini. “He not coming. Me no want be here too. Only because Monsignor Majeski I come here.”

Clearing his throat, Cardinal Bertolini said, “Cardinal Kruger says you have no business with him. He will not be here.”

“But I am here about something that is his business. It is the business of his office. He is responsible for this. He has all the authority. Only Cardinal Kruger can act—”

“We have all seen the paper you made that Cardinal Wolleski brought here last year. We do not need this meeting.”

Matt reached into his briefcase, pulled out a thick document and set it on the coffee table.

Cardinal Paginini visibly recoiled and shouted, “No!”

“We have your document,” Cardinal Bertolini said. “We don’t want to hear any more about priests in America.”

Matt leaned forward and picked up the document in his hands. “This is not about priests in America.” He dropped the document in Bertolini’s lap. “This is about bishops in America.”

Cardinal Paginini attempted to fake a laugh. “One year ago you make Wolleski tell priests in America having sex with children. You have no proof. One priest only. Now you come tell bishops have sex with American children. You crazy?”

Matt looked both of them in the eye, one at a time, staring them down in silence. Then he spoke. “Yes, some bishops in America do have sex with children. That is true. I did not come to tell you that.”

“What you come for, you?” Cardinal Paginini said.

“To tell you that bishops in America have thousands of priests
having sex with children. The bishops know who these criminals are. The bishops protect the criminal priests. Your bishops, bishops appointed by the Pope. Some bishops may be breaking American law by protecting criminals. If the Vatican does not do something about the bishops in America there will be the biggest scandal in this Church in five hundred years.”

“That is an alarming statement,” Cardinal Bertolini said. “The document you sent to the Pope with Cardinal Wolleski last year, and the document you wanted presented at America’s National Conference of Catholic Bishops – those documents were alarming too. But, Father Patterson, you have only one case involving one priest in all of America. One priest?”

Pointing to the document, Matt said, “There are the names of over five hundred American priests in this document. Each one has had complaints about the sexual abuse of children made against him. The names of the bishops of these priests are also in this document. It’s not one priest. It is thousands of priests. Every bishop.”

Cardinal Paginini took the document from the lap of Cardinal Bertolini, walked around the table, opened Matt’s briefcase and deposited the document in the case, snapping it shut. Then he wiped one hand against the other as if knocking dirt from his palms. He walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Cardinal Bertolini said, “We are not authorized by Cardinal Kruger to receive any papers from you. It was his specific instruction that you leave the Vatican carrying every paper you brought through the gates. The Vatican has no use for any information from you, Father. Do you understand me?”

Matt nodded. He stood, opened his briefcase, removed the document, and tossed it onto the cardinal’s desk. Turning his back on Cardinal Bertolini, he exited the chamber and walked down the hall toward the stairwell that would lead him back to the Porta Angelica.

The light was fading when the plane lifted off, bound for Washington. I put Matt to bed and asked him to sleep. He was restless and wanted to talk. I could hardly hear him. He whispered, “Cardinal Paginini is a buffoon. He said it was of no importance to the Vatican. Bertolini was the same.”

Matt started coughing. Soon things got worse than I could have imagined. I gave my first injection of morphine. His fever spiked and never broke.

It was a dark, moonless night without turbulence. The sound of the engines was like a whisper. As we approached the coast of the United States, the co-pilot, whom I had bothered repeatedly through the night with questions about how much flight time was left, came to the cabin and told me we would be on the ground at National Airport in DC in forty-five minutes.

I asked him to call an ambulance to meet the flight and alert George Washington Hospital that patient Matthew Patterson was returning in rough shape.

I turned back to Matt. He was holding the big wooden rosary in his hands and mumbling. I looked at my instruction sheet, realized enough time had passed, and gave him a second shot of morphine. It took effect immediately. The heavy breathing was replaced by shallow, soundless breaths. I knew what was happening.

The co-pilot came back into the cabin again. “We’re going into
our approach for National. Put the straps on the bed, and buckle your belt. How’s your friend?”

“My friend is dying.”

Matt was conscious, but quiet. For the first time since we landed Tuesday night he was not fighting. Except for a few hours spent at a nearby hotel, I had been with him since we touched down. The floor nurses had given up on trying to keep me out of his room.

When he was offloaded from the plane, I thought he wouldn’t survive the ambulance ride to the hospital. The medical attendants seemed to be of the same opinion. But he had fought for his life the past two days, tenaciously defying death. Des had come to the hospital two and three times a day. We tried to talk Matt into letting go. But he fought.

When Des walked in Friday, Matt smiled and asked hoarsely, “Did you bring the medal?”

Des nodded and gave the box to Matt, who dropped it on the sheet. “My hands don’t work anymore,” he whispered. “You give it.”

Des turned to me and said, “Matt wants to give you this medal. It’s a Celtic cross. He knows your mom’s people were Irish and…”

I put the medal around my neck and Des helped to secure the clasp.

At that moment, Matt had some sort of seizure. Instinctively, I slid my arms under him. Des got on his other side. Together we held him in our arms, feeling his life drain from him.

Des said, “He’s going now.”

As I stood there, I felt some of Matthew Patterson’s life-force leave his body and enter my own.

I was so dazed I walked into a post in the lobby of the hospital. Des took my arm. “Come with me, Ren. He wouldn’t want us split up at a time like this.”

“I gotta go home. Matt told me to go home when he was gone,” I said.

“Come with me. We’ll go to the sorry-ass Italian place he loved so much. When I tell the old ladies at Café Roma Matt passed away, they’ll give us a private room and wine too.”

“Fuck, we’re not going to get maudlin.”

