Three Cheers for the Paraclete

by Thomas Keneally

  ‘James! It seems you have to be told you’re not here either to make proverbs or to argue as the equal of any other person in the room.’

  Apologies had to be made a second time, and the proper silences again to be observed. The archbishop was frowning.

  ‘James, you say, “because they love nobody …” But don’t you believe that Costello and Nolan and myself love our brothers for the love of the good God?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maitland. ‘Yes, I know you do.’ For their God was a kinsman, not an absolute, not a void in the heart.

  ‘Then can you name any priest who fits the statement made by this Péguy?’

  He knew that he would be badgered with it in future conflicts, yet it had to be admitted now. ‘Yes,’ he stated. ‘Myself.’

  Fairly covertly, the judges eyed each other.

  ‘Come now, James,’ His Grace said, ‘you desire to behold God, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that desire is love.’

  ‘I don’t know if that sort of love suffices. Half the evil things done on the earth are love-offerings, from someone to someone. I don’t know if I …’

  ‘My God!’ Costello made his classic sinus noise. ‘He’s gone all Dostoevski on us now.’

  Questions proliferated, and when they were finished, the three were satisfied that, within the limits of the theological definitions, Maitland loved God. Throughout, Maitland wanted to announce, ‘But we’re not talking about the same entity!’ But that would merely have initiated a parallel line of questioning.

  Then Brendan and Grete were raised by Nolan, apologized for by Maitland, commentated on by His Grace, and forgotten.

  Third in the president’s notes, but bracketed by two red question-marks, was a digest of the strange theological opinions avowed by Dr Maitland during discussions among the members of staff in the downstairs parlour. But His Grace did not want a doctrinal showdown, not until The Meanings of God was brought up.

  No question-marks flanked the names of Hurst and Egan, two unstable men, the secret of whose instability had been too well kept by Maitland.

  Nolan at length neared the end of a long annotation on Hurst’s case.

  ‘… went so far as to arrange interviews with a psychiatrist for Hurst. Entirely without reference to me or to the young man’s spiritual director. If I stood on ceremony, I could manage to resent profoundly the bad manners. But what I most resent is the danger to the priesthood involved in such bad manners.’

  ‘Of course you do. James, I have to tell you yet another thing. You’ve got no sense of belonging to an institution. You’d better hurry up and acquire some, that’s all. No explanations?’

  ‘I couldn’t explain without seeming to accuse, Your Grace. I plead guilty to beginning something I shouldn’t have begun, and then treating Hurst negligently. Just the same, the person who has been harmed at my hands is Hurst, not Dr Nolan.’

  Nolan appealed to His Grace. ‘You see?’

  ‘In any case,’ Costello said urbanely, ‘I’d like to see you attempt to accuse.’

  ‘I’d prefer merely to let my apologies stand.’

  ‘Ah, the beginning of wisdom!’

  ‘Then there’s Maurice Egan,’ murmured His Grace; and, more loudly, ‘Maurice Egan. Once more the problem of institutional sense. Or its lack.’

  Maitland affirmed, ‘Maurice’s case would have confused the wise …’

  Nolan made an axiom. ‘With a priest, wisdom is obligatory.’

  ‘James, you realized that his letter to the Supreme Pontiff was a mistake. Why wasn’t I warned of it? Do you think I’m beneath trust?’

  The young priest gave a negative shrug. ‘You’re absolutely right. You should have been warned in Egan’s case. But Maurice had a career in the Church and … well, I feared a disintegration. Which has happened in any case.’

  ‘You say, in Egan’s case,’ Costello observed.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You emphasized, in Egan’s case. As if it wouldn’t have been better in any case to bring the problem straight to His Grace.’

  ‘There was no special malice in my saying in Egan’s case. But even a priest surely has the right to give or keep secrets. The archdiocese is not a police state.’

  ‘Enough rhetoric, thank you, James.’

