Stained Glass

by Ralph McInerny

  “Let’s start there,” Amos said, putting his shoulder to the drawer and getting it closed.

  They did find the records of the funerals of August Devere and of Jane’s husband, but there was no notation suggesting that their burial in the church was due to a formal agreement.

  “I could send one of our paralegals out here to put order into those records.”

  “Why don’t we ask Marie about it?”

  The housekeeper was wearing an apron when she came into the study. At the sight of Amos Carbury she tried to take it off without calling attention to what she was doing. She ran a hand over her hair. Father Dowling feared that she might simper.

  The question she was asked brought an angry flush to Marie’s cheeks. “Jane Devere’s father-in law! How long do you think I’ve been in this parish, Father Dowling?”

  Amos, ever diplomatic, managed to calm her. “Marie, surely you don’t think anyone would imagine that you were here when …” He laughed a dismissive laugh.

  “Apparently someone does,” Marie said, refusing to look at the pastor.

  “We wondered if you had ever heard any reference to the graves in the side chapel of the church.”

  Marie threw up her hands. “Heard anything! On their anniversaries, Father Placidus pulled out all the stops. A solemn high requiem Mass, the old kind, black vestments, yellow candles, the Dease Erie.”

  It took a moment before Amos realized that Marie was referring to the lugubrious hymn, the Dies Irae, that had once been sung at funerals, with all the consolation of the first two canticas of the Divine Comedy. Nowadays, of course, the soul of the deceased was assumed to have winged its way to heaven before the funeral Mass.

  Amos promised to send someone from the office to organize the parish records while looking for any agreement between the Deveres and St. Hilary’s about those graves in the side chapel. “I’ll also find out what public notice may have been given that they would be buried here.”

  Later, after dinner, lounging in Father Dowling’s study, Amos was reluctant to pursue the subject that had brought him here. It was clear that the pastor of St. Hilary’s was of two minds about fighting the chancery office. No one knew more than Amos how much the parish meant to Father Dowling, but of course he understood as well that a priest would not want to quarrel, or seem to quarrel, with his religious superior.

  They talked of other things, and when Amos rose to go, Father Dowling accompanied him to the front door.

  Amos took the priest’s hand. “None of this need concern you, Father. Any more than it already does, of course.”

  “Ubi vult spirat,” Father Dowling murmured.

  Amos, no mean classicist, smiled. The Spirit blows where it wills. Did Father Dowling mean that it would blow down St. Hilary’s?

  10

  If a boat is sailing eastward at ten miles per hour and on its deck a passenger dashes westward at the same rate of speed, has the passenger moved at all? Father Dowling smiled, remembering the half-serious discussions of such puzzles at the seminary.

  “The earth, too, is rotating westward, Father Dowling.” Amos Cadbury drew on his cigar, his expression mischievous. “The whole solar system involves constant harmonious but opposed movements.”

  “Do law students raise such issues, too?”

  “Oh, far worse. Is a ship that docks at Southampton, having been rebuilt during the crossing, the same ship that left Hoboken?”

  “What is the answer?”

  “One can defend either the affirmative or negative equally well.”

  Reasoning, the glory of the human race, lends itself to trivial uses, and language is abused with puns. He said this aloud.

  “Crossword puzzles?” Amos asked.

  “Now, now.”

  Sometimes Father Dowling regretted having told Amos of his addiction to crossword puzzles, and of his pride in doing them with a ballpoint pen. Ah, the pleasure in completing a crossword, which is swiftly followed by a realization of its silliness. An end in itself?

  It was the endless discussions of moral problems in the rec room so long ago that he remembered now. His present unease was what he wanted to discuss with Amos. The lawyer had come to tell him of the legal steps he was taking.

  “I cannot oppose whatever decision the cardinal might make, Amos.”

  “You can be a silent partner.”

  “If I say nothing, the chancery will assume that I am behind it.”

  “You are not responsible for their assumptions.”

