Till Death

by William X. Kienzle

  “Maybe we’d better not talk about this.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. As long as we’re going to dine with them this evening in an atmosphere of enjoying a party, we’d better air out our feelings. After all, our hosts are two priests you like very much. We don’t want to embarrass them. And that’s not to mention Rick and Lil and the Tullys.”

  “Don’t fret. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  “I’m not worried about that, dear. I don’t for a moment think that you would intentionally wreck the party. And I’m told the small talk at these affairs is about the old days and the atrocities under Father Angelico. So there’s not much chance that we’ll get into a serious conversation on controversial subjects. But it’s always possible. And if that happens you may be tested beyond your patience. So why not try to reach some sort of agreement, at least between us, on what Dora and Jerry did?”

  Peg looked out her side window and absently regarded endless fields just beginning to produce new crops. “What they did seems to me so transparent,” Peggy said finally. “It’s like explaining an axiom … I mean, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to draw a logical inference from their affair.”

  “You make it sound so tawdry.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Peg, they followed—or, in Jerry’s case, are following—the rules and regulations set up by the Church.”

  “To clean up a mess. Not to be righteous.”

  Tom sighed deeply. “They just happened to be placed in the same parish at roughly the same time. For both of them that was their first parochial assignment. Dora was in much deeper trouble than Jerry, so he tried to help her.”

  “He helped her right out of the convent!”

  “Peg, she didn’t leave religious life until years after they had gone their separate ways.”

  “The seeds were planted well.”

  “You make it sound like a time bomb.”

  Peggy fidgeted. She searched for a more comfortable position. It was not just a physical need. She was uneasy traveling over familiar religious ground that led—she knew from experience—into a dead end.

  “A time bomb,” she acknowledged, “is not a bad analogy. She left the convent in plenty of time to find a job where, soon enough, she could prepare a job for him at the same place. I guess the time factor is a pretty good simile.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, no impropriety in what you’ve described. They worked in the same parish. But not together. She left religious life. There is no way we can know why—or what influenced her decision. He left years later. And anyone who follows the local news knows why he left when he did. She smoothed the way for him to get a job. What’s wrong with any of the above?”

  “What’s wrong, my dear, is that she took vows. He took vows—all right, all right, he made promises.” She corrected herself before Tom could. “They leave a trail of broken vows and promises. That’s what’s wrong.”

  Tom shook his head. Peg didn’t see the motion—both were looking ahead at the roadway.

  “Peg, we can’t be more Catholic than the Church.”

  It was at this point that their argument always bogged down.

  She labeled his approach to moral judgment “situation ethics.” He countered that she refused to consider circumstances that could alter the morality of an action.

  He was a student of both Fathers Casserly and Koesler. In their school of thought there was nothing that was intrinsically evil. Every action had to allow circumstantial forces.

  For Peg many actions were indeed evil through and through and could not be mitigated by any other consideration. In this she was in agreement with the official position of the Church. For the life of her, Peg could not understand why, since it was the official Church teaching, Tom, the two priests—plus anyone else in agreement with them—could question her conclusion.

  Tom had all but given up citing the case of Galileo Galilei, who had in effect been forced to deny the truth that his own eyes had seen. Peg’s response was that whether the sun circled the earth or vice versa was not a matter of faith or morals; the decision had to do with astronomy. Tom insisted that the path of sun and earth had been an “official” teaching of the Church because the Church made it so. And unless Galileo recanted his insistence on heliocentricity he would be punished as a heretic.

  Both Tom and Peg sensed that it would be futile to continue their difference of opinion. However, experience had taught that it was good for them to vent their feelings. “So what about tonight, Peggy? There’s no absolute reason we have to attend this party. If you feel the least bit uncomfortable, we’ll just skip it.”

  She weighed the offer for a few moments. She strongly leaned toward skipping the party. Despite all the excuses one could marshal to justify that couple’s decisions, she could not buy into any of them.