“I got lots of Irish in me. You too. We were born maudlin. Let’s go raise a glass to absent friends, have a drink for our troubles.”

“Greatest man I ever knew, Des. He loved everybody, judged nobody.” In a kidding way, I lightly punched Des’s arm. “Hell, he even loved you.”

Des put his arm around me and walked me to his car.

The old ladies did give us a private room. It was clear that anything we consumed would be on the house. Once we were alone with a bucket of ice and a bottle of Scandinavian vodka, Des said, “If you thought I was really finished before… well I am really, really fucking finished now.”

“Yeah?”

“Right. That old prick Verriano, our esteemed papal nuncio, had a meeting in his office today with the new bishop they have chosen to take over the Thiberville diocese from that incompetent, Bishop Reynolds. Bishop Garland Franklin was in the meeting to brief the new bishop on the situation down in Loooooosiannna.”

“Franklin?”

“Right. I was excluded from the meeting. When Sister Theresa told me what was going down, I barged through the door, polite as can be.”

“You barged politely?”

“Well, ya know I got some rough edges, but I told the new Bishop of Thiberville that if he wanted to learn any truth about Thiberville, he should immediately meet with Renon Chattelrault
off of Church property as soon as he got down there. Told him you knew everything, had no reason to lie, never lied.”

“And?”

“The fucker Franklin said, ‘We have discussed Chattelrault. I’ve explained that it was Chattelrault who created all the problems in Thiberville. He committed legal malpractice. Instead of having his client assert his constitutional right not to testify, he had his client admit his crimes in sworn testimony, telling the truth, opening Pandora’s box. Chattelrault either stole or had someone steal confidential personnel files from the secret archives of the diocese. He’s written a document with you’ – he pointed to me – ‘and with that priest who everyone knows is dying of AIDS, a document filled with lies claiming there are thousands of priests sexually abusing children. And Chattelrault has talked to the press about this confidential matter. Chattelrault did all these things for one reason – to scare the American Church into hiring him, paying him exorbitant legal fees. Renon Chattelrault is an incompetent lawyer who should be disbarred, a criminal extortionist, and enemy of Holy Mother Church.’”

“What?”

“I hit the fucker, Ren. Flat out nailed his fucking ass. Knocked him over a chair. Broke his eyeglasses, drew blood on his face. I gave him a shot at me. Think I said, ‘You talk big, you bastard. Get your ass up off the floor and finish this now, you fucker.’”

I dropped a cube of ice into each of our glasses, filled them with vodka and raised mine to Des. We clinked glasses. I said, “To you, to Matt – the best there ever was.”

“One day they’re gonna get what’s coming to them and a lot of victims are going to get justice.”

We clicked glasses again. “To truth, the power of truth,” Des said.

“To lies, the power of lies,” I said. “The lies seem to be winning out now.”

“Have faith, Ren, in the truth, in what’s right,” Des said.

We drank past legal closing time. The old ladies set food and
wine on the table from time to time. By the end, we were laughing about the great times we’d had with Matt down in Louisiana.

Des would be on the altar for the funeral in two or three days. Word was already out that Matt had died of AIDS and, fearing the story would be broken by the media, the archbishop had
pre-emptively
informed
The Washington Post
, portraying himself as supporting Matt throughout his illness as if he were his own father. The Church was going to pull out all stops and give Matt a funeral mass in the same cathedral where John F. Kennedy’s final rites were held, a church appropriately named Saint Matthew’s. I knew I would not attend.

After attempting to shower off my hangover, I ordered some breakfast from room service and asked the concierge to have all the newspapers delivered to my suite.

A story about Father Matthew Patterson’s death and the cause of his death was spread across half the front page of
The Washington Post.
In the piece, an archbishop was quoted as saying he was like a father to Matt at the end. This was the same archbishop who had tormented Matt in the hospital, forcing him to sign a document saying he had lied to the prelate about his medical condition. The archbishop feared he would not be made a cardinal if it became known in the Vatican that a priest in his diocese had died of AIDS. The Church couldn’t run from Matt’s death, couldn’t toss his body in a dumpster on his death. So they pretended to embrace him in death when they shunned him at the end of his life, one of the biggest lies they had told to date.

I glanced at the story in
The New York Times
before calling Julie in Arlington, Virginia.

She answered the phone and I said, “Hey, kid.”

“I saw it on the news last night, read the story in the morning
newspaper. I thought you were at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. I called all night and this morning. Where are you?”

“Now I’m at the Hay-Adams Hotel. Last night Des and I got drunked up.”

“I can imagine. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks.”

It was chilly when the funeral hearse pulled up in front of the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle. Hundreds of priests in matching green vestments, Desmond McDougall among them, flanked both sides of the long aisle. The line stretched to the big double doors at the main entrance, where the archbishop waited to receive the coffin at the top of the steps.

Julie and I were dressed in sweaters, warm coats, gloves and wool scarves she had bought for us. We stood across the street from the cathedral in a crowd of other onlookers.

There was trouble trying to remove the casket from the hearse as there were so many television cameras and still photographers crowding the back end of the carriage, vying for an image for the evening news or the morning newspapers.

Organ music drifted out of the cathedral, a faint melody we heard from our position. When they began carrying the coffin up the steps, the bells of the great church began ringing. I stood soldier-straight even though inside I felt like I was collapsing. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was silent. Julie had both of her arms wrapped around me.

When the archbishop received the casket and turned to lead the procession to the altar, I took Julie’s gloved hand and we walked down the street. At the corner, as we waited for a traffic light to change, I said, “I gotta go get a puppy named Mozart and bring him to a little girl in Louisiana.”