  “Do you agree with the family, Amos?”

  Amos displayed his palms. “I am merely their lawyer.” He brought his hands together. “Of course, I was married in that church.”

  The Deveres, prompted by Jane, had decided to make a public protest of the threat to St. Hilary’s. For Father Dowling to remain silent would seem to be collusion with the Deveres, and yet to announce his opposition to them would be regarded as a betrayal. Amos had come to the rectory to tell Father Dowling of the injunction he would file seeking to prevent the razing of St. Hilary’s.

  Marie was delighted. “Imagine thinking they can decide something like that in an office downtown. Why don’t they come out here and see what they’re talking about?”

  “Perhaps Mr. Cadbury would like some tea, Marie.”

  “Of course he would like some tea,” Marie snapped.

  “I won’t be having any.”

  “Hemlock?” Marie had surprised herself. She smiled wickedly and stormed off to her kitchen.

  Amos explained to Father Dowling what he planned to do.

  “Church and state, Amos.”

  “A noble principle,” Amos replied. “When convenient.”

  The Deveres wished to base their complaint on the family graves in the church. Apparently there were legal restrictions on the relocation of cemeteries, and the injunction would be based on those rather than the Menotti windows.

  “Susan Devere wants to have the church declared a historical landmark and thus untouchable.”

  “Historical?”

  “A repository of Menotti’s stained glass windows.”

  “Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

  “The family will pursue that as well. Susan is going to take photographs of the windows to accompany the application.”

  “Won’t that take time?”

  “Of course. Hence the injunction.”

  “What a revolutionary you’ve become, Amos.”

  “Churches are too important to be left to the exclusive care of cardinals.”

  The following day, in midmorning, Father Dowling went over to the church. As the door closed behind him, he stood for a moment, enjoying the silence. As he went into the sacristy, the silence gave way to creaks and snaps and the other sounds with which old buildings sigh away their days. He knelt at a prie-dieu that gave him a view of the sanctuary and of the tabernacle on the altar. As pastor, he was the creature of the cardinal, bound by the promise of obedience he had made at ordination. His own reaction to the famous list was one he tried to keep to himself. For years, the parish, this church, had seemed the permanent setting of his priestly life, but he had no permanent claim on it. Quite apart from the fate of the church, he could be reassigned by the cardinal at any time—but reassigned where? Would he be given a new parish at his age? Perhaps he would be asked to take a chaplaincy, at the hospital, in a convent, at a retirement home. He brought his hands to his face and prayed for the grace of obedience. Of course, he need not like what he was asked to do. When he had been assigned to St. Hilary’s, he had had no premonition of how satisfying he would find the assignment. Over time, in his own mind, a seemingly unbreakable bond had formed between himself and St. Hilary’s parish in Fox River, Illinois.

  He removed his hands and stared at the tabernacle. How ridiculous it was to elevate his problem into such importance. Think of the difficulties others faced, sickness, family problems, worse. Think of priests in many countries of the world, as much at risk as the earliest Chr
istians. He remembered a story of what an African bishop at one of the synods in Rome had said when Americans were fussing about altar girls, women’s ordination, inclusive language in the literature: “In my diocese, the problem is to keep girl babies alive.” The remark had put the problems of the so-called first world into an unwonted perspective. Something like that perspective had eased Father Dowling’s mind before he rose and left the church.

  On a bench along the path to the rectory a disconsolate Willie sat.

  “Will you give me a letter of recommendation, Father?”

  “If you ever need one.” He sat beside the little maintenance man.

  “I feel more at home here than I did in Joliet.”

  “Do you miss prison?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “How long we got, Father?”

  “Nothing is settled.”

  Willie just looked at him, the expression of a man for whom the possibility of bad news had always turned out to be true. “I can always rob a bank and go back.”

  “Is that what you did, rob a bank?”

  “Well, I tried.”

  “Wait until I’ve talked to the bishop.” He seemed to have made that decision while he prayed in the church.

