by John Ayang
“When I heard about the case, I decided to sneak in and sit in court to watch the proceedings so I can use it as material for my moral theology class at the seminary,” Fr. Tung put in edgewise, excited at being asked. “I did not expect the shocking turn it took.”
“It looks like you now have more than sufficient material, not only for your moral theology class, Fr. Tung, but also for quick research to help us here at the Chancery,” the Cardinal replied on cue. “So, how do we handle what has happened? But before we go on,” he turned to Fr. McCarthy, “how are you taking all this, Fr. Cletus? I am not going to ask whether you are okay, because I know you are not. You are probably shaken and more confused than the rest of us since you are the subject of attention here.”
“I don’t know how to take this, Your Eminence,” Fr. McCarthy replied, visibly angry. “I am still in shock.”
“You are, Fr. Cletus, and I thought you would be,” the Cardinal concurred, in a fatherly tone. “Do you want to take the rest of the week off to be with your family while we sort this out? Of course, we will keep in daily contact with you.”
Stacy appeared just then, stood by the door of the conference room, and surveyed the scene. She did not look very pleased.
“Here she is,” the Cardinal announced. “Please, sit down Ms. Donovan. I already know what has happened. You know, of course, that Sister Ellis was in the courtroom, as well as Fr. Tung. The question we are trying to answer is, where do we go from here? What do we do?”
“Your Eminence, with the new turn of events, I do not yet know how the case will play out,” Stacy replied, taking the seat beside Fr. McCarthy. “But the first thing I intend to do is interview Fr. McCarthy’s parents, if that is okay with you, Father, and get the truth from them. After that, I will plot my next move.”
“My parents certainly have a story to tell me, too,” Fr. McCarthy replied. “Not just to you, Ms. Donovan. I think that’s where to begin.”
“From the moral theology angle, if I may add,” Fr. Tung interjected, wriggling in his chair as though he had discovered an academic goldmine, “We might even get the case to play in our favor. Invincible ignorance takes away culpability, and as it appears, Fr. Cletus here was kept invincibly ignorant of the circumstances of his conception.”
“Canonically, too, I… I think this is a new case that calls for, um…a new norm,” Fr. Callahan nervously added.
“Fathers, please, shall we skip trying to take this case first to the surgery tables of moral theology and canon law, and focus, instead, on how we can help Fr. McCarthy come to grips about this embarrassing allegation sprung on him from nowhere?” Fr. Polanski interjected, riled at his brother priests for failing to notice that Fr. McCarthy was in a state of distressing confusion, but, rather, behaving as though protecting the canonical and theological systems of the Church was paramount at that moment, and superseded the solidarity and compassion that should be accorded his young friend. “I think, as His Eminence suggested earlier, that Fr. McCarthy should take the rest of the week off, his parishioners should be informed to respect his privacy, as he must be with his family to sort things out before the next court date. Before then, as Ms. Donovan intends, she should be able to legally counsel the family while at the same time gathering necessary information to prepare her defense.”
Everyone agreed with Fr. Polanski. After more discussion of duties and strategies, the meeting adjourned. As Fr. McCarthy headed for the elevator doors, Stacy touched him lightly on the shoulder and said, “Just try to stay calm. Don’t over agitate yourself, please. Just give me time. I will call and set up an appointment with your parents. I am quite positive that with the additional information I will get from them, I will be able to have the case under wraps.”
“But why do you think my parents deceived me all these years?” Fr. McCarthy asked in fierce whispers, letting out his thought for the first time.
“’Deceive’ is a harsh word, Father,” Stacy cautioned. “People do certain things for certain reasons. I am quite sure that your parents had a reason for not telling you that you were conceived via IVF, but, rather, leading you to believe you were adopted.”
“Do you think my being ignorant of the circumstances of my conception will excuse me from the accusation of discrimination?” Fr. McCarthy inquired, wedging himself between the elevator doors to prevent them from closing.
