Prince of Peace

by James Carroll

  Abruptly, with no further comment, he turned and descended the pulpit and resumed his chair in the sanctuary. After a moment a bearded man robed in white and wearing a purple stole walked from behind the carved choir stalls up the length of the Choir. He bowed at the altar as he crossed in front of it, then walked to the pulpit and mounted it.

  The beard threw me. He looked like an English actor. But when I heard his voice as he blessed himself and pronounced the sign of the cross, I wanted to cry out with joy for the sight of him. The old son of a bitch! My dearest friend!

  Carolyn seized my hand and squeezed it. As we listened to him, I knew that I would never forget what he said.

  He recited first this verse from Luke: "And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it saying, 'Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace.'"

  He paused. He seemed to look at each of us in the congregation singly.

  "My dear friends," he said softly, "a brief word about the things that make for peace. There are three, Faith, Hope and Love. Faith is the easiest of these because it is an act of God's, not ours. The question is not whether we believe in Him, but whether He believes in us. And we have the absolute promise—the Flesh of His Son—that He does. God is the Faithful One. He is faithful even to us. Therefore we can, as Paul says, move mountains. We can even, perhaps, end wars.

  "And Hope. Hope is the ability to see more than is before our eyes. We look at all the damned of this century, a hundred million killed needlessly in war, and know that we have turned the earth itself into the village of My Lai. Yet instead of seeing mere victims, reasons to hate the living, Hope sees in that host of war-dead a Communion of Saints who even now prepare to swoop down on us and seize us and shake us from our complacency. Live! they say. Stand! they say. Be what you are, creators of the future with God! Despair is the conviction that we can do nothing to end the war. And that is the last sin, the most costly sin. It dooms not just the one who commits it, but, in this century, the fragile world itself. In Hope, therefore, we tear that despair from our bosoms, our stony hearts, and we hurl it at heaven, crying to all those men, women and children, the victims of our recent history, 'Come you holy spirits! Renew the face of the earth!'

  "And Love. Love, as Dorothy Day insists, is a harsh and dreadful thing. It is not romance or infatuation or an ocean of warm feelings. Love is radical communion with all those who have been forgotten or condemned or brutally massacred. Love, in our dispensation, is a crucifixion. How can we end the war? We have been told and told again. Each of us in his or her own way must take up the Cross and follow. Its road leads outside the city, away from comfort and security and the nurture of those who cherish us. The Cross, remember, puts us in the company of criminals, of fugitives, of those on whom presidents and generals, tribunes and centurians only spit. We have never been in better company in our lives.

  "Faith, Hope and Love. The things that make for peace. And the greatest of these, Paul wrote, is Love. It was the discovery he made while in prison. With chained hands Paul wrote his messages—his love letters—to those who sustained him, who held him dear. They feared for him. But he said, 'No! Do not be afraid! Do not lose faith! Do not despair! Work for peace! We have the promises of Christ! We have His Word! The presidents and generals, the principalities and powers pursue me and will imprison me. But they can never imprison the Word of the Lord!'"

  Michael turned in the pulpit toward me, and his eyes found mine. It was the first indication that he knew I was there. His sermon until this point had been delivered in a quiet voice, but his voice rose now as he ringingly repeated the last sentence. "They can never imprison the Word of the Lord!" He raised his hand to his mouth. I thought he was going to bless himself, but instead he touched his finger to his lips, a kiss, and then he threw it to us, to Carolyn and to me. And he turned, went down from the pulpit, and was gone.

  There was silence for a moment and then the congregation burst into muted but amazed conversation. "My God," someone behind us said, "that was Father Maguire!" He said it in the awed tone of the cow-town barber: "That was the Lone Ranger!"

  Carolyn leaned against me. I felt how drained she was. We clung to each other. I loved her more than ever. Michael—I could admit this at last—was what bound us.