  Willie sat forward. “You going to do that? Give ’em hell, Father.”

  “You’ve been reading Dante.”

  “Who’s he play for?”

  Father Dowling’s laughter lasted him almost to the rectory door.

  11

  Ted Wilenski was the youngest of the auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Chicago who eased some of the burden from the shoulders of the cardinal. One of Wilenski’s charges was the vexed issue of closing inner-city parishes, or combining old rivals into a new unity to cater to the altered population. It had been observed that no Polish parish had made it onto the list that appeared in the Tribune story. When he telephoned, Roger had been told to come along as soon as he liked, and now they were seated in Bishop Wilenski’s office.

  “My cousin was a classmate of yours, Father Dowling.”

  Roger Dowling tried to remember a Wilenski in his ordination class.

  “George Salter.”

  “Salter!” The name had given rise to any number of what passed for witticisms in clerical circles. Roger smiled. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “He’s still in Rome.”

  George Salter had taken a degree from the Jesuit university in Rome and then stayed on, giving courses here and there about the city, ending finally at the University of Santa Croce. Naturally, his academic speciality was Scripture.

  After an exchange of pleasantries, Wilenski sat back. “Of course, I know why you’re here.”

  “That story in the Tribune has caused quite a stir in the parish.”

  “I’m sure of that.”

  “I wanted you to know that the protests were done without my knowledge.”

  “You realize that story was not official, Father.”

  “No ‘authoritative sources’?”

  “Oh, the list is genuine enough. So are three or four other lists that differ from it. The cardinal has made no final decisions.”

  “Am I safe?”

  “I can’t say that.” He paused. “Do you really like being at St. Hilary’s?”

  “I do.”

  Wilenski seemed surprised. “One of my advisors suggested this might be a way to find you a more appropriate parish.”

  “Good Lord. My hope is to die as pastor of St. Hilary’s. Or at least to stay there until I am put out to pasture.”

  “A pastor to pasture.” Wilenski had a round head and short-clipped blond hair. Here in his office, wearing a suit, apart from the discreetly displayed chain of his pectoral cross, he might have been any other young priest. Of course, there was also the rather prominent ring on his right hand. The hand seemed to lift under Father Dowling’s notice as if an episcopal blessing were in the offing. “Tell me about St. Hilary’s.” The ringed hand dropped to a folder on the desk.

  “It has been my salvation.”

  “Ah.”

  Wilenski would likely know of Roger Dowling’s long-ago disgrace. He did not allude to it, of course. Looking at the young bishop, Roger could not help thinking that there but for the grace of God go I. Dutifully, he began to describe the parish, its altering character as young people moved back in. The remnants of old families who had not moved away, families like the Deveres.

  Wilenski perked up. “A wonderful family,” he said. “Very generous. Why are they so reluctant to be rewarded for the help they have been to the archdiocese?”

  Roger knew that James Devere had politely turned down offers of knighthoods in the Order of St. Gregory and in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. He was, however, a Knight of Malta.

  “Their generosity built St. Hilary’s church, Bishop.”

  “Did it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”

  “You should pay us a visit.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Architecturally, it is not much. It is the windows that are our pride. A special gift of the Deveres, designed by Menotti.”

  Wilenski pushed away the folder. “I didn’t know that. The Menotti?”

  “Angelo Menotti, yes.”

  “The man is a legend. When did he die?”

  “As far as I know he is still alive.”

  “Good heavens.” Wilenski sat forward. “Yours is not the only Chicago church that has windows of his. Has Carl Borloff been in touch with you?”

  It seemed that Carl Borloff, an art historian, planned to publish a handsome volume containing reproductions of the local work of Menotti. He had not been in touch with Father Dowling.

  “He will be, I’m sure. I can’t believe that he does not know that you have Menotti windows. Father, I am glad we’ve had this visit. Your Menotti windows are news to me, as well as the involvement of the Devere family.”

