No Greater Love

by William Kienzle

  “They don’t?” Cody, of course, was well aware that the two young women were good-looking. It would never occur to him that they might be unaware of their attractiveness. Among the talks seminarians were obliged to listen to were periodic lectures on women. As a matter of course, the bottom line was: Look, but don’t touch.

  “You don’t think they’d be holed up in here if they knew what they could get if they just put out a little,” Page harped. “But they’d have a hard time making it in here … shacked up with a bunch of celibates.

  “This place protects itself pretty well. We get lectures on leaving everybody the hell alone. And on top of that, there’s ‘fraternal correction’”—he grimaced—“a greased-up way of urging us to rat on each other. Out in the world, squealing is cowardly. In here, it’s”—the words were articulated mincingly—”‘fraternal correction.’ But those gals don’t know they’ve got something to put on the plate. And, oh, baby, I’d love to be the one who presides at their awakening! How ’bout you, buddy?” Page smirked.

  “Yeah,” Cody halfheartedly agreed.

  Page winked. “Don’t worry, old buddy; Bill Page is going to take care of it. I guarantee you will not go into the celibate life wanting for experience. You’ve got to know what you’re giving up—because you’re the kind of guy who actually will be giving it up.”

  What could he have meant by that? Cody wondered.

  Did Page really plan on introducing him to the sexually active life? Cody couldn’t speak for Page’s past. But Cody was a virgin, and had every intention of remaining such for life.

  He knew—or thought he knew—what that entailed. Not only would he remain unmarried, he would also be, for all practical purposes, asexual. He knew the rules. They had been explained clearly, decisively, and unmistakably—and more than once. Sexual activity was reserved exclusively for marriage, where no artificial means could be used to avoid pregnancy. Where every sexual action had to be open to possible conception.

  Since sexual activity was reserved to the marriage state, all other sexual expression, with oneself or another, was a mortal sin. Cody knew this morality and he intended to live by it.

  What, then, to do about Page?

  Page dominated Cody, Cody knew that. What Page had just said—vowing to compromise Cody’s virginity—was no idle promise. In all probability, Page was going to try. Would Cody have sufficient moral strength to fend off not only Page’s attempt but Cody’s natural attraction to the power of sex?

  And what did Page mean when he said that Cody was “the type of guy who actually will be giving it up”? What was Page saying about himself? Was he referring to his past? Before the seminary? Before receiving the diaconate? He couldn’t be referring to his future life as a priest … could he? Did he have no intention of leading—or at least trying to lead—a chaste life?

  What would any or all of this have to do with fraternal correction? And who should correct whom?

  Bill Page had many more years than Al Cody, and those years had been vastly different from Cody’s.

  Cody did not know all the particulars of his mentor’s life. But what he did know would have constituted a fairly successful made-for-TV movie—to say the least.

  He, on the other hand, had grown up in a family frozen in time. They seemed to mirror the old Robert Young TV series, Father Knows Best. The principal differences were that Al Cody was an only child and Mrs. Cody was not nearly as submissive as Jane Wyatt, who portrayed the TV mother. Otherwise, in the Cody household, Father did know best. Or so he thought.

  William F. Cody was more or less named after William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. However, they were not related. And their middle names were different.

  William Francis, Al’s father, was born in 1952. William Frederick, the scout and abominable showman, was born in 1846.

  Both of them were known as Buffalo Bill—William Frederick because he killed buffalo, William Francis because he was named partially after William Frederick.

  William Francis Cody attended St. Ambrose school in the Chicago parish that would later be a workplace of noted sociologist and author Father Andrew M. Greeley.

  Cody tried the Quigley Preparatory Seminary-South. Reluctantly, he came to realize that he was not cut out for the priestly life.

  As good luck would have it, he finished college without being drafted. With the Vietnam War escalating at an alarming pace, he decided to enlist. But he would make no long-term deal with the army; he chose to do his two-year hitch and get on with his life.

  Again as good luck would have it, he got through his stint without serious injury. And he was actually in Saigon on April 29, 1975, the day that war ended. He was among the last to be evacuated, carrying with him a trunkful of memories. He had seen death in all its forms, from those who died of old age to those torn from their mothers’ bodies. Friends and enemies alike had been killed with age-old as well as modern weapons.

  His parents had moved to a suburb of Detroit. Bill Cody enrolled in the University of Detroit Law School. Three years later he graduated from that Jesuit institution.

  Shortly before graduation, at a campus Christmas party, Bill met Eileen Regan, who was studying dental hygiene at U-D. They courted and were married before either of them started a career.

  Two months later, Eileen was pregnant. It was a difficult pregnancy leading to a cesarean section. Then her doctor discovered a cancer affecting her uterus. Consultation with an oncologist was followed by a hysterectomy.

  Bill and Eileen had a healthy boy they named Albert, thus precluding any more Buffalo Bill jokes. They would have no other children. The couple grieved; they had planned for at least three, if not more, children.

