The Good Shepherd (3 page)

“SWING AND A MISS. MUCCIO STRIKES OUT. THAT RETIRES THE SIDE,” cried the announcer.

Dennis stared numbly at Goggin’s letter, wondering why he thought it would cure his depression. There was really only one thing that would cure his depression, and he knew it. But where could he find a whole convent as cooperative as the sisters of Santa Croce? Of course, there was another cure. Tearing off this crippling collar, this round white yoke around his neck once and for all, and breathing the sweet air of American freedom. He suddenly found it unbearably close in the Archbishop’s limousine. He flung open the door and stood beside it for a few minutes, taking long deep breaths. Yes, out here in the suburbs, the air was still sweet. But in the city? Twenty miles away, over the budding trees, he could see the gray pall of smog. The air of American freedom was anything but sweet these days. Which made Father McLaughlin worse than a man without a country - he was a man without a cause.

Inside Holy Angels’ rectory Archbishop Mahan sat at the dining room table with Monsignor Paul O’Reilly at one end and Fathers Emil Novak and Charles Cannon at the other end. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am really very distressed by this situation. Can’t I do something to resolve it?”

The two curates stared stonily at him. “Only if you give us a statement in writing that nothing we say will be held against us - either by you or by him,” Father Cannon said. Ordained only last year, he was a slight, sandy-haired, freckle-faced young man, who could have passed for a teenager. His hair was as fine spun as a girl’s, and it drifted down over his collar onto the back of his neck.

“Have you ever in your life heard anything that betrays a bad conscience more clearly than that?” Monsignor O’Reilly growled.

“Perhaps it would be better if we discussed the situation separately,” Father Novak said. Small and balding, with a pug nose that gave his face a boyish look, he was thirty-five. Last year he had been reported to the chancery for paying too much attention to a woman in his previous assignment, St. Brendan’s parish. He had denied it vehemently but had accepted a transfer to Holy Angels, at the opposite end of the diocese. Was he making a serious attempt to preserve his priesthood, or was this brawl with his new pastor part of a plan to justify his departure? He was obviously a subtler personality than Father Cannon.

“I hate to do it, but it may be the best way to begin communicating,” Matthew Mahan said. “You gentlemen can go back upstairs. I’ll talk with Monsignor O’Reilly first.”

The two curates stalked from the room. “Would you like something to drink, Your Excellency?” Monsignor O’Reilly said. “Scotch? Bourbon? Sherry?”

“Sherry would be nice,” Matthew Mahan said, and in the same moment knew it was futile to pretend friendship with this man, even in its most external forms. They were enemies forever.

O’Reilly arose and opened a door in the mahogany sideboard. It was a French antique and matched the rest of the dining room furniture. Monsignor had obviously inherited the expensive tastes of his mentor, Archbishop Hogan. Into view swung a set of Irish crystal decanters on a hinged bar. O’Reilly selected the one with SHERRY on a silver nameplate and filled two small gold goblets. “Tio Pepe,” he said. “I hope you like it. I think the English sherries are vastly overrated.”

Archbishop Mahan sipped the sweet tepid wine and fingered his goblet. “You realize that this is a very explosive situation,” he said. “We’re dealing with a problem that could tear apart the diocese.”

“Naturally we each have our own point of view,” Monsignor O’Reilly said. “I’m more concerned about the damage to the souls of my parishioners. I was trained by the Jesuits, you know, in Rome. At the Gregorian. That tends to make me much more sensitive to the importance of moral theology.”

The old Roman ploy again. Matthew Mahan carefully controlled his temper. How many times had he heard this lofty reminder from Monsignor O’Reilly during the 1950s, when he was summoned to the chancery office to get another rebuke for speaking out of turn - usually on an issue that had nothing whatsoever to do with theology. But to Monsignor O’Reilly, only those who studied in Rome were permitted to think.

“No one is more sensitive to moral theology than I am, Monsignor,” Matthew Mahan said softly. He felt the tension rising in his body, the pain stirring. Monsignor O’Reilly had been Archbishop Hogan’s vicar-general. At one time,
he had been considered the probable successor. O’Reilly had taken a very dim view of Matthew Mahan, fundraiser and public relations monsignor extraordinary, appearing from nowhere to shunt him aside. He could almost see the disdain still visible in those hard, direct eyes, the tough, unsmiling mouth. “But I am also sensitive to what happened in Washington, D.C.”