“No, Father,” Stacy replied, honestly. “Ignorance of the circumstances of your conception does not exonerate you because, at least, your parents knew the facts full well. I will try and argue the case along other lines, but I need to talk to your parents first in order to see those other lines clearly.”
“Guess what, Ms. Donovan?” Fr. McCarthy said, as he entered the elevator. “Don’t take this personal because it is not you, but whoever drafted the principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it…if he stood here before me at this very moment, I’d punch him right in the mouth.”
With that, the elevator doors closed. Stacy smiled ruefully and stood still for a second or two pondering Fr. McCarthy’s anger. She felt deep empathy for him and wondered what it felt like to be caught in the trap of the very system you are charged with upholding and propagating. She turned to head to her office, taking out her cell phone to call her mother.
Fr. Polanski eased his car into the traffic on San Jacinto, and drove for five uneasy minutes before finding his voice to start a conversation, since Fr. McCarthy was certainly not going to say anything voluntarily.
“Do you want me to take you to Hollow Wood Circuit directly, or do you have anything you want to pick up from the rectory, like toiletries, or anything?”
“Take me to the courthouse parking lot,” Fr. McCarthy said. “My car is still there, remember? You guys whisked me off so fast that I forgot I drove to court myself.”
“Oh, yes. I forgot,” Fr. Polanski said. He turned onto Travis and, one block later, turned again onto Dallas and headed for Congress Street. “But I can still accompany you to your parents’ place.”
“Thanks, Charlie. You’re very kind,” Fr. McCarthy replied, exaggeratedly. “Just drop me off at the parking lot opposite the courthouse and, if you don’t mind, from then on, I prefer to enjoy my ‘unaccompanied minor’ status undisturbed.”
“Just trying to help,” Fr. Polanski replied, feigning a hurt. “But I can see that you intend to do better on your own. So, I won’t push.” He slowed considerably as he pulled up to the curb and stopped for a split second. Fr. McCarthy swung the car door open too fast and put out his leg to get out. The dull thud to his knee, as the door bounced back, made him hiss and swear under his breath from the pain, as he limped along the pavement, heading for his car.
“Minors need adult company!” Fr. Polanski called after him in mock humor. “To teach them how to exit cars without incurring injuries.” He said the latter part almost to himself and grinned furtively at his friend’s receding back, still slowly driving close to the curb to make sure Fr. McCarthy got to his car before driving off. The latter remote opened his car, walked to the driver’s side, and turned around to wave before getting in and heading for the parking lot exit with his paid parking ticket still on the dashboard. As Fr. Polanski finally drove off, Fr. McCarthy headed in the opposite direction toward Main Street to get back to the rectory. Three blocks after that, he changed his mind, turned onto Fannin and headed for Highway 59 South. He had a sudden urge to see his parents before returning to the sanctuary of the rectory. He started mulling it over in his mind whether to spend the rest of the week off in the rectory, or with his parents, who, probably, were afraid and bracing themselves for his confrontation, which was inevitable.
He again wondered what made his parents lie to him for thirty-one years, or, at least, for twenty-four, judging from when he had attained the age of reason and would have understood a simple explanation of how he was conceived. He also wondered how the seminary
authorities were not able to discover this about him, with their sophisticated system of background checks before recommending a candidate for ordination. Apart from facing a sure conviction on counts of discrimination and emotional battery, he wondered what the impact would be on Church teaching about the validity of ordination. Would the Church defrock him, citing his conception via IVF as invalidating his ordination? But there was no precedence on which to base such a decision, and there was no norm in either canon law or moral theology to support that line of action, as far as he had fulfilled all necessary requirements for a valid ordination, and was consequently ordained. If the Church did not invalidate his ordination and defrock him, it would have to write a new Catechism and a new canon to take into account his situation, which, from all indications, was the first of its kind. It scared him to think about the impact of his circumstances. On the one hand, he was fast garnering an unwanted celebrity status. He was sure the airwaves were already inundated with news of him, the first IVF-conceived Catholic priest. The next morning all the papers in the country and beyond would carry his photograph and news. He was certain that he would be the front-page news in every paper. On the other hand, he was becoming an embarrassing albatross around the Church’s doctrinal neck, morally speaking. Was Pope Benedict XVI going to publish a corrigendum or an addendum to Donum Vitae, and Dignitatis Personae, to accommodate or explain away his peculiar case? What about Pope John Paul II’s Catechism of the Catholic Church? Would the entire section on human reproductive technology be revised to explain away or accommodate his case? Above all, what was his future going to be like?