  The remark signaled the end of the appointment. Before leaving, Roger bowed his head for a blessing, and Wilenski was momentarily embarrassed. When he had traced the sign of the cross over the pastor of St. Hilary’s, he smiled. “Now it’s your turn.” He bowed his head for Father Dowling’s blessing.

  As they said their good-byes, the bishop returned to the matter at hand. “I wish I could be more reassuring, Father. The decision is the cardinal’s, of course.”

  “Would there be any point in talking to him?”

  The suggestion alarmed Bishop Wilenski. “Probably not. He has so many things on his mind.”

  “Of course.”

  As he drove back to Fox River, Roger Dowling wondered if what he had regarded as a fool’s errand had been after all inspired. Yet his satisfaction in the outcome of the visit to Bishop Wilenski prompted unease as well. From the time of his fall, Roger had dropped all efforts to try to influence his own career. This had been made easier by the fact that his assignment was considered a place of exile, the remotest parish, unlikely to be the object of anyone else’s covetous glances. But it was more than that. His earlier self had been—in retrospect this became clear to him—ambitious, calculating, weighing his deeds in terms of their probable effect on his future. A careerist, in short. That his ambition and prudent behavior had ended in collapse and the ignominy of the stay in Wisconsin seemed to contain a lesson vital to his life. Had he reverted to his earlier self today?

  It was easy to persuade himself that his concern for St. Hilary’s was not concern for himself. He had thought of the effects of closing the parish on Marie Murkin, on Edna Hospers, on those parishioners who had retained their roots in the parish, and, of course, on the old people who spent their days in the senior center that the parish school had become. Still, he could not deny thinking of his own tenure there, the quiet exultation of his daily Mass in the church, the comfort of the rectory, his books, Phil Keegan …

  He had gone to Bishop Wilenski with the intention of arguing the case for St. Hilary’
s, of staving off the threat of closure, and that was in effect to seek to guide the trajectory of Roger Dowling. But a priest serves at the pleasure of his bishop. Not a vow of obedience, of course, but close enough. In recent years, priests had been vocal about their rights, and among them was included the right to advise and consent to clerical assignments. Once a priest simply went where his bishop sent him. Now there was a board that advised the bishop. Good grief. If he were indeed relieved of his post at St. Hilary’s, he would have to appear before that board. It would be like appealing to an unemployment bureau. One of the great attractions of St. Hilary’s was that he had been appointed there at the direct pleasure of his bishop.

  The next day he went over to the senior center.

  Marie was astounded when he asked that no further protests be made. “You accept it, Father?”

  “Nothing is decided. Besides, this is not the way the decision will be made, in response to public complaints.”

  “Aren’t you going to do anything?”

  The old faces looked at him as if he were betraying them.

  “I will stay in contact with the chancery. I will find out what I can.”

  “Give ’em hell,” Bartelli urged.

  “That is not in my gift,” he said, smiling.

  12

  Carl Borloff worked out of his apartment, one of whose two bedrooms served as the editorial office for Sacred Art, the little journal of limited circulation that had been meant to lift him out of obscurity into the rarefied upper atmosphere of Church circles, those circles that revolved around ecclesiastical art. Others had specialized, confining themselves to the liturgy and even subdividing into those monitoring English translations of liturgical texts and those insisting on Latin; or into music, and here, too, there were subspecializa-tions, some promoting Gregorian chant and others directing attention to the horrors in the hymnbooks cluttering the pews of the country. Of course, there were those whose passion was church architecture and who were striving to wean the Church from the Pizza Hut constructions of the past half century to something resembling houses of worship. All these narrow paths Carl had eschewed. Many facets of Catholic art there might be, but they were facets, not the whole, and any reader of Chesterton must know the results of substituting the part for the whole. No, Carl Borloff was a generalist who welcomed into the pages of Sacred Art any and all of the above. He thought of Sacred Art as a clearinghouse, an arbiter, the repository of the full view.