  After the Creed Dean Evans knelt and led us in prayer. He prayed for peace, and he prayed for "Our dear brother Michael. Carry him, O Lord, in the palm of Thy hand. Protect him from violent men. And open the ears of all who hear him. And open our hearts, that we too might be instruments of Thy Peace. We pray in the name of Christ."

  "Amen," the people answered resoundingly.

  By the time the offertory hymn was finished and the wine and bread were prepared, FBI agents had arrived. The congregation had not been unanimously edified after all.

  The agents, eight that I counted, walked along the side aisles eyeing us sheepishly. Their hair was close-cropped and they carried their hats in their hands. They were ill at ease and for good reason; they were Catholics. You could feel them itching to genuflect. How strange their business must have seemed to them suddenly. How they'd have preferred to raid a gambling den or a chop-shop. How bizarre that setting must have seemed to them, the Roman liturgy, the Gothic church, the incense, candles, holy water, vestments. Were these Protestants or not? And was their quarry a criminal or a saint? Why weren't such distinctions sharp like they used to be?

  I wanted to call out to them, "Sorry, G-Men! You missed him again!"

  But all at once I felt sorry for them.

  At the Sanctus we said with one voice, and it seemed to me defiantly, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

  Carolyn and I wanted to meet Dean Evans and thank him, so we went to the coffee hour at the Cathedral House, a Gothic château on the south side of the cathedral compound. The reception was in a splendid room with a gnarled timber ceiling and huge leaded windows and rare carpets on the floor. I was told that originally it was the bishop's house, and when someone faulted it for being too elegant, J. P. Morgan, a trustee, defended it by saying, "Bishops should live like everyone else."

  Dean Evans greeted us cordially and introduced us to his handsome, confident wife. To them we were just two of several hundred worshipers. I wanted them to know we had come expressly to hear Michael. I said, "We're friends of Father Maguire. We're Catholics." In another context that would have been a stupid identification, an offensive one, but in that context it was exactly right. The Episcopal dean knew what I was saying. At his ordination Michael had given my faith in God back to me, and now, after a decade in which such distinctions had been blurred, he'd given me back my affiliation. For the first time since my days as a Good Shepherd altar boy, I could take pride in calling myself a Catholic.

  "He is the jewel of the Church," the dean said. "I'm glad that you were here."

  "Will you be in jeopardy now?" Carolyn asked.

  "I hope so."

  The dean's wife put her arm through her husband's. "Father Maguire has changed things here," she said.

  The dean smiled. "She means he's changed some sheep into lions. It was people like us who began this war. Well, maybe it's time people like us ended it."

  Their sense of themselves, so large, though not precisely arrogant—we start, we finish—was what struck me. It wouldn't have occurred to my people to feel responsible for Vietnam, though given its peculiarly Catholic origins, we should have. But in Good Shepherd High School in all its incarnations we learned to feel responsible only for our sex-weakened souls if at all. At Groton, Exeter, Saint Paul's and Choate, which indeed spawned the National Security Clique who ran the war, they were taught to feel responsible for the world. The dean was right. And so was Michael to go after him and his kind. Turn them against the Vietnam war, mobilize their anger, unstop their impotence and you will have more than torn draft files and burned cards, more than riots in the streets, more than teach-ins and demonstrations. You will have peace.

  "Smug, aren't they?"
I said to Carolyn as we left. I couldn't quite stifle my inborn Irish resentment.

  She shook her head. "I wish Michael got support like that from his own people."

  "His own people are chasing him."

  We went out into the raw day and were crossing the broad garden, "the Cathedral Close," that was enclosed on one side by the imposing Synod House, yet another Gothic masterpiece, and on the other by the buttressed flank of the cathedral itself. As we walked toward Amsterdam Avenue we had to lean into the wind. It was Lenten weather. I hated it.

  At the towering monument in the center of the Close, the platform crowned by the classic spire, Carolyn stopped. "What is that?"