He was so consumed with his thoughts that he nearly drove into another harsh confusion in front of his parents’ house. It took a split second for his mind to register what the pile of vehicles in front of the house meant. If not for the TV dishes and antennae protruding from two of the vans, he would not have recognized what was happening until it was too late. The vans all had fixed TV cameras trained at the windows and doors of his parents’ house, and the crowd milling around noisily was a pack of reporters and pressmen, some with hand-held video cameras. Others were brandishing cordless microphones. A few reporters were standing in front of cameras still relaying news to their stations for later broadcasting.
Suddenly feeling like a hunted game, he swung his car onto the next street and doubled back out of the area as fast as he could. “Gracious God!” he muttered to himself. “This is worse than I thought.” He drove fast, but mindful of his speed, so as to not attract attention. He was going to head back to the rectory of Our Lady Queen of Peace, but realized that the same scenario might be awaiting him there. So, he decided to drive to the only place he thought might offer him a safe haven till the stormy situation died down.
Fr. Polanski came out to welcome him. He got the keys from Fr. McCarthy and got into the car. “Get inside the house before anybody notices you are here,” he said, almost snarling. Fr. McCarthy strutted into the house, closed the door behind him, and sighed relief while Fr. Polanski drove to the back of the house to park the car. He came back into the house through the kitchen, and called out to Fr. McCarthy, whose back faced him as he peeped through the window blinds at nothing in particular, “drinks?”
“Screwdriver,” he responded, without turning around. “Make it stiff. I need to calm my nerves.”
“You ordered the right cocktail, boy,” Fr. Polanski responded, supportively. He handed Fr. McCarthy a glass of the spiked juice and dropped his bulk into his favorite spot on the settee. “Goes without saying, Nick. I would give anything in the world not to be you right now. But whatever happens, please, you must admit that when situations force you to become like a ‘minor’, you need ‘adult’ company for support. I thank God you came back.”
“I appreciate the daggering humor, Charlie. No contest,” Fr. McCarthy responded, also taking a seat, clasping his screwdriver glass with both hands, like he could use all the comfort it could offer. “You could have seen the speed with which I made my one-eighty-degrees U-turn to scuttle out of Hollow Wood Circuit.”
“Why? What happened?” Fr. Polanski asked, confused.
“The front of my parents’ house is a bee hive,” Fr. McCarthy replied. “The entirety of the media in the state is camping out there. Charlie, my parents are practically under the worst siege since the Greco-Trojan fallout over Helen. I am at my wit’s end right now. I don’t know what to do because, right now, I’m like a hunted rat myself. I ran because I was not prepared to face the media’s unending questions.” He paused to sip his screwdriver, then continued, looking distantly, “I cut and ran like a child. An adult would probably have barged right through the thick of them all with the simple defense weapon of ‘no comment,’ and gone into the house. That’s what I should have done, Charlie!” Fr. McCarthy said, looking energized, like he was about to spring into action.
“Hold on to your breeches, Nick!” Fr. Polanski interjected, raising his hand to emphasize his restraint. “You’re right. An adult would have acted that way, but that would have been acting impulsively, and that’s why adults frequently say the wrong thing. There would be no way that your ‘simple defense weapon’ would have sufficed without your making a slip. Believe you, me, Nick, news reporters are sharks, and they crave the scent of blood in the water.” He paused and Fr. McCarthy looked at his friend quietly and was forced by the logic of his comment to agree with him for the umpteenth time. Fr. Polanski continued conspiratorially, leaning forward with both of his elbows on his knees and speaking almost in whispers, “Just so you know, when I dropped you off at the public parking on Congress, I doubled back to the Chancery to find out from Fr. Brady what the Cardinal’s next line of action is going to be.”