  ‘In Egan’s case in particular I should have appealed immediately to you, Your Grace. Maurice lived by the book, and the book said that there is no appeal to Rome except through your bishop. I don’t want to sound portentous, especially since I’ve already been warned against such things. But those who live by the book – and it’s an enviable way to live – have to be saved in terms of the book. It was an unbalanced thing for him to have written that letter. I should have used the fact of the letter to gauge his condition.’

  ‘I see,’ said Costello, ‘no mention of any vow of celibacy the fellow might have had.’

  ‘What I said was only another way of putting it.’

  Now it was well after nine, and His Grace, fuddled by the exchange of shots between Costello and Maitland, looked to the central question of The Meanings of God affair to show quickly and finally the precise quality of Maitland’s revolt. To conclude all minor matters, he asked Maitland whether by daring to mistrust authority he had saved Egan or Hurst from anything.

  Maitland said, ‘I saved them from nothing.’

  There were reasons, though he didn’t broach them. It was in general as impossible to help two people who are impacted in a given structure as it was to dig the eyes out of a whale and demand that they still focus. He had saved them from nothing. At that moment they both still slept, stubble growing on both unlikely faces. Egan nearly had a beard, his face made vagabond by it, a child’s face, gratified with wonder drugs, fallen asleep with its pirate’s mask still on.

  His Grace had said something to Nolan, who dissentiently pursed his lips and put aside the typewritten notes.

  The archbishop began. ‘Are you aware yet, James, of the provisions of Canon 1386, the law governing publication of books by priests?’

  ‘I know that I’ve broken the law by publishing The Meanings of God without permission from yourself or one of the other bishops the law nominates.’

  ‘It was a book,’ testified Costello, ‘that required censorship as well as permission.’

  ‘I don’t believe that it required censorship because I don’t believe that it put forward theological opinion.’

  ‘The pseudonym seems to indicate that you suspected it did.’

  His Grace mediated, saying firmly, ‘Now it’s Maitland’s mind on the matter that alarms me and that I must be certain about.’

  ‘I knew there must have been some provision of law by which I had to seek permission to publish. I am absolutely guilty of not making sure what the provision was.’

  ‘Oh come, Dr Maitland,’ Costello said, ‘I taught you when you were a student. I have regularly spent eight lectures every two years on this very topic, permission and censorship. Now I’d put my money on you to remember the details of the Dried Fruit Trading Act till your dying day if you’d listened to one or two, let alone eight lectures on the subject. How is it you don’t remember the details of Canon 1386?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare say …’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it all arises out of the human capacity to forget odious laws.’

  ‘So you think this is an odious law?’

  ‘I can’t pretend I don’t. All I can do is give my word to keep it in future. Until it’s revoked, of course.’

  ‘And if it’s never revoked, James?’ His Grace wanted to know.

  ‘I will keep it, Your Grace. Ironically, all that’s essential is that I should remain within the Church.’

  Costello whistled, casting question on the word ‘ironically’.

  Maitland went on, ‘You say you wanted to know my mind. There are many priests in Europe who ignore that Canon 13 …’

  ‘1386,�
�� Costello supplied.

  ‘Many of them use the expedient I used, and publish under a different name. They speak about the right to free expression being more basic than the rights of bishops, and all the rest of it. However, I didn’t do what I did on philosophic grounds. Far from it. I suppose I have to say my behaviour arose from a … native laxity.’

  ‘But this has no bearing on your breaking the law,’ said Costello.

  ‘That’s quite right. I know it’s not the thing a judge can take notice of. But a bishop may be more pleased to hear of it than of outright rebellion.’

  ‘Not this bishop,’ said His Grace, ‘not particularly pleased. I remember a charade of some weeks back, Des Boyle, yourself, myself. You discussing this same book as if it were somebody else’s. No, I’m not particularly pleased.’

  ‘Books live as long as cicadas, Your Grace. I thought – conscientiously – that it was best to let mine die. The pseudonym I used was a matter of … well, bashfulness. If Dr Costello wants a word he can laugh at.’

  ‘I’ll laugh at it, certainly. And I’ll also say that if ignorance were a defence against the law, etiquette should still have bound you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maitland said. Though there were higher interests than etiquette. Throwing a grenade was not etiquette, but it was possible to think of occasions when it might be necessary. He wisely kept that image to himself.