  Ever since Vatican II, there had been a flood of women religious either radically changing their original commitment or leaving religious life entirely. Teaching nuns, once the mainstay if not the driving force of the parochial school system, had all but disappeared. Many of them had switched careers while remaining nuns, branching into fields such as social work and parish administration. The majority, however, had simply left religious life and returned to lay life. In time the process of moving from one vocation to the other grew easier. There was a serious threat that women religious would become extinct.

  Peggy Becker could understand none of it. For almost all her formative years, she had been taught by nuns. Only with resolute purposeful concentration was she able to address her former nuns by their given and maiden names. She found it difficult to consider the possibility that these women who almost constituted a third sex would be no more.

  She would have a hard time this evening relating to Dora Riccardo without-prejudice. Peggy would call the woman Dora but she would be thinking Perpetua.

  It would be even more difficult accepting Father Anderson as Jerry. He had broken just about every one of the conceivable rules and regulations binding Catholics who were getting married.

  The clerical gossip line, into which Tom was plugged, had it that Anderson could have dodged the bullet if he had accepted an ecclesial punishment that would have been no more than a slap on the wrist.

  He could have remained an active priest so simply. Peggy definitely held it against him that he hadn’t. Anderson made it sound so brave and principled. For a stand about which he would not compromise, he would surrender the life he had chosen.

  Peggy didn’t buy it. Her version had it that Anderson had not only fully approved the bogus wedding but that he had encouraged all that publicity. It was something like the phenomenon of “death by cop.” People determined to self-destruct, but lacking the will to pull the trigger on themselves, confronted the police and made it necessary for an officer to do the deed.

  In this case—according to Peggy’s scenario—Anderson wanted to leave the priesthood, but lacked the courage to quit. So, through his actions, he would, first, compel the Church to level a punishment against him. Then, when he refused to accept the penalty, the Church would have to laicize him.

  As she considered Father Anderson’s ploy—a ploy she had concocted for him out of her own ideation—words sprang to mind: hypocritical, deceitful, hollow, dishonest, crooked, tricky, deceptive, treacherous, and traitorous.

  “Okay,” she responded to Tom’s open-ended invitation to attend or not to attend this evening’s dinner. “Let’s go to the party.” But, she thought, Jerry Anderson had better be a long way from gloating. Or the party just might explode in everyone’s face.

  Thirteen

  The mission of the Pietà was figuratively buried on Detroit’s south-west side.

  The building itself was small and primitive, with room for possibly 250 worshipers. To clean it after all these years of neglect would require more elbow grease than any of its members could muster. The wooden floor squeaked with any movement, whether one was kneeling, walking, or even merely sh
uffling. If anyone shifted his or her weight while standing, the floor groaned.

  Minimum requirements for a music director were that the person could at least play a piano legato as well as have the stamina to pump air into the ancient pump organ.

  The smooth asphalt surface of the parking lot bespoke, not caring maintenance, but rather a barely minimal use. Between the entrance and exit drives of the parking lot stood a poor likeness of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of Mary cradling the dead body of her son, Jesus. The original, known as the Pietà, was on display in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Since the time the original was attacked by a madman with a hammer, it had been protected by a heavy transparent shield.

  No such precautions were needed at the Mission of the Pietà. The only threat posed to the parochial status was from one or another of the youth gangs that populated the area. And they seemed spooked when it came to the unguarded religious icon. The word was that anyone who fooled with that sacred hunk of cement would be cursed with big trouble—akin to breaking one’s mother’s back by stepping on a crack. As it turned out, Mary and Jesus were the safest personages in the area.

  The parking lot separated the church from the rectory, which had been built at the same time as the church, in the late eighteenth century. The rectory creaked in harmony with the church.

  Almost everything in the house was an antique of greater or lesser value. No one cared to evaluate the furniture, paintings, statues, silverware, utensils, bric-a-brac. Time enough for that when, inevitably, the Mission would be closed.

