Three Cheers for the Paraclete

by Thomas Keneally

  ‘You should have worn your overcoat, James,’ the prelate told Maitland.

  ‘I left my overcoat in England, Your Grace. I’d forgotten we had winter here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Boyle. ‘On nights like this in Europe you remember only the sunshine.’

  ‘True,’ decided His Grace, laying the word like a paving-stone on that particular subject. ‘James, Des and I need your help. You would have heard that Des’s organization has become involved in a running fight over a book you may have read.’

  On the word book, Boyle lifted Maitland’s paperback onto the table. The discretion of his hands and of his lowered eyes allowed His Grace to speak on.

  ‘The wisdom of starting the fight in the first place may have been questioned, but starting it wasn’t Des’s doing.’ Des straightened the lie of the paperback in an acutely acquiescent manner. ‘As I said to you on Sunday, James, the other side seems to presume they have all the enlightenment on their side and, as you probably know, I usually dissuade priests from writing to the secular press. So the Knights have felt rather on their own.’

  It behoved the president of the Knights to smile painfully on one side of his face, the smile fading to a businesslike grimace as he tabled a manila folder beside the book.

  The archbishop went on, ‘I’d be most grateful if you read this book, James, and then said your say about it in a magazine article or letter-to-the-editor. I should have mentioned this to you on Sunday, except that at that stage it hadn’t occurred to me how desirable it would be to have you take a hand. I’ve had my secretary reading it and getting a précis ready for me, but neither he nor I myself is what you’d call a historian.’

  ‘The controversy is still alive,’ Boyle explained. ‘I know for a fact that if Forum, for example, knew that you wanted to put the Catholic scholar’s viewpoint …’

  Maitland said throatily and without hope, ‘I see. But I thought Quinlan claimed to be a Catholic, and as for scholarship, the book has been taken seriously in scholarly circles.’

  ‘Unfortunately there are Catholics and Catholics these days, James.’ His Grace began to fondle his episcopal ring, as all bishops ultimately do in conversation, displaying thereby a habit of status. ‘And there are scholars and scholars, I suppose. No, I won’t say that I suppose anything. I know, it’s a simple fact, that there are Catholic scholars, to be found close even to some of the Princes of the Church, who would make any real Catholic’s blood creep. So would Quinlan, apparently.’

  ‘He attacks all the Popes, Dr Maitland,’ Boyle explained. ‘He attacks Pius the Ninth in particular, whose reign was one of the richest in the history of the Church. And one of the most heroic, too.’

  Maitland began to suspect Boyle of belonging to the species terrible Catholic, but would have to wait for him to call Pius ‘a prisoner in the Vatican’ to be sure. Akin to the Knight was the chinoiserie bookcase beyond, made to be stocked with belles-lettres, loaded instead with the awful vellum-bound certainties of theologians whose names had peppered the textbooks when Maitland was a student. Both Boyle and the bookcase could be seen with the one glance, and the same unease derived from each.

  ‘I thought Quinlan merely pointed to the place these men, Pius in particular, held in the history of modern religion,’ Maitland suggested.

  ‘You’ve read the book, James?’ His Grace asked.

  If you can get this crusader out of the room, Maitland thought, it will be time to tell you I wrote the thing.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ he admitted, but turned to Boyle, who had brought a businessman’s tenacity to the meeting-table and would not easily be beguiled into leaving. ‘You must remember, Mr Boyle, that Quinlan is not passing judgment on Catholic dogma, only on the performances of some of the Popes. Now this is something all of us, preferably after some study, are free to do. In many ways, it’s healthier that we should do it – like a body that heals itself rather than wait for the doctor.’

  Boyle said evenly, ‘Pius the Ninth was responsible for defining the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In his reign Our Lady appeared at Lourdes and the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was proclaimed a dogma. The Pope became a prisoner in the Vatican but turned his loss into a triumph.’

  ‘Quinlan attacks none of this. He does say, I think, that the definition of Papal Infallibility was a misguided tactic, but he doesn’t deny the dogma itself. He certainly doesn’t mention Lourdes.’