“You mean the firm stand that Cardinal O’Boyle took against those dissident priests who thought they could defy the explicit teaching of the Holy Father?”

“I mean the headlines, the tons of newsprint they consumed, exchanging insults.”

“I only followed it at a distance, but I thought Cardinal O’Boyle conducted himself with great dignity. The insults all came from the other side.”

“That may be true,” Matthew Mahan conceded. “But think of what it did to the faith of the people.”

“I suspect it was strengthened, in the long run. It helps to know where the Church stands. Isn’t that what history tells us? Where would we be today if the popes and councils hadn’t struck down heresy every time it arose?”

“I am inclined to agree with Bishop Cronin,” said Matthew Mahan. “As you no doubt know, he also studied at the Gregorian. There is nothing very edifying about those early Christian brawls between Arians and Monophysites and popes and patriarchs. Almost all of them were basically political conflicts, with theology and the Church dragged in by ambitious men.”

“A rather odd opinion for a bishop - even an auxiliary bishop - to hold. But from what I hear, Bishop Cronin
is
rather odd –”

“Monsignor,” said Matthew Mahan abruptly. “I did not come here to debate you. I came to restore peace to this parish, this rectory. Do you have any suggestion about how we should go about it?”

“Only one, Your Excellency,” O’Reilly said. “Do your duty. Settle this issue, as other bishops have settled it, by a firm, clear, unequivocal statement.”

“If you think you can involve the whole diocese in this personality clash -”

“It is not a personality clash. It is a theological conflict.”

“It is both. Do you think it’s an accident, Monsignor, that you’ve had eight assistants in ten years? Why do you think men keep asking for transfers?”

“There are innumerable explanations. Ambition, ideology. The knowledge that I am
persona non grata
at the chancery office.”

“That is not true.”

“I am hardly
grata,
Your Excellency.”

“You are sitting in the rectory of one of the best - and by that I mean wealthiest - parishes in the archdiocese. Who put you here?”

“As far away from the chancery office as geography permits.”

“There are other parishes. You might begin thinking about them, Monsignor. Parishes where there are no assistants. And the rectories do not have saunas in the basements.”

“Oh. You hear all the latest gossip.”

“I hear a good deal, Monsignor. Without trying, I might add.”

Monsignor O’Reilly sipped his sherry. “I have only one other suggestion. Direct my curates to acknowledge the Holy Father’s teaching - or suspend their faculties. That would satisfy your desire to keep our dispute as secret as possible.”

Matthew Mahan shoved aside his half-finished sherry. “Monsignor. I’m going upstairs to find out what Fathers Novak and Cannon have to say. When I come down, I hope you have something more realistic to suggest.”

Upstairs in Father Novak’s third-floor room, Matthew Mahan was appalled by the unmade bed, the pieces of unwashed underwear, the plates with yesterday’s supper on them.

“He’s refused to let the housekeeper come upstairs to clean or even to take the dishes down,” Father Novak said. “He said it wasn’t safe. Would you put up with that sort of innuendo, that sort of insult, Your Eminence?”

Father Novak lit a cigarette. His hands were trembling. “Sit down, sit down, Emil,” said Matthew Mahan. “Tell me how this whole thing started.”

For a half hour, Matthew Mahan listened while the two curates described in detail the war of petty slights and deprivations Monsignor O’Reilly had waged against them, when he discovered that they did not accept the teaching of
Humanae Vitae,
Pope Paul’s encyclical on birth control. “Whether we’re right or wrong doctrinally, he hasn’t got the authority to tell me to be in by ten o’clock,” Father Cannon said, his voice thick with outrage. One night he had been locked out of the rectory and forced to stay at a nearby turnpike motel.

Matthew Mahan accepted a cigarette from Father Novak and assured both priests that the harassment would end, today. “But that won’t settle this situation. To do that, you’ll have to give a little.”

A wary look passed over Father Novak’s face. “What do you have in mind, Your Excellency?”

Was Novak taking secret pleasure in this mess? Matthew Mahan wondered. He may still resent the accusation and transfer from his previous assignment. Which in turn, suggested that the accusation had probably not been true.

