The Senator and the Priest

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Except you kick with the left foot,” I had said.

  He thought that was very funny.

  I sat uneasily on the edge of my chair. Lobbyists were swarming in the cloakrooms (where cloaks were rarely hung) and in the corridors in search of exemptions for their firms or industries.

  The legislation had two major provisions. All pension funds should be “fully funded” which means that the money had to have been set aside for payment to retirees and not based on hope and expectation. This had been the law for some time, but there were loopholes which enabled companies to create the illusion of adequate funding when in fact it did not exist. The second requirement was that existing pension funds could not be used by companies as hostage in bankruptcy court or in labor negotiations.

  Hat and I agreed that this was legislation that the people of the United States wanted and that it would be very difficult to vote against it if we could ever get it to the floor of the Senate. It was also legislation we wanted our names on. The “McCoy-Moran Act,” he said. “Sounds like some left-foot kicking, Bible-thumping preacher man.” We had labored for ten months to get it on the floor and we would have an “up or down” vote on it before this session ended. We needed a big vote, strong enough to overcome a veto and strong enough that the Senate leadership could not appoint opponents to the conference committee which would work out differences between our bill and the House bill—if the House ever passed a bill.

  We knew the bill would pass, though I was pretty sure it would never become the law of the land until we had at least one Democratic chamber in Congress and a Democratic President.

  We had agreed that Hat would fight off amendments exempting automobile companies from the legislation and I would fight against the airlines. He had done an effective job describing the “Neesaan” factory in his home state that made cars that did not break down and also made money and didn’t have to demand “give backs” from their workers.

  We beat that amendment down with three votes.

  The airline amendment might be even closer.

  I paid little attention to the debate. My big brother was still hassling me. And I was worrying about him. All my life I had sought his approval in everything I did. He was five years older, a “natural leader,” who took care of me against the bullies in grammar school and instructed me how to cope with Fenwick High School. He was truly my “big” brother, a good half-a-foot taller, and a superb athlete while I made a fool out of myself whenever I engaged in competitive sport. Our parents, high-school teachers who married late in life, were often indifferent figures, loving but caught up in their own relationship. Big brother took care of me. I adored him.

  The major disagreement in our life was about Mary Margaret. While we had “hung around” together with our respective gangs in high school, we had become an “item” in our senior year and then as freshmen at Loyola. Tony did not approve of her when he came home from his first summer at the Clementine seminary. She reacted in kind.

  “You should get rid of her, bro. She’s trouble. She flaunts herself.”

  My wife was nothing if not a modest woman. There were strict limits on our affection, much like the old days.

  “She’s part of the O’Malley family. You know what kind of people they are. Her father takes pornographic pictures of women.”

  Ambassador O’Malley is an internationally famed photo artist, who in some Catholic circles is thought to be a man who “takes dirty pictures.” The spirituality Tony was picking up at the seminary—where according to some priests the Vatican Council never happened—was very negative about “smut.”

  Mary Margaret insisted that he didn’t like her because he was afraid of women with strong opinions—which she had at least once every hour—and because she would break his domination over me. Maybe she was right. I also suspected that he might have resented the fact that I had found such a glorious woman and he couldn’t have her. But that’s the way my mind works when I feel cynical. She does radiate powerful sexuality, even when we are estranged as we implicitly were the day of his visit. That might frighten a man who was fighting strongly to keep his celibate promises.

  It was downhill after that. My wife worked on appellate court cases and I did public defender work after we left law school. She made a lot more money than I did, which bothered me not at all. But it offended my brother. He tried to talk her into giving up her career when she became pregnant with Mary Rose. She laughed at him and said he was a male chauvinist living in the wrong century. He stormed out of our apartment. Later he spoke to me on the phone and ordered me to exercise my spousal authority over her. I told him that I didn’t have any.

  He blamed her for the article I wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. It was her fault that I decided to run for the Senate. She was responsible for the strong appeal we made for the votes of Mexican Americans. She was guilty of leading me astray on such issues as abortion, rights of homosexuals, and stem cell research. She was leading me out of the church.

  I listened to his complaints and then made my own decisions. Mary Margaret supported me but the decisions were mine. Tony could never accept that. I really wasn’t tough enough or big enough to make my own decisions.

  “He’s lost his control over you,” she would say, “but he’ll never stop trying.”

  I suppose she was right, but I still hoped that I could win him over.

  A page handed me a note from the cloakroom.

  “Airline lobbyists in news conference in the corridor. Robbie.”

  My good friend Senator Evergreen was babbling about the strength of American capitalism. I slipped across the aisle and showed the note to Hat. He rolled his eyes and nodded. This would be the big fight on the next vote.

  My heart pounded as I walked out to the cloakroom. Robbie made my heart pound and my hands perspire. I was not in love with her, but, as President Jimmy Carter once famously—and improbably—had said, I had lust in my heart for her. She was a recent graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, a fresh young beauty with blond hair, full figure, keen mind, and an aura of shy fragility. She had a crush on me and had hinted, so subtly that one hardly noticed it, that I could have her if I wished.