  The good news was that Eileen’s cancer had been discovered in time; she could look forward to a normal life span.

  Had it not been for the hysterectomy, future circumstances might well have called for a sexual hiatus. “Female trouble” perhaps, possible financial problems—anything, in effect, that would make having another child inadvisable. Bill was far too faithful a Catholic to resort to any form of outlawed contraception. Now he had no worry along those lines. Eileen’s condition was a green light for all future sexual activity without fear of unwanted consequences.

  Eileen’s outlook was less rosy. She worried: Had the surgeons gotten it all? Or would it be the once and future cancer?

  The other silver lining for Bill was that his one and only child was a boy. Bill had plans for this lad.

  Albert would develop as a macho man. They would hunt and fish together. Togetherness would be the primary goal. Although fishing and hunting had their place: Bill would teach his son how to bait and cast and, mostly, how to kill and prepare his food.

  It was, however, the hunt that offered the greatest opportunity for manhood.

  It began with knowing your weapon. Being able to field strip and reassemble it. How to make it an extension of yourself. How to bait and stalk your prey. How to bring down the victim. How, in instances when the prey is merely wounded, to track it and deliver the coup de grâce.

  In the face of growing controversy, Bill would indoctrinate Albert in the precept that said animals have no rights. Bill remembered his training in Catholicism; man’s role in the earliest moments of creation was spelled out in Genesis:

  “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.’

  “God created man in his image;

  “In the divine image he created him;

  “Male and female he created them.

  “God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the moving things that move on the earth.’ And God also said: ‘See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your f
ood, and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food.’ And so it happened.”

  At first blush it would seem that God was giving mankind carte blanche over the rest of creation. Words such as “dominion” and “subdue” are powerful incentives to be lord and master of all creation and to treat animal life in cavalier fashion.

  Those prone to take the first couple of chapters of Genesis literally also should conclude that God intended all animal life—including mankind, fish, birds, cattle and creepy crawlies—to be vegetarian.

  Mankind’s food is “every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it.” And God gives all green plants as food for all the animals of the earth, and the birds, as well as the creatures that crawl on the ground.

  So much for Wendy’s, Big Boy, Arby’s, Burger King, etc.

  Latter-day Scripture scholars have placed more emphasis on mankind’s obligation to conserve rather than dominate or subdue creation.

  But a macho mankind with the mandate to treat earth and its inhabitants as it wished was the image inculcated in young Al Cody’s psyche as he passed from one parochial grade to another.

  And things once planted in the senior Cody’s mind, particularly religious concepts that were drummed in, were there for life. “As the Church has always taught …” was a phrase often used in the Church in which he grew up.

  Thus it was no surprise that Bill Cody never bought in on Church changes effected by the Second Vatican Council. Postconciliar teaching hardly ever used the cautionary, “As the Church has always taught …” Because, over the centuries, there was very little the Church had “always” taught.

  And now he had a son to indoctrinate in the vera doctrina—the True Doctrine.

  The end product Bill Cody wished to form was a priest.

  Bill had attended the Chicago seminary, where he had reluctantly concluded that the clerical life was not for him. He regretted his decision to this day, yet did not repent of it; he had no doubt that he had made the correct decision.

  It would be different with Al. Bill would make certain that his son would have no doubts about being a priest.

  Al would not be the type of hippy-dippy priest that you found in so many parishes. Bill would see to it that his son was familiar with the Latin Tridentine Mass, frequent confession, baptism as soon after birth as possible. Black and white in doctrine: God was He, Jesus was He, as was the Holy Ghost. Black and white in morality; none of that situation ethics garbage.

  Granted there were exceptions that simply could not be avoided. The vernacular Mass was inescapable. An abomination compared with the old Latin, it now was the least common denominator.

  As Bill coaxed the infant to wrap his tiny fingers around his father’s thumb, he pictured his son the priest. Like the macho men of the past who weren’t embarrassed to wear the clerical outfit. Who hung out together. Who hunted and fished on vacation together. Who displayed the pelts, the skins, the heads on their rectory walls. Who were portrayed, in movies by the likes of Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Barry Fitzgerald, and Bing Crosby. Men’s men.

  That was Bill’s mission—to turn out a priest in this mold.

  He did not stop to consider that he was only one of two parents.

  Eileen had dropped out of college when she became pregnant, happy to be a full-time mother. But her plans for her son did not mirror her husband’s.

  When little Al wantonly killed a small bird, his mother gave him a lecture on the sacredness of all life.

  Albert was confused.

  When Al played in neighborhood games, he objected to letting girls join in. He got a firm lesson from his mother on the equality of the sexes.

  He was confused.

  When a black family moved in, Albert refused to play with the neighbors’ son, though they were the same age. He got a talking to from his mother on the equality of the races.

  He was confused.

