The Greatest Evil (8 page)

“Now, that’s what we want to find in your marriage to—what is her name?”

“Mildred. Do you need her maiden name?”

“No …” Koesler smiled. “I was just getting tired of referring to her as ‘that woman.’”

Koesler then began to tick off various possible impediments: consanguinity—if she were a close relative; if she refused to have children; if she were previously married; etc.

It reminded Frank of the questions asked before some medical procedure. Have you ever had mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc.?

To both series of questions, Frank’s answer would be, No. He’d had—oddly—no childhood diseases, nor had his first marriage involved any of the possible impediments Koesler mentioned. “No,” he said aloud.

Questionnaire concluded, Koesler said, “I was afraid of that.” Noting their disappointment, he added, “But we’re not done.

“Frank, what was there about your marriage to Mildred that didn’t work? In your own words, what made the marriage fail?”

“That’s a pretty big question, Father.” He thought for some time. Finally, he said, “Incompatibility … incompatibility that started early on and just got worse. We were great in bed”—his face reddened but he went on—“but after that, in just about everything else, the two of us could have been living on different planets.”

“Did you have any children?”

“No. Neither of us wanted kids. The way things turned out it was a lucky break we didn’t have any—say, Father: Could that be one of those impediments? I know the Church doesn’t look too kindly on birth control …”

“’Fraid not, Frank. Now, was there anything the two of you differed on or argued about a lot?”

Frank pondered. “Seems religion came up every so often,” he said slowly.

“Religion? What about religion?”

“Mildred was Lutheran. She was pretty strong about it. She was always after me to join her church. She was really sore because I refused to be baptized—”

“Wait a minute …” Koesler sat up straight. “She wanted you to be rebaptized in the Lutheran Church?”

“Rebaptized? No. I was never baptized at all.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because my dad and mother told me more than once. They said they wanted that kind of choice to be all mine. They left the whole thing about religion and baptism up to me.” Frank chuckled. “As it turns out, I didn’t do anything about either one. I didn’t want to join the Lutheran Church. And I couldn’t see getting baptized if I wasn’t going to join.”

“But you go to church all the time now …”

“Well, see, as incompatible as I was with Mildred that’s how compatible I am with Marty. I would’ve joined the Catholic Church and gotten baptized long ago, but Father Keller wasn’t in much of a receptive attitude.”

“To give the devil his due,” Koesler said, “Father Keller didn’t have much of a choice there. He couldn’t receive you into the Catholic Church until or unless you got your present marriage validated.”

“You mean this ‘living in sin’ bit?” Bitterness tinged Frank’s voice.

“That’s an unfortunate label,” Koesler said. “No one can crawl inside you and know what’s going on in your conscience. Your life of sin or grace is yours—and yours alone—to know.

“But so much for the internal forum—your soul. What we’re talking about is the external forum: whether or not we can baptize you and convalidate your marriage. And I think you have just uncovered maybe the only path to doing just that.”

Smiles all around.

“How? How, Father?” Martha asked. “We’ll do anything!”

“I’ve got to tell you right off,” Koesler said, “it’s a slim chance. I studied it in the seminary—not all that long ago—but I’ve never used it. Never thought I would.”

8

“It’s called the Pauline Privilege,” Father Koesler informed the rapt couple. He smiled. “I’ll try to explain it as briefly as possible,” he said, as he turned to search through the volumes on the shelves behind him.

The Bible, the Code of Canon Law, a book on moral theology—he consulted each cursorily, then turned back to his visitors. “This whole notion is based on St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians—the seventh chapter.” He half smiled at some private joke. “For one who never married, Paul had an awful lot to say about marriage and to married people.”

Koesler did not reflect that in this he was in the same boat as St. Paul.

“One of the questions for the early Church to settle was how to relate to non-Christians,” Koesler explained. “Christians were a tiny minority surrounded by a world where religion was a mixed bag. Polytheists and pantheists could count their gods—and atheists had no god.

“And all the earliest Christians were Jews, of course. So the Apostles had to lead their disciples through the rough waters of controversy.