“You will have to agree that under no circumstances will either of you speak publicly against
Humanae Vitae.
This, I might add, is something on which
I
insist, not Monsignor O’Reilly. He wants a good deal more from you, as you no doubt know.”

“How can we be pastors to the people -” Father Cannon began.

“You’re free to deal with
individuals
as your conscience sees fit. But when you are up in that pulpit, you are not pastors, you’re teachers, and the teaching function is reserved to me - your bishop. You will teach what I tell you to teach.”

For a moment, Matthew Mahan was appalled by the words he had just spoken. Never had he imagined himself saying such a thing, not since the first vague vision of himself as the man in charge of the archdiocese.

“Let me explain myself. I am trying to keep peace - Christian peace - in this diocese. That is the paramount thing. The peace of this archdiocese. I am ready to do anything - including the suspension of all three of you and putting this parish into the hands of a temporary pastor - to prevent this situation from exploding into a scandal.”

Now there was a wary, vaguely resentful look on Father Cannon’s face. Plus a little fear. The beginning of wisdom, Matthew Mahan hoped. But Father Novak was the one who needed more delicate handling.

“This must be especially hard for you, Emil. You’ve already had a taste of injustice at St. Brendan’s. Our Lord went through the same thing. He has a devil, they said. Do you remember how furious that made him? There’s nothing wrong with being angry about this situation. I’m not telling you to swallow your feelings. Admit they exist, and then ask yourself: All right - but what should we do? What’s the best thing for the Church, for the people - all of them?”

Father Novak was silent. He was like most liberals, Matthew Mahan thought. He was not satisfied with an Archbishop who allowed him freedom of conscience on this agonizing issue. He wanted the Archbishop - or the Archbishop’s power - on his side. He assumed that his personal opinion should be the official position of the Church. Like the new president of the National Liturgical Conference, who had recently called those who hesitated at the prospect of everything from bongo drums to modern dancers on the altar “stiff-assed honkies.”

“Try to see the situation from my point of view. From the point of view of Catholics who have made tremendous sacrifices to have big families.” A voice suddenly howled in Archbishop Mahan’s mind, the cry of a lost soul. He could not see his brother’s face, only the twisted mouth sneering:
You tell ‘em, Bishop.
“Think of how you’ll disrupt their faith, disturb their consciences. . . .”

Matthew Mahan sat back in his chair. A pulse throbbed in his forehead. The pain prowled in his stomach. Hard work, he thought, hard work. He looked out the window at the spring sunshine and suddenly wished he was far away, in Florida perhaps, watching a baseball game. Or on that Bahamian cay where Archbishop Hogan used to spend a month each winter.

“What’s your personal opinion, Your Excellency?” Father Novak asked. His tone was earnest, his manner suddenly open. Matthew Mahan sensed a trap. Emil was very active in the Archdiocesan Association of Priests, which had rebellious tendencies.

“My opinion isn’t the issue here, Emil,” Matthew Mahan said. “Let’s just say I agree with Cardinal Cushing. You can’t put a cop under every bed.”

From the sudden pleasure in Father Novak’s eyes, Matthew Mahan suspected he had said too much. The mention of Cushing was a mistake. He was a character. He could hold all sorts of far-out opinions without upsetting anyone. In a painful flash, Matthew Mahan recalled a morning at the Second Vatican Council, when Cardinals Cushing and Spellman were standing in one of the coffee bars, conversing animatedly. “There they are, the roughie and the smoothie,” said an American bishop from Michigan who was standing at Matthew Mahan’s elbow. Instantly, he had realized that he preferred the smoothie style - without Spellman’s conservative politics.

“Well,” said Father Cannon, “I’d like to resolve this. It’s no way to live. I’ll agree to keep silent publicly.”

Matthew Mahan suspected that he had been wanting to say this for some time. “Emil?” he asked.

Father Novak was clearly disappointed in Father Cannon. But he was now in the minority. He capitulated with a nod.

“Good,” said Matthew Mahan with a heartiness he did not feel. “Let me talk with Monsignor O’Reilly for a few minutes.”

Downstairs, he found Monsignor O’Reilly had retired to his study and was watching the home team play down in Florida. “Losing as usual?” Matthew Mahan said, pausing in the doorway.

“As usual.” Without getting up, Monsignor O’Reilly turned off the sound with a hand selector but left the color picture on. “No doubt you’ve heard me thoroughly reviled.”