  Bill gave Albert, now approaching his teens, an air rifle—over Eileen’s most strenuous objections. One day he grew tired of the stationary target mounted on the garage. He began shooting at rabbits and squirrels. His mother scolded him, and confiscated the gun.

  That led to the worst argument between his parents that Albert had witnessed to that point in his life. He was frightened by it. He would never forget it.

  And he was further confused.

  Albert’s father never wavered in his determination to lead the boy into the priesthood—Bill’s kind of priesthood.

  Albert’s mother steadfastly opposed this career choice.

  It was a strange turnabout from the traditional Catholic family, in which, if there was any impetus to a boy’s entering a seminary, almost without fail it was the mother who encouraged the child, while the father sought to discourage him.

  Eileen, however, felt that entering a seminary at the present time was like booking passage on Titanic. This whole system of a cultic priesthood was going down the drain; anyone could see that. The priest shortage was nearly worldwide. It was reaching drastic proportions in America and was becoming critical even in Ireland, one of the most Catholic of nations.

  Eileen could not begin to guess how it all would end. She wouldn’t even have been concerned except that her husband was brainwashing her son to climb aboard what she considered a dead-end vocation.

  In subtle ways Eileen tried to tip the scales away from the seminary. Meanwhile, Bill continued to take for granted Al’s eventual ordination.

  Albert was confused.

  Ten

  By the time Albert was ready for high school, his father had become a well-heeled attorney in one of the area’s top law firms. The family now lived in the pricey suburb of Bloomfield Hills.

  Albert was accepted by St. Mary’s Preparatory at Orchard Lake.

  There was method in the elder Cody’s choice for his son. The complex of Lake schools included, in addition to the high school, St. Mary’s College and Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary.

  The religious atmosphere was almost palpable.

  Though Bloomfield Hills was not far from the Lake, Al needed transportation. His mother became the designated driver. She was free to be such while Bill took on the rush-hour commute to and from downtown Detroit.

  When the elder Cody had attended the Chicago seminary high school, there was not a girl to be seen. Now, Detroit’s St. Joseph’s Seminary did not even have a high school.

  But St. Mary’s covered both counts: It was all male and had a thoroughly religious atmosphere. Thus at a time when a youth’s testosterone is raging, temptation is not at hand.

  Now and again there might be a bit of masturbation. But masturbation didn’t carry the threat of pregnancy. Fathering a child was definitely a no-no for a priest candidate. One more potential impediment to holy orders forestalled.

  Eileen rather enjoyed her chauffeuring duties. Al didn’t ordinarily run off at the mouth, but he did confide in his mother on their daily drives.

  Later, the Codys moved to a high-rise in downtown Detroit. It was a move conveniently close to Bill’s practice. But not at all convenient to Al’s school at Orchard Lake. No matter. Bill insisted his son complete his high school education at St. Mary’s Preparatory. In effect, all that changed was the length of Eileen’s drive.

  Actually, she treasured the extra time spent with her son. Eileen tried to sway her son away from his father’s conservatism-bordering-on-fundamentalism. She endeavored to accomplish this without undermining the bond between father and son.

  For they had bonded and it was a beautiful relationship qua relationship. But without his mother’s strong humanizing influence, Al would have been merely a younger Bill: careless of life values, blind to the threat of racism and/or sexism.

  Eileen had a difficult time identifying what it was about her husband she tried to shield Al from. In many ways Bill was a decent, even admirable
man. Surely he was deeply committed to Catholicism, even if his faith was outdated. Indeed, that may have been at the root of the problem. His early training taught, for instance, that man was the head of the home and woman its heart. His interpretation of that gave a husband complete control over his wife. The husband made all important decisions autocratically. And the wife was supposed to love him for it.

  According to Bill’s determinate creed, God had placed the animal kingdom on earth for mankind’s use or abuse. Animals were at the complete disposition of humans.

  Bill’s war experience further had eroded his respect for life. This was reflected in his attitude toward wrongdoers. Was someone guilty of homicide? “Fry him!” Convicted of a lesser crime? “Lock him up and throw away the key!”

  Precisely because he so loved the Church of his youth, he was intolerant of most of the changes that had affected it since the despised Council. He would accept the English Mass only because there was no viable alternative.

  That which he could not accept he derided.

  He was easy to understand, but difficult to live with.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cody were the odd couple who packaged their son.

  Albert Cody tried to please his father and his mother. It was like hitching two horses to opposite ends of a chariot and expecting someone to drive it.

  If Albert came home from a hunting trip with no game, his father was disappointed in him. His mother was thankful that her son had not killed.

  On the rare occasion that Albert had a date, his mother encouraged him to have a good time, hoping that this might be the girl who would turn his head from the celibate state. Meanwhile his father took him aside to impress upon him, in vague generalities, the trouble he could get into if he didn’t keep his distance.

  All this repeated conflicting guidance took its toll.

  Albert was a sorely confused boy. And his confusion led to his being in a constant state of anxiety and fear—fear that he would offend someone by making the wrong guess as to the right decision.