“While the first Christians were Jewish in nationality, they were no longer Jews as a religious body. So, controversies raged over which Jewish laws should be preserved and which should be abandoned in this new religion. Customs—laws, as far as the Jews were concerned–like circumcision and dietary proscriptions—were wrangled over and, eventually, pretty much abandoned.

“One of the touchiest situations was intermarriage between Christians and non-Christians. And a companion problem was how to treat a mixed religious marriage that ended in divorce.

“Following the dictates of Jesus—and with no time yet for theological development—marriage for Christians was monogamous and lifelong.

“Now: Was there a distinction to be drawn when a non-Christian permanently left his or her Christian partner?

“St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, considers the plight of a Christian whose non-Christian partner leaves. As fate has it, this Christian falls in love again. Oddly, again, the loved one is non-Christian. But this non-Christian wishes to become Christian and marry.

“Paul grants the request as a ‘Privilege of the Faith.’

“Here, for the first time, we are not talking about an annulment. This one is called a dissolution.”

Frank and Martha were listening—hard. But Father Koesler realized that although they were taking in his words, a good deal of explanation was still necessary, particularly for Frank, the non-Catholic in this affair.

“You see, Frank, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, you and Mildred had a valid but not sacramental marriage. Now, ordinarily, you’d think of a priest as the minister of sacraments. But not the sacrament of matrimony: The bride gives the sacrament to the groom and vice versa. The priest, in this case, is an official witness.

“Now, in your case there was no sacrament because you were never baptized—and one has to be baptized in order to give or receive a sacrament.

“So, if this case plays out the way we want, you and Martha could be married in the Catholic Church. You would be baptized and then when you give your consent in marriage, your first marriage would be dissolved as a ‘Privilege of the Faith.’”

“But … but that’s wonderful!” Martha was almost breathless and enthused at the same time. “When can we do this—when can we get married in the Church?”

“Not so fast, Marty,” Frank cautioned. “There’s more to this than meets the eye …” He turned back to Koesler. “… ain’t there, Father?”

“I’m afraid so. Yes.”

“What? What?” Martha’s enthusiasm plummeted.

“It’s in the proof,” Koesler said. He looked at Frank. “You’ve got to prove that you never were baptized.”

“How do you prove something never happened?” Frank asked.

“Exactly,” Koesler responded. “If you—yes, you, Frank”—Koesler nodded—”if you were to take a baby into a baptistery and baptize that baby, that baby would be validly baptized. Yes …” He nodded again, anticipating Frank’s question. “… in the eyes of the Catholic Church, the baptism would be valid whether the baby was baptized in a Methodist church, a Lutheran church—or a bowl of water in the kitchen. For baptism, the ordinary minister of the sacrament is a priest. But for validity, anyone with the correct intention can baptize.

“So you see the problem when we allege that you never were baptized, Frank. What if when you were a baby, a kindly uncle—aunt, grandfather, whatever—took you to … anywhere there was water—”

“When you put it that way, Father,” Martha said, “it seems quite impossible to prove that Frank’s never been baptized.”

“Well, it’s not quite that comprehensively difficult.” Koesler smiled at Martha, then turned to Frank again. “What we need are witnesses—lots of extremely credible witnesses—to testify that the attitude of just about everyone who touched your young life was that your parents’ prohibition of baptism was well known and observed by everyone. Now you yourself can testify about the years after you reached the age of reason. But even then we need witnesses for those years too.

“You see, Frank … Martha …” he addressed both, “what we must build up is an overwhelming flood of similar testimony that affirms that Frank was most unlikely ever to have been baptized.

“So, actually getting this ‘Privilege of the Faith’ is most difficult. But not impossible. Such dissolutions have been granted in the past—and, undoubtedly, will be in future. What we don’t know is whether we can get it for you.”

“Well,” Frank said, after a lengthy pause, “how do we get started, Father?”

Koesler rubbed his hands together. “Okay. I’ll take you through this chronologically. But remember”—he looked at each of them in turn—“if you find any of this procedure impossible—for any reason—say so now. I’ll tell you everything that will be required … and I won’t pull any punches.”