  It was the elaborate pulpit, the focus of the outdoor services that had been common before the nave was built, but I teased her. "It's the topmost spire of the Underground Church."

  She laughed and opened her arms. I went into them. "Oh, Frank, let's not go home. Let's spend the afternoon together."

  "I'd love that. We could ride the ferry like we used to and then get plowed at Desmond's."

  "Yes, that's it! Let's!" Her face broke into a smile. "I'd love that. I'll go call Emily and see if she'll stay with Molly through the afternoon."

  "I'll wait here," I said. I was glad to have left the Cathedral House crowd behind. I watched Carolyn retrace our steps. She was wearing a dark sheepskin coat and boots. She looked like a Russian princess. I felt a surge of affection for her. How her impulse pleased me!

  "Mister Durkin?" A familiar man approached from the direction of the Synod House. He was wearing a dark overcoat and hat and as he drew near I saw him reach into his inside pocket. I knew even before he flashed it at me that he was pulling out his badge. "I'm Special Agent Finnegan, the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

  "I remember you. You were at Father Maguire's trial."

  "Yes."

  "You testified."

  "That's right."

  "You were the agent in charge."

  "I'm not wild about our work right now, Mister Durkin. I gather you're not either."

  "That's right."

  "Can we talk for a minute?"

  "I'm just waiting for my wife."

  "She's a pretty lady."

  "Thank you."

  "Look, Father Maguire is not doing himself any good this way. They're going to throw the book at him, you know."

  "Someone has to catch him first, don't they?"

  "Oh, we'll catch him."

  "People are beginning to wonder, Mister Finnegan. How do you fellows do against Russians or the Mafia if this is how you do against a priest?"

  "A priest has certain advantages. Especially if he's right."

  "You think he's right?"

  "About the war? Yes."

  "I find that surprising, frankly."

  "We're not numbskulls, you know. Who supports the war at this point? The question is how to end it. I think Father Maguire is keeping it going. Why should the NLF negotiate seriously if they think the U.S. is about to fold?"

  "Wait a minute, I thought you said he's right?"

  "His ends are right. Not his means."

  "A nice Jesuit's distinction. Where'd you go, Fordham?"

  "Georgetown."

  "You should have heard his sermon. Even the rich old ladies were very moved."

  "Where is he now, Mister Durkin?"

  "You come right to the point, don't you?"

  "You're his oldest friend. Obviously you knew ahead of time he would be here. Or do you always come here on Sundays?"

  "Sometimes. It brings back memories of the Tridentine Mass, you know? They have everything but sixteenth-century underwear."

  "I thought you might see things a little more reasonably than he does. I thought you might help us for his sake."

  "Father Maguire's welfare is your main concern, I guess, huh?"

  "Obviously not. But I do think the man is hurting himself."

  "I'm not interested in discussing this with you further, Mister Finnegan. I simply can't help you." I saw Carolyn coming out of the Cathedral House toward us.

  "Do you know where he is?"

  "No. Obviously he'd be a fool to let me know. Your boys have me in their sights all the time."

  "Except when you shake them in the subway. On that count alone I could take you downtown, you know."

  "Feel free."

  The agent stared at me. I read his disdain all too easily. What contempt he had for the likes of me! He made me feel guilty, but how could I have explained to him that my true crime till then had been good citizenship?

  "I'm going to come back to see you, Mister Durkin. No one will know but you and me." He glanced toward Carolyn and stepped back, blocking her view of himself with a shrub. "And until I do I want to leave you with something to think about." He paused. Was he waiting for me to ask what? I said nothing. He looked toward Carolyn again and withdrew farther. "Your lovely wife," he said, "and your oldest friend, the famous Father Maguire—they've been fucking their heads off together for years."

  "Who was that?" she asked.

  I was so relieved to turn toward her, to bathe my eyes in the sight of her. The agent's words had jolted me, but not in the crude way he wanted. I saw his ruse for what it was. He was a desperate man, and with reason. Michael had made him the Bureau buffoon. Obviously Finnegan would try anything now.