  All that was keeping the Mission open now was the presence of a priest, Father Harry Morgan.

  The arrangement made some sort of sense. Father Morgan was of an age to achieve Senior Priest status, as it was termed. At this point he could put himself on the shelf or remain selectively active; it was entirely up to him. He chose to man the Mission. He informed the chancery that he would work the place until he dropped. It was consoling that Father Morgan would never die alone; the Mission of the Pietà would go with him.

  Both served a hodgepodge of clients or parishioners, whatever one cared to call them. First and foremost were the poor and/or the elderly.

  Extremely fortunate, the Mission boasted an active and effective St. Vincent de Paul chapter. Most members of the S.V. de P. were themselves elderly former parishioners. They responded to every plea, discerning between the genuine needy and the frauds.

  Most who still attended the Mission as their parish had long since moved out of the area. The resultant vacuum invited teen gangs and drug houses. No one, not even those who clung to the Mission, would have been shocked or disillusioned had Father Morgan abandoned ship.

  The thought scarcely ever crossed his mind. Not only was he not tempted to leave, thereby dooming the Mission; he hardly ever even left the rectory. No vacations, no cruises, no picnics, at most an occasional “G”-rated movie. Not even—ever—a day off.

  The constant procession of the elderly was relieved only occasionally by one or two young persons wandering in. Usually they were trying to escape the demands of their families; sometimes they wanted a sacrament, usually matrimony, beyond their parents’ knowledge.

  It was nine o’clock, just one hour before his bedtime. The doorbell rang. Most unusual. Visitors were rare at any time. But after about five in the evening it was as if the drawbridge were raised and the moat flooded.

  Almost anyone else in his position would have ascertained the identity of the caller before opening the door. But Harry Morgan felt no danger. He was doing God’s work. God would protect him.

  Whether or not God was actively involved, the couple at the door appeared innocuous. He was Xavier (pronounced Ha-vee-aír)—“call me Havie”—Martines. She was Maria Sanchez. They wanted—what else?—to get married. Though English was their second language, they spoke it well enough. Father Morgan invited them into his office.

  The priest’s mouth was shut, his jaw clenched. Xavier was concerned. This priest might be suffering a stroke. Or, it might be his way of smiling. It was a toss-up. If it proved to be a heart attack, or anything similarly crucial, he and Maria would be out of there. Xavier didn’t like the odds of a Mexican couple on the scene with a dead priest when the cops came.

  But the priest clutched nothing and appeared not to be in discomfort. He was wearing a long-black-cassock, black cummerbund, and spotless white Roman collar. That was nice. Xavier liked it when people who should be in uniform were.

  The jaw unclenched. “What brings you to the Mission of the Pietà?”

  “We want to get married, Father,” Maria said proudly.

  “Yeah, Father,” Xavier seconded.

  The chair squeaked painfully as Morgan leaned back. “So, you want to get married.”

  Both nodded vigorously.

  “I repeat,” Morgan repeated, “why come to the Mission?”

  The couple looked at each other. Neither was sure how to answer the question. At length, Xavier said, “We wanna get married in the Church?”

  Morgan rocked in the chair, which squealed madly. If he had made this racket on a putting surface, he would have destroyed his opponent’s concentration. But, of course, he scarcely ever played golf. After several moments of silence, the priest spoke. “You know, not many people come to the Mission for Mass. I’m sure I would remember a handsome couple like you. But I don’t. Never at daily Mass, of course. Never at Sunday Mass. Not even Christmas or Easter. Have I overlooked you on any of these occasions?”

  Xavier lit up like a neon sign. “No, no, Father. You got twenty/twenty.” He shot a glance at Maria. “We did talk about going for Christmas. But …” His explanation trailed off. He could not think of an excuse for not coming to honor the baby Jesus.

  “Maybe,” Morgan probed further, “you go to another Catholic church in the neighborhood?”