  ‘Des’s point surely is, James,’ His Grace mediated, ‘that no Catholic could possibly be right in passing a generally unfavourable judgment on a man who had given such great doctrines to the Church.’

  ‘I think,’ Boyle decided, ‘he could have mentioned that Pius was responsible for that much.’

  From the way the man said it, lightly, with deference to the clergy, you could tell that he believed His Grace and Maitland would think so too. Maitland was too brusque in disillusioning him.

  ‘He could have mentioned too that while Pius was a pure and reverent man, he had an unordained Cardinal-secretary with enough illegitimate children to fill an orphanage. But he doesn’t write this down because it doesn’t apply. He isn’t writing either a theology book or a scandalous biography.’

  His Grace frowned and continued to finger his ring like a ritual sore. Beneath the ruby lay a supposed fragment of the supposed true Cross found by Constantine’s mother seventeen hundred years before in a Jerusalem cellar. Regaining balance, Maitland thought that it was not easy to be a Catholic.

  ‘Could you possibly help us in the way His Grace suggests?’ Boyle asked, politely enough to cause Maitland remorse. ‘When I ask this, I’m thinking of the part the Knights play in charity, a part that is crucial to philanthropy in this country. We cannot afford a bad name, even in regard to this Quinlan’s book.’

  The Knight dropped the pseudonym as discreetly as a sociologist uttering other people’s graffiti in the name of science; and Maitland wanted to be angry again. He was distracted by the hymn from night devotions emerging from the cathedral and muted by the wind out of doors. The emulsive tune repeated itself sharply in his stomach and, like the bookcase, whetted his improper annoyance at Boyle. The Knight had none the less committed no sin other than calling Pius IX ‘a prisoner in the Vatican’ and being secure in the faith – having the security, that is, of being utterly secure. Which was another thing from having the security of being utterly insecure but not caring.

  Between both these havens but belonging to neither sat Dr Maitland, saying tentatively, ‘The point is that Quinlan didn’t write his book for the general public. Within the sphere of history – of which I know very little in any case – but within that sphere, his conclusions seem fairly valid and certainly not in bad taste. All I can do is say that as far as I know the book is not poisonous and that if it was ever meant to cause a furore, which I doubt, it was intended to produce it in academic circles, where it created none. The one sort of furore a serious book doesn’t want to produce is a hoo-hah in the popular press.’

  His Grace said ruggedly, ‘This is beginning to look very like a knock-back, James.’

  And Boyle lowered his eyes, as if not to intrude on the prelate’s disappointment.

  Maitland gazed full ahead. ‘It’s no great book, but I find myself in general agreement with it.’ He sat forward, sighing with tact. ‘I’m very grateful for the opportunity of taking to print. But I’d only bring ridicule on our side by attacking without believing in the attack.’

  All the time he had been speaking largely in Boyle’s direction, in hope of clearing him from the room. But the layman, not presuming Maitland’s concern, now sat withdrawn though not idle. The contents of the manila folder were being scanned. Meanwhile, some nod good as a wink from within but of unknown source seemed to tell Maitland that it might not necessarily be the best thing for His Grace and other parties to be told who Quinlan was. He wished for time to examine the bona fides of this tip, but found that Boyle was quoting from the folder.

  ‘
“Pope Pius the Ninth confirmed the spirit of stagnation that dominated the corridors of the Vatican for the greater part of the next hundred years,”’ the man read. ‘Any Catholic is surely on safe ground protesting against that sort of thing.’

  His Grace, very straight and chin up, the zucchetto riding his scalp as if it had been there from birth, frowned even more and needed to be answered.

  ‘Your Grace,’ Maitland began, ‘the idea could be more happily put, but the sentence Mr Boyle has taken the trouble of reading comes from a section where he – Quinlan – complains that the Church has tended to look on truth as something static and unchangeable both at the divine end of things and at ours. I believe there’s a document of John Twenty-third’s which warns against this very tendency. I agree the use of the word “stagnant” is a little emotive, but –’

  ‘You can’t see your way clear to write this article, James?’