“So, what’s next?” Fr. McCarthy asked, with lukewarm curiosity. “What is he going to do next, except wait for Stacy’s advice and the next court date?”
“By the time Stacy gets behind her desk tomorrow morning, the Cardinal will already be on a plane heading for the Vatican,” Fr. Polanski replied matter-of-factly.
“To…” Fr. McCarthy started to say something.
“Yes, to discuss your case with the Holy Father,” Fr. Polanski interjected. “I don’t think you understand the far-reaching impact of your case, Nick. And, by ‘your case’, I don’t mean the allegation of discrimination, but the circumstances of your conception and the validity of your ordination. The Church is going to have no valid canonical reason to annul your ordination because there is no canon impeding a person conceived through IVF from receiving Holy Orders. There may be one impeding anyone who uses or aids and counsels the use of it for conception, but in materia conceptus per fecundationem in vitro, canonici tacet.”
“Which is to say?” Fr. McCarthy inquired, cynically.
“About the product of IVF, canon law is silent,” Fr. Polanski offered the English translation. “On the other hand, the Church is not going to be in a hurry to revise the existing canons or re-write existing Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith documents to accommodate your situation.”
“So, then, what are they going to do? Sacrifice me for the system? The least they can do is work for my acquittal from the charges of discrimination. I don’t care which doctrine they want to write or not write. Defending a doctrine is what got me in this situation in the first place. If I can get out this once, I will not care a jut about doctrines.” Fr. McCarthy was beginning to show signs of cracking under pressure, Fr. Polanski thought.
“Yes, unfortunately,” he replied. “The Church might choose doctrinal cohesion of the system over your plight, sort of letting one man take the plunge for the good of the whole system.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Fr. McCarthy said, starting to rise from his seat. “I have no wish to be Jesus Christ right now. If you don’t mind, I am going in to have a nap.”
“That’s a bit scandalous for an alter Christus, Nick. Thank God nobody is within earshot!”
&n
bsp; “And thank God that you are not Caiaphas, Charlie,” Fr. McCarthy replied, heading for the guest room.
“On the bright side, you are becoming an important figure, Nick,” Fr. Polanski said, somewhat excitedly. “You are rewriting the history of the Church without even knowing it.”
“Would you like to take my place?” Fr. McCarthy turned to inquire from the guest room door.
“Oh, no. We already settled that, Nick,” Fr. Polanski said, shrugging and shaking his head from side to side to buttress his point. “I said, I would give anything not to be you right now.”
“Wake me up at five.” With that Fr. McCarthy disappeared into the guest room and shut the door.
The thing of it was that Fr. McCarthy did not take the nap he went in to take because, of course, he couldn’t sleep. Too much adrenaline was coursing through his veins and boiling his brains to let him savor the peaceful embrace of Morpheus. He did not like it, either, that his friend was chattering flippantly in the hope of brightening up his humor. But he felt that Fr. Polanski was, perhaps, more scared, though not so much about him as about what his case might mean for the Church in the long run. The reproductive technology of IVF was already mainstream medical practice used as a remedy for infertile couples, and more than just a few so-called Christians having difficulty conceiving a child the natural way had embraced it. For those faced with the prospect of having a child of their own, traditional Church arguments about the act being immoral because it involves the separation of the unitive and procreative purposes of the sexual act, or because the child born thereof is a product and not a begotten, were no longer impressive. He wondered what specific harm persons conceived in the glass walls of a test tube would incur that those conceived in the membranous walls of a womb would be spared of. Or, what advantage those conceived normally in utero had over those conceived via IVF, for that matter.