  “Oh no, Father,” Maria said. “We live only a few blocks away.”

  “Then”—the priest focused on Xavier—“Havier …”

  “Call me, Havie, Father. Everybody does,” Xavier said brightly.

  “Noooo.” Morgan drew the word out. “You bear the name of a great saint. A credit to Catholicism and to your country. I shall call you Havier.”

  “No sweat, Padre.”

  “Then,” Morgan returned to his previous thought, “then it would be safe to say that you don’t go to church at all.”

  “Yeah, that’s about it, Padre,” Xavier said.

  Maria was growing edgy. She was beginning to anticipate where Father Morgan was going with his little quiz. She was correct. Morgan was playing a game of cat and mouse. Xavier and Maria were the doomed rodents.

  “Well, then,” Morgan said as he took from a desk drawer a pad of paper, “first things first. You’ll want to register.”

  Xavier’s eyes shifted nervously. “What is it, this register?”

  “Become parishioners of the Mission.”

  “Join? The parish?”

  “How else can we begin talk of a wedding?” From the same drawer, he extracted a box of collection envelopes.

  That rang a bell. Long, long ago Xavier had seen a similar box gathering cobwebs in his parents’ closet. One day he asked about it. His father explained that those small envelopes were the ticket that had gotten Xavier baptized.

  His parents had been no more faithful to their parish than was he. But when he was born, they’d wanted him christened. Why? As far back as anyone could remember, all babies were baptized. No one was very clear why this custom continued. It had something to do with the baby’s ticket to heaven. Without baptism, if the baby died, it would go to a place called limbo where it would be “naturally” happy forever. While limbo didn’t sound at all bad, people were assured heaven was better because that was the only way one got to see God.

  While the argument didn’t sound too compelling, most parents bought it. In that era, being a Latino was almost synonymous with being Catholic.

  As Morgan slid the envelopes across the
desk, Xavier did some rapid reasoning. Holy blackmail! he thought in remembrance of Batman and Robin. He made no move to touch the box of envelopes. In fact, he recoiled from it. As if it were some sort of bomb that would explode and hurt him if his fingers met it.

  The collection envelopes were self-explanatory: One put money in them and then placed them in the collection basket the usher shook insistently in front of one’s face.

  There was a problem here. Neither Xavier or Maria had any spare money. Maria’s income came from baby-sitting. Which, in that part of town, would not contribute to a lavish pension. Xavier did menial tasks in a small neighborhood market.

  He could have accepted the envelopes and let them gather dust in some remote closet, as had his father. But Xavier was not the type to dissemble. Slowly, and as respectfully as he could, he slid the box back to Morgan.

  “Father, I know you gotta eat, and all that. But we ain’t got no money. We both got jobs. But they don’t pay nothin’. If we pay for any kind of wedding, we’re gonna be in hock for a long time. And I want Maria to look good as a bride. She’s gonna wear her mother’s wedding dress. But it needs work. And then, there’s the ring …” He was lost in thought as he contemplated the financial quicksand that could undermine their lifestyle into the foreseeable future. The reception. The hall. The food.

  “Havie’s right, Father.” Maria’s brow wrinkled with furrows of concern. “We don’t have no extra money at all. Maybe we could owe you and pay you a little bit at a time.”

  Morgan looked intently into Xavier’s eyes with such solemnity that the young man was forced to look away. “I think,” Morgan said, “we have come down to, as they call it now, the bottom line. We can waive the expense of the marriage liturgy.”

  “But …” Xavier tried to interrupt.

  “No, no,” Morgan continued, “hear me out. We can waive the wedding expenses. As it happens, you can be a parishioner here without its costing you anything. And being a parishioner means you would be entitled to be married and buried in a Catholic ceremony. And your children could be baptized and confirmed and go to confession and receive Holy Communion.” Morgan paused. “You do intend to have children.” It was more a statement than a question.