  ‘No, Your Grace.’

  His Grace nodded like a gentleman.

  ‘It would do nobody any benefit,’ Maitland amplified.

  ‘But Dr Maitland,’ Boyle said, ‘what benefit will this do?’ And he began to read some more Quinlan, for, though neither a fool nor arrogant, he had simply never met a priest who let a Pontiff be impugned.

  ‘“While truth itself remains constant, the human perception of truth must grow and change or else become a cipher. The Church was sure that it had the great fish Truth firmly held for all time in a mesh of theological formulae, that neither the fish nor the net would ever grow and change, or appear to grow and change. That being so, it enforced on its subjects the study of the strands of the net as the only safe way of holding the fish. And the fish was, ultimately, God.” That struck me as rather a sacrilegious figure of speech. However … “As the Church’s primary system of thought calcified, God became more and more rationalized, more and more finite, more and more only a part of a supernatural cosmos. The movement known as modernism was an attempt –”, and so on. The rest is in praise of the modernist heretics of the late nineteenth century. Enough said.’

  In the silence all three held, a last dribble of organ music stirred beyond the window, which was St Sebastian prickling with praetorian arrows. The sound and the stained glass spoke of the happy days when right stood out as sharply as the stuck limbs of the martyr, when all the clergy were tediously orthodox, when minds roamed free of the influence of mass media, and none of the vagrants who knocked at presbytery kitchens had heard of Marx.

  ‘He writes very strongly,’ Maitland admitted, a little amazed despite himself. ‘All young men write vigorously and overstate their case.’

  ‘He’s a young man, is he?’ His Grace asked, not altogether with sympathy.

  Boyle went hunting for a potted biography at the rear of the paperback.

  ‘It doesn’t say anything here, I don’t think.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a young man,’ Maitland insisted. ‘A person can tell from the style. Besides, the idea isn’t original. It’s surely stolen from Tillich, the theologian.’

  ‘Tillich,’ the prelate wondered. ‘I’m not familiar …’

  ‘He’s a Protestant, Your Grace.’

  ‘My God. Oh well, the world’s opening up, I suppose.’ His Grace suddenly went sour at the corners of the mouth. ‘Come on, Dr Maitland, surely you can help. Catholics are Catholics, all of one mind. Des and I are Catholics and we ask you, a Catholic, for assistance. Surely that’s easily enough given. I could demand it, you know.’

  Now if he did, a voice that was wisdom or sense or fraud told Maitland, a clean breast would be the only possibility. But he’s too genial for it to come to that.

  ‘I know, Your Grace,’ Maitland said.

  Boyle announced softly, ‘I can’t help but admit it’s a disappointment.’

  ‘We must all bear our crosses,’ said Maitland, incipient irony having, as yet, merely made him paler than usual.

  But Boyle was provoked back to his notes, finding it hard to believe that Maitland was properly informed on Quinlan’s full range of malice. ‘“Whilever the Church – ”,’ he read.

  ‘Mr Boyle,’ Maitland called to him, ‘if you continue to attempt to embarrass me in front of His Grace, I’m sure to lose my temper.’

  ‘James, there’s no need …’ said the archbishop.

  With a small chirping noise of regret, Boyle tidied the pages and cocked an eye at the top of page one. Then he closed the folder and placed the book on top. The front cover creaked open and revealed paragraphs underlined in red and marked with symbols, each symbol meaning a distinct grade of heresy.

  ‘I mustn’t keep you, Your Grace. I think that’s all we wanted to discuss.’

  ‘We’ll have to let the matter lie, Des. I suppose we can’t win all the arguments.’

  But Maitland was damned if he was going to be shamed, though his hands trembled slightly.

  ‘May I say, Your Grace, that if we persist in starting the wrong arguments, we’ll never win any.’

  The ringed hand bunched itself. ‘Come now, James, you mustn’t expect men of good faith not to protest when they see need of it.’

  ‘I don’t want to seem arrogant, Your Grace, but it’s possible that Quinlan is a man of good faith protesting where he sees need of it.’