  Monica Lewinsky she was not.

  But I wasn’t Bill Clinton either. I was a pushover for vulnerable women, though none such had ever hit on me. I knew I should brush her off, but she would burst into tears if I did and I didn’t want to hurt her.

  As my brother would have said I was being tempted. I was in fact putting myself in an occasion of sin.

  I did not think I could ever be unfaithful to Mary Margaret. I still thought that I would not. But I was not as sure as I used to be.

  My wife, as I have said, is a very modest woman. On the other hand she is also a very intense woman. If we do something, she would lecture me and the daughters, we must do it well. Therefore she made up her mind that she would be a sexually attractive wife and bent all her efforts in that direction with considerable success. The blend of modesty and intensity was what made her sexy. I think. What do I know?

  Tall, slender, with a flawless complexion and flaming red hair, trim with a moderately voluptuous figure, she had dazzled me as far back as I can remember. I will never forget the dance at the parish high club when we were both freshmen. She walked up to me, considered me quizzically, took me into her arms for a dance—my resistance melted immediately—and whispered in my ear, “You’re cute Tommy Moran, I think I like you.”

  CHAPTER 3

  DURING OUR first January in Washington, while we were settling into our home in Georgetown (rented to us for a hundred dollars a year by Ambassador O’Malley), introducing our daughters into Gonzaga Prep and the Ursuline Academy, and trying to figure out what the day-to-day operations of the Senate were, a very prominent Beltway power broker and his very decorative wife invited us to supper, perhaps to discover what the young populist from Chicago was really like. A couple of reporters were present, an editor, the German ambassador, the DCM
from the Spanish embassy, a columnist from The New York Times, a senior Republican Senator. Dinner jackets recommended.

  Big deal for two novices from the Prairie State. At first the harmless little Senator did not garner much attention, as usual a moon-like satellite, reflecting the radiance of his spouse in her white-gold dress with her pale shoulders accented by thin, mostly symbolic, straps, her fiery hair fashioned into a glittering crown, her smile illuminating the silverware and the china and the linen and her contagious laughter enchanting everyone—an elegant woman in an elegant setting. The guests of both genders could not take their eyes off her. Kathleen Ni Houlihan, Maeve the Magnificent, Erihu the goddess. My own imagination was awash in fantasies of what I would do with her when we returned to our bedroom. I had even whispered a gross suggestion into her ear as I helped her off with her wrap. She blushed and smiled.

  She spoke to the German diplomat in German, mentioning that as a very little girl, the Old One (as Chancellor Conrad Adenauer was called) had praised her German. She apologized to the Spanish diplomat for her Mexican accent and answered with graceful charm all the questions addressed to her. Yes, the children were in Gonzaga Prep and the Ursuline Academy and loved it in Washington, but they were adventurers who adjusted easily to change. Yes, she would be doing appellate work for Brown, Berger, Bobbet, and Butts. Yes, she had met some of the Senatorial wives and they had been very sweet, even the Republicans. No, she would not define herself as a Christian, only as an Irish Catholic from the West Side of Chicago. Yes, it was true that the family had two Spanish days a week; even the Senator was becoming more fluent in the language. Yes, the Georgetown neighborhood seemed to be a lovely place to live, though not as picturesque as River Forest, Illinois. Yes, her name was Mary Margaret, contracted to Marymarg, but only by her parents, her siblings, her children, and her husband—but in his case only at certain approved times.

  There was uneasy laughter at that last remark in the sex-drenched atmosphere around the dinner table which she had created all by herself.

  Finally, half-way through the dinner, they turned to the silent Senator.

  What reforms, the Timesman asked, did I plan for the Senate?

  Easier to reform the Catholic Church.

  But are you not in favor of the abolition of attack ads in political campaigns?

  Only of voluntary abstinence.

  Your campaign proved, did it not, that a candidate can win an election with little fund-raising and not attack ads?

  It proved that in one time and one place a candidate did not need to vilify his opponent to win an election.

  The reelection could be more difficult, the editor observed, might it not, especially with Senator Crispjin already in the running with the support of the Examiner and the money of the Roads family behind him?

  Six years is a long time.

  Office holders, our host said, have a hard time regaining a position that they have lost.

  Grover Cleveland being a notable exception. To be candid—and one should never trust a politician when he uses that word—we have made no decision about running again. We’ll have to see what happens.

  An editorial we?

  Not at all.

  What’s your next book about, The man from the Times asked.

  Political trials.

  What?

  The constant abuse of power by federal prosecutors. Using frightened subordinates to rat out the target, often suborning perjury in the process. Destroying careers by bankrupting defendants with legal fees, using the publicity of their show trials to seek public office, charging perjury against anyone who deceives a federal officer—with nothing like a Miranda warning.

  There was dead silence around the room.

  Those tactics could be used against anyone in this room. As Martha Stewart or Governor George Ryan proved.

  Will you be a Senate maverick, the anchor woman wondered, or will you go along to get along?