Both his listeners nodded.

“First off, we go through a standard series of instructions in Catholic beliefs and practices.”

“How long will that take?” Frank asked.

“Depends. Three or four months, usually—at one appointment a week.”

“Can we go at it more often than once a week?”

“If you want to.” Koesler could understand Frank’s wanting to speed up the process. The sooner the instructions were completed, the sooner they could go on to the next step.

But the priest would have to be careful lest the instructions become merely pro forma. “You must understand,” Koesler cautioned, “that at the end of this process—if we get there—you will be baptized. So it’d be a good idea to understand what you are being baptized into. That’s the purpose for the instructions.”

“Right. That makes sense. Then what?”

“Then we prepare the documentation. There are questionnaires for you both. Then—and you can begin putting this together right away—we identify the witnesses and supply accurate addresses and phone numbers. It won’t do to eliminate a very good witness because of an inaccurate number. Oh, and while you’re compiling the list: It’s a good idea not to contact any of them; otherwise the priest interviewer may suspect some coaching.”

“Who picks out the priests who do the interviews?” Frank was intent on taking no chances.

“Depends on where the witness lives. Generally, the local tribunal contacts a priest in the parish nearest to the witness. That priest becomes a notary assigned to take testimony by filling out a questionnaire with the witness’s answers. I’ve already done it a few times in the short while I’ve been a priest. But I’m getting ahead of myself …

“Now, here’s something unpleasant … but we can get around it: They want you to pay the cost of this procedure. A case like this has to go to Rome for a decision. That involves translating the documents into Latin and hiring a Roman lawyer to present your case. Right off the bat they want three hundred and fifty dollars—with a promise that you’ll also pay any additional cost. But,” Koesler hastened to add, “all I need do is make a notation in forma pauperum. Which simply means that you cannot afford this much.”

Frank chuckled as he looked at Martha. “Well, Marty, I guess there goes the new stove and refrigerator.”

“Frank,” Koesler protested, “you don’t have to do this. We won’t be begging; we’re simply stating that you can’t afford this big a financial commitment.”

“Father, I pay my way. Always have. Is that the whole package?”

Koesler hesitated. He knew what final demand would be required. So far, in his young priestly life, he had never had to ask anyone to make such a promise. But, in all candor, he had to clue them into the entire picture. “There’s one final promise required of you. And that … it’s that for however long this case takes to be processed, you and Martha will live as brother and sister.”

The atmosphere in Father Koesler’s small office became leaden.

Martha reached out and took Frank’s hand. “I’m afraid, Father,” she said firmly, “that’s too much. Too much by far.”

She stood up. “I’m sorry we put you to all this trouble, Father. You’ve been very kind—and for that we’re grateful. But”—she shook her head—”that’s just too much. How could the Church …” She reached for her handkerchief and wiped back tears. “Come on, Frankie, let’s—”

“Now, hold on, Marty …” Frank patted her hand. “We gotta remember the stakes in this whole thing. We’re playing for a big jackpot. Think of all the years we’ve wanted to be at peace with the Church. I’ve wanted it almost as much as you do—because you want it so much. I say let’s give ’er a crack. At least we can trust the salesman …” He smiled at Koesler, then at Martha. “I like this young man. And I say, Let’s give it a try.”

“Are you sure, Frankie? Are you sure it means this much to you?”

“Aye.” He smiled reassuringly at her again. “I am.”

He turned back to the priest. “When’s our first instruction, Father?”

Koesler checked his desk log. “We’re closing out this week. How about Monday … Monday evening at, say, nine?”

“Nine it is then,” Frank affirmed. As he and Martha stood up, he put his arm around her waist. “Come on, Marty. Be of good cheer. We haven’t even begun the process. We can do it. We will do it.”

Koesler saw the couple to the door and bade them farewell.

As he prepared for bed, he. could not help but think over this evening’s final appointment. A young priest, he had just begun a vocation that ruled out marriage. And with that, given the virtue of chastity, his life would be asexual. Some of his seniors assured him that in time it would be easier to live without a woman.