  ‘Without ecclesiastical permission?’ asked His Grace, and Maitland shook his head and hung it. ‘Could you stay a moment, James?’

  Slowly and as if coerced to it, Boyle was drawing on a thick overcoat. As he buttoned it, both the archbishop and Maitland rose, and he genuflected and cursorily bussed the ring. As president of the Knights, he was accustomed to this exercise.

  ‘Des,’ His Grace told him, ‘you know how much I respect and value the support of the Knights. As I say, though, perhaps we must let the fight die out now.’

  ‘Nothing else for it, Your Grace,’ Boyle said, rising.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t help,’ Maitland told them both.

  ‘It’s no good unless your heart is in it, Dr Maitland,’ the layman announced, and seemed to imply a fault of the heart.

  ‘That’s right,’ a very bluff Maitland agreed.

  ‘You mustn’t think that the Knights would carry any sort of spite or that you wouldn’t be as free as any other priest to ask our help if it were ever needed.’

  ‘I always presumed they didn’t carry spite, especially without cause.’

  His Grace confessed, perhaps not guileless but at least attempting to seem so, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without them. And what is most blessed about them, they don’t let their right hand know what their left is doing.’

  It would have been perilously easy to say that if the left were writing unauthorized letters-to-editors, the right had better make a point of knowing.

  So Boyle left, giving Maitland the minimum farewell a Knight could in honour give a priest. Maitland preceded him down the room and held the door open for him. Passing through, Boyle left behind a carping breath of Californian Poppy.

  ‘Are you over your peevishness?’ His Grace called down the length of the table.

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace. But it’s not the Knights’ business.’

  ‘Who says so?’ His Grace seemed jaunty, but wanted answers and reassurances. ‘What sort of stuff do you teach the students, James?’

  ‘Simply history, Your Grace,’ Maitland told him, thinking in cowardice but perhaps also in wisdom that if the book remained an issue, a fortnight’s time would be time enough to confess; that if the issue died, wasn’t he entitled to keep his one wild oat secret to himself?

  ‘Church history,’ His Grace amended.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, the Church can stand up to its own past and beside the pasts of other bodies politic.’

  ‘I suppose so. But be careful.’

  Frowning, the prelate shrugged and rang for supper, rang with a bell-pull plaited from wool in all the liturgical colours. In the long distempered room, near the wide fireplace
, gobs of light from the chandelier resting with the tranquillity of drowned moons on the habitually polished table, he looked like the Bishop of Artois or Autun on a cold night in a Balzac novel. It begged an act of faith to believe that beyond St Sebastian’s window acquisitive fires of neon splashed the avenues and jack-hammers barked on floodlit construction lots.

  ‘You know, James, you speak of yourself as if you were, say, a university teacher of some independence. But if anyone has independence, it isn’t you. There is obedience in your case, the obedience you owe me. What if I’d ordered you to take a stand against this Quinlan?’

  ‘I have to admit I would have tried to dissuade you, Your Grace. And I’d have been very confident of success because you’re too wise to put your money on a dead horse.’

  ‘Am I? Well, what if I still insisted?’

  ‘Your Grace, I certainly do believe in blind obedience as a last resort. If it were the last resort, I would obey.’

  A resort somewhat this side of the last would be to admit to being Quinlan. But while they waited for His Grace’s call to be answered, Maitland’s emergent tactical streak kept urging that others might not see why he had used a pseudonym; might not grasp the genuine wisdom of not burdening a book with a real name or a real name with a book.

  An Irish spinster came in. ‘Let me see, Molly,’ said His Grace. ‘Cocoa, I think, please. Dr Maitland hasn’t got an overcoat with him.’

  The woman made a sympathetic mouth while Maitland said, ‘No, no, Your Grace, whatever you have …’

  ‘It’s all right, Molly. Cocoa.’

  The woman gone, His Grace told Maitland wryly, ‘I, like the Knights, don’t carry spite. But be careful!’

  Waiting for the beverage, both men were largely silent and rather exposed to each other by the large simplicity of the conference table. Then His Grace asked, ‘Of course, you know to whom your scholarship belongs?’