  Nolan said, ‘But we must return to the central controversy. Of course, your book is a book of theology.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does it or doesn’t it put forward a logos about Theos, ideas about God?’ Costello asked.

  ‘Not about God in himself. It puts forward ideas about the ideas men have about God.’ Even to Maitland it sounded a little specious.

  ‘James, if I ordered you to recant same specified ideas from your book,’ His Grace proposed, ‘would you?’

  Maitland said nothing. Costello didn’t mind admitting, ‘Nolan and I both believe that your book runs counter to a number of Papal decrees on the nature of God. I am not afraid of confessing that I raised the question to His Grace.’

  ‘The recantation would never be made public, of course,’ the archbishop explained. ‘It would be secret to the three of us and to yourself. And to my successor as well.’

  After some time Maitland said, ‘Not that this has anything to do with it, but what would be the penalty if I didn’t.’

  ‘I won’t speak about penalties. Not at this stage.’

  ‘Your Grace, I could recant if I came to hold different opinions. But a man can’t decide in five minutes to hold different opinions.’

  Costello suggested, ‘Give it a try.’

  ‘None of the book’s reviewers thought it heretical.’

  ‘Do you have copies of reviews, James? By Catholic scholars, I mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another long, conscientious silence fell. At last Maitland said, ‘I’m no enemy of doctrine. But if you want to get rid of me, the book will serve.’

  ‘The implication is an insult, James.’

  ‘I ask you not to make me recant.’

  Costello made a wry nasal noise. ‘Please don’t punish me, judge. It could make me an enemy of society.’

  Someone, proving to be the Irish spinster who had solaced Maitland with cocoa some weeks before, then knocked at the door. She announced a trunk call for His Grace, who left to take it in his office. This was the unkindest ruse that events could manage – to leave judges with nothing to do but chat with the accused. Nolan and Costello at first tried to elude speaking with Maitland and spoke in whispers. But Maitland’s apparent equality with them, his closeness to the hearth, the easiness of his easy chair, all incited them to give him unofficial advice, peer to peer.

  Nolan said, ‘Pride or Church now, James, pride or Church.’ And, more cryptically, ‘Remember the night of the Couraigne prize?’

  Costello said, ‘James, if I’ve been baiting you it’s because you’re a provocative young man. But you must make the humble decision, not the resentful one. Resentment can only harm yourself. The Church can’t lose either way.’

  Suddenly Maitland became, if not acutely resentful, acutely angry.

  ‘The Church!’ he called out. ‘You think of the Church as Christ’s young bride already come into the fullness of beauty. I think of her as a scruffy old eyesore with half her tats drawn who’s whored around too much with politicians.’

  ‘That is a sustaining vision, that is!’ Costello hooted.

  ‘And I don’t mean to be driven out to satisfy your sense of fitness.’

  ‘Dr Costello will be archbishop of this diocese one day,’ Nolan claimed. ‘His sense of fitness will bind you then.’

  ‘I may die, he may die, we both may. He may even fail to make it.’

  Costello was jovial about the odds against him. ‘Indeed, indeed,’ he laughed. ‘All I say is, don’t jump the wrong way because you resent Nolan and myself. We are inadequate grounds.’

  ‘You really mean to be kind, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then don’t plant this recantation idea in his head.’

  ‘That is a matter of conscience with us,’ Nolan explained.

  No one was ungrateful when His Grace returned; all three stood with hearty reverence. But the prelate stayed in the doorway, holding the door ajar.

  He said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, everything has been said. Except this: James, when you say the Credo during the Mass, can you say it with an honest heart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wait in the front parlour on your left.’

  ‘I won’t recant, Your Grace.’

  ‘And I won’t be bullied, James.’

  ‘I wasn’t bullying. I was pleading.’

  ‘Molly will bring you some supper.’