  But without intending to he'd just done me an enormous favor. He'd put my oldest, worst, fear into words and I was grateful to him because I saw at once, at last, it was impossible. Impossible.

  "A derelict," I said, hugging her. "A bum who wanted a handout. Churchyards are full of them."

  THIRTY

  ARCHBISHOP O'Shea put his sherry glass down with a definitive flourish. In his view our conversation had ended and it remained only for him to shepherd me as gracefully as he could, given the spilled acid between us, toward the door.

  But I refused to move. I was staring into the amber liquid of my own glass, and I saw in its swirl the miniature of my face. A pathetic figure, mine. Why did I feel more strongly than ever the need to win him over? Why did I want so desperately to prolong our talk? He was right; it was pointless. His position, the position of the Church, was clear and fixed. And mine? I was a child having crawled back to be domineered again. I wanted the approval of my rigid father, the worship of my unforgiving mother. And it was not for Michael I craved these goodies, or for Carolyn, but for myself.

  "Archbishop," I said carefully, "if Michael Maguire cannot be buried in the Church, is there leeway for some other solution? Another gesture?"

  "Like what?"

  "I thought perhaps you'd want to come to the service. Perhaps you'd offer a prayer."

  He shook his head.

  Suddenly a vision of what Michael's funeral would look like filled my head: that vast, dark cathedral and, lost in its shadows, the scrawny company of mourners. Who would be there? A few dozen neighbors, the parents of his children's friends, a handful of co-workers. But more evident than who was there would be who was not. Even a hundred in attendance would seem like no one, and the empty chairs of the mammoth church would stand like rebuking ghosts.

  As altar boys Michael and I had served at countless funerals at Good Shepherd. We vied for funerals for unworthy reasons—to miss morning classes, to earn the dollar tip, to ride in the priest's limo out to the cemetery in the Bronx—but also because in that parish nothing edified, nothing affirmed, nothing made us cherish who we were more than that large demonstration of loyalty and loss. Perhaps because the Irish are emotionally inhibited, particularly when it comes to the expression of simple affection, they respond to funerals compulsively, as a last, though often first, opportunity to stand with a friend as a friend. Funerals in Good Shepherd were jammed, and the numbers—not the liturgy, not the eulogy, not the holy water or the benediction, just the numbers—were what we cared about. And we, imagining our own funerals, knew that one day the aisles would be crowded with our cronies too. They would be weeping by the h
undreds. They would be clutching rosaries. They would be passing hats for our wives and children. Their multitude would represent the finest achievement of our lives, that we had accumulated such abundant love. This dream was one of many we had before we realized to our horror and then relief—or was it the other way around?—that Good Shepherd Parish had everything a man could want: comely wives, cozy taverns, rent control, ball fields and cheap transport to the job; everything but oxygen. When we left Inwood our parents were crushed and their friends regarded us as traitors and the guys in the bars swore that we'd be sorry. And now, finally, I was.

  I put my glass by his and stood. He stood. When our eyes met I realized I did not remotely understand him. Despite myself I pressed, "There is one other question, Archbishop."

  He blinked at me.

  "I'm thinking of Korea. You were on a hill waiting for the enemy to come and kill you. Michael stopped them. He saved your life at a huge cost to himself. Did you ever pay him back for that?"

  "No. Once I thought he was asking me to, but he never really did."

  I shook my head. "Archbishop, he did just now."

  For a moment it seemed he was going to respond, but he did not. I imagined him standing in the hatchway of that helicopter firing an officer's sidearm down at the Chinese soldiers, a killer priest. It was impossible to tell now what if anything he felt, and it seemed ludicrous to me that earlier I had found something in this man to pity. But now the secret in this iciness, in this absolute rejection, revealed itself, and at last I understood. "How he must have hurt you."

  A moment later I was on the steaming street.