  We Chicago Irish are genetically programmed to work within systems, to value coalition and compromise, to aim for achievable goals, not perfection. Politics is the art of the possible. I hope to work hard to win the confidence of my new colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

  You could be a very dangerous man, said the Republican Senator with a smile.

  I hope so, Senator.

  You can’t imagine, Senator, my wife said. Beware the harmless little Irishman with the quick tongue and a charming smile.

  Especially, I added, if his wife is a red-haired Celtic goddess.

  We creamed them, she said later, as she clung to me on the walk down the street to our house, a pose of vulnerability which she had assumed when we thanked our host and hostess.

  And I’m going to cream you as soon as we get to the bedroom.

  I hope you’re able to wait that long.

  CHAPTER 4

  AS THE debate on Pension reform dragged on four years later, I continued to ponder my brother. He was certainly aware of the good notices I was earning in the national media and in the cautious Chicago Daily News, even if the Examiner polls showed H. Rodgers Crispjin running against me in the election a year and a half away. At the cost of enormous effort and strain I had become an effective Senator as I had promised that night at the first of many Georgetown dinners. I had many friends on both sides of the aisle, did my homework, counted votes, arranged compromises with which people could live, attended meetings, did not grandstand nor hog the TV camera. I was, as the Daily News had said, a quiet and influential member of the Senate who paid his own air fare on the few junkets he made.

  I had even remained faithful to my wife in the house of ill repute which the Senate often seemed to be—people coupling in closets, bathrooms, cubbyholes, anterooms, and especially in the small and discreet “hideaways” which some of us had just outside the senate chamber. They were supposed to be refuges of peace and quiet to which a Senator could retreat from the floor during a debate to read and think and pray perhaps for a few quiet moments, away from the hubbub of debate. I had one such hideaway now in virtue of my position as minority whip—assistant minority whip.

  I used the hideaway rarely and forbade my staff ever to bother me there. I did not want Robbie slipping into it when I was unprepared.

  I remembered the romp Marymarg and I enjoyed the night we had returned from that first Georgetown party. Nothing like that for a long time. No way could Robbie ever compete with her as a bed mate. If only …

  I had paid a heavy price, both of us had, for my becoming an effective Senator. So had all our family.

  I would never persuade my brother that I had played successfully with “the big guys” and indeed had won the occasional victory in the process. In his world view I had not “stood up” for my Catholic principles on the floor of the Senate. I had not denounced abortion, stem cell research, and homosexuality. I had not made them my basic issues. Instead I had concentrated on small issues like the protection of the pensions of workers, the property of ordinary folks which local governments wanted to condemn so they could build supermarkets with big block stores, the rape of women cadets at the service academy, the protection of the rights of immigrants. For Tony these were trivial issues. They were not for the people who were the victims, as I had tried to explain to him many times.

  Our first Sunday in Washington we had gone en famille to the local parish Church. I suppose the four redheads were a give away. During the homily the pastor denounced Catholic politicians who did not sacrifice their careers for their principles.

  “I think he knows we’re here, Daddy,” Mary Rose had whispered, a stage whisper, the only kind our exuberant daughter would attempt.

  He certainly did. At Communion time he passed ostentatiously by all five of us at the rail—though the four redheads were hardly offending Catholic politicians. We promptly marched out of the Church, followed by at least a third of the congregation.

  The Jesuit who greeted us at the entrance of the Georgetown chapel for the afternoon Mass assured u
s that we were “most welcome.”

  And then he added that the Monsignor was an absolute asshole.

  CNN was waiting for us after Mass.

  “The Jesuits let you into the Church, Senator?”

  “They said we were most welcome.”

  “Were you aware that the Monsignor has been fighting this issue with his parishioners for a long time?”

  “We’re new kids in town. I must say that I am astonished that the Monsignor would deny the Sacrament to my wife and children too. That violates the Code of Canon Law.”

  “Why is the Church refusing the Eucharist to Catholic politicians?

  “Only to Democrats,” I said, “and only a few priests and ambitious bishops.”

  “But why?”

  “I suspect that it is a way to persuade themselves that they are regaining the power they lost because of the sexual abuse mess.”

  “Isn’t that counterproductive?”

  “I would think so.”

  My three daughters all are gorgeous young women with red hair, like their mother, but they are not really clones, though you would know at first glance that they are sisters and, if Marymarg were present, she was their mother.

  Mary Rose (also sometimes Maryro) is the oldest. She is tall, brilliant, and self-possessed. She doesn’t so much argue with us as tell us when and where we are wrong. She is a power forward on the Gonzaga basketball team and very dangerous. She is authoritative rather than bossy and shares her mother’s intensity, but is much more serious than Marymarg. She is as prone to tears, however, as her mother. When we stalked out of the church, she led the way, her head proudly in the air, like she was thinking of shaking the dust of the place from her feet.

  Mary Ann (Maran) is our resident little mystic, quiet, reflective. Often seems to be in another world. Very sensitive to her parent’s emotions. Sweet and sympathetic. She wept when we were denied the Eucharist.