  An hour passed in that front parlour. He was emotionally languorous but mentally aware of being under a more pervasive danger than ever before. He was, as he had told Edmonds, an institutional being. He must develop, however achingly, within the structure; and he had an intuitive certainty that unseen development was proceeding. Random death – at an intersection say, in Costello’s car – could render this growth inconsequent. But being cast out would make it void and leave him a nomad.

  Yet his alarm was of the cooler, mental variety. He had leisure to regret the absence of books. He learnt the family tree of the Benedictine order, framed on one wall, and achieved a working grasp of the map on the other; of the red arrows (migrations of priests) emanating from Ireland and spearing into the heart of the Americas, of Eurasia, of Oceania.

  Then there was the life of St Kevin in the stained-glass window, with a summary in Gothic-print Latin at the bottom. An untranslatable gerundive in this inscription kept him busy for ten minutes.

  At a quarter to eleven the baffled Molly called for him.

  ‘You sitting for an exam, father?’ she asked.

  ‘You could say that, Molly.’

  ‘Then God bless. That Joseph of Cupertino is the feller for exams. Look, I have him in the kitchen, and I’ll say the prayer while you’re in there.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  But she said no, she had a pledge to spread the devotion.

  Dirtied cups and fouled ashtrays occupied the judicial end of the table.

  Maitland took comfort from its looking like a decision-makers’ mess: as if some arduous soul-searching had taken place. But he got little time to gather omens. The archbishop told him to sit. The big plush chair attempted to coddle him as no accused about to hear sentence would ever want to be.

  ‘First,’ His Grace said, ‘you assure me that you can say the Credo with honesty?’

  Maitland said he could.

  ‘Now it’s hard to make you recant. No one knows you wrote the thing. We don’t want anyone to know you wrote the thing. You understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve decided to suspend you for three months. You will neither say the Mass
and administer sacraments under my jurisdiction, nor seek to do so under any other bishop’s. You will write to me at length during each week of your suspension. You will occupy the first month with a period of recollection in a monastery I shall name to you later.’

  A month’s quiet would, in itself, be a delight. But Maitland knew that there would be some attempt to read daily the level of his rivers of perversity.

  Sure enough: ‘You will confess regularly, follow out the life of the community as best you can, and speak for at least half an hour daily with a spiritual director whom, once again, I shall name to you later.’

  ‘I could have hoped for more freedom, Your Grace,’

  ‘This is a penance, James. You’ve already exploited all the freedom you’re likely to get. Do you submit?’

  ‘Yes.’ He had begun to colour. He said through tight lips, ‘But I believe my book was a valid book. Even a good book.’

  His Grace sighed. ‘We’ll come to that. You submit, though, without argument?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Costello said gently, ‘Our prayers shall keep pace. Neck and neck.’

  Maitland came close to blushing, and all three judges bowed their heads imperceptibly for the pious thought.

  His Grace said, ‘I would have suspended you for much longer, James, but we have a grave shortage of priests. Just the same, I trust that this first part of your penalty is a greater blow to you than the second. Because you are a priest, you exist for that, and now you cannot be a priest, in any active sense, for some time. Secondary to that, then, you will publish nothing in my lifetime, James, although you are free to ask me to relax this ruling in individual cases. But unless the individual case has exceptional validity, you will not publish.’

  Maitland felt a vacancy half an inch from his heart, in the small and incandescent space filled, up to the moment, by the notion of his novel. But terms such as ‘exceptional validity’ were vague and could be argued in their time.

  ‘Do you accept this, James?’ His Grace wanted to know.

  21

  EGAN HAD BECOME very possessive about his hospital. Stark-eyed, he led Maitland through the ground-plan, displaying the stucco and the monstrosities in the incurables’ section with equal pride. Sixty years past, the house had belonged to a pastoralist, had begun its life as one family’s stone bungalow, with tower. It had suited the departed sheep king’s swank; and it suited the present dwellers, all suffering classically named diseases, that Jason striving should hold up the balustrade, that lumpy girls labelled Hebe and Nike should stand in the stained-glass windows, or Apollo and Daphne languish asexually above the main door. The humble brothers of a Hospitaller order passed with bed-pans and white mixture.