The Hounds of Rome - Mystery of a Fugitive Priest

by Tom Clancy

  As Jonathon crossed the street, walking by the church with a sidelong glance, he couldn’t keep from chuckling. “Considering the billions of people in the world,” he mumbled, “many of whom could be having sex at any hour of the day and night, a personal God would have to spend every minute around the 24 hour clock providing instant souls. Sounds almost like an industry. I can’t help thinking that the whole affair sounds somewhat like the Santa Claus fantasy wherein Saint Nick delivers all the world’s toys in a single night. Of course, with all due respect to God, being God, he has powers to do things like this that are beyond our comprehension. Or so they would have us believe.”

  As Jonathon was walking, a passerby was puzzled to hear him engrossed, talking out loud to himself about an extraordinary combination of Santa Claus and God. But Jonathon continued down the street paying the passerby no mind. “When you really think about it,” he continued, head down, staring at the pavement as he walked, “I suppose you have to accept ensoulment at conception strictly as a matter of faith. The soul, being a spirit, provides no tangible evidence. From what I’ve read, Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest saints in the Catholic Church held that the fetus was not fully formed, therefore not human, until roughly the end of the first trimester. And, as I understand it, St. Augustine had the same belief. But this was too vague for the church because of the implications on abortion. So, faced with a gray area, the church’s black and white solution is to say the human becomes human, endowed with a soul, at conception. Thus, abortion becomes murder. Wonder what Aquinas and Augustine would have said about cloning? Normally, I wouldn’t give a tinkers damn about what the church decides about human cloning except that their current position seems to be screwing up my brother’s life.”

  21

  As Steve drove up Interstate 95 from Boston in the direction of New Hampshire, his tortured brain remained fixated on what Jonathon had told him. His thoughts alternated between surging incoming waves of anger and outgoing undertows of depression. The stark revelation of the cloning, of his almost mechanical origin, cut to the heart of his being. He understood Jonathon’s minimal and unwitting role but could never understand his mother’s. What Jonathon did was keep the secret. It was his mother who perpetrated the crime.

  Faced with what could be an unspeakable calamity, Steve now understood why the conservative forces in the church hierarchy had abruptly pulled him out of his parish and ultimately transferred him to a place where he would be coerced into resigning the priesthood. And if he resisted, as a last resort, they would have to defrock him. And frighteningly, in the case of a troublesome clone judged subhuman, perhaps something more drastic was in store for him. Despite this, Steve had to admit to himself that if the decision had been his regarding someone else, he might very well have taken the same steps. But would it have been theologically correct? Would it have been fair? Always willing to give the church the benefit of the doubt, he accepted that the church’s concern did not stem simply from the embarrassment of having the product of a sinful union conducting its public ministry—it was deeper than that. It could be far more serious than that. He shuddered at the thought that over many years, hundreds of his parishioners might have thought they were receiving the sacraments from a valid priest—stepping out of the confessional wrongly thinking their sins were absolved. He could easily imagine people’s long tangled history of sins which no later, valid confession, could resolve. How could people remember sins committed long ago—sins they thought were forgiven and thus forgotten? How many times did you use birth control? How many times did you masturbate? How many Holy Days of Obligation did you miss? How many lies? How many slanders? On and on...an infinity of soul-searching questions. Even if God did forgive sins confessed in a parody of real confession, how could anyone be sure? Scrupulous Catholics would find themselves in a nightmarish quandary. How many people would leave the church outright and in utter disgust, if the church said they had no choice but to submit to full confession all over again?

  Thankfully, the baptisms would have been valid since it was not absolutely necessary that a priest perform baptism, but what of the wedded couples? Were the marriages valid, or were the children of these ‘marriages’ born out of wedlock? Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives and souls were at stake in answer to these questions.

  But Steve was caught up by the thought that there was a piece missing here. The possibility of human cloning was an issue that had surfaced years before. And even though human cloning had been covered endlessly in the media, there was no publicized proof that it could be—had been—accomplished. But surely the theologians of the church and the pontiff must have anticipated this problem. In the continuing struggle between religion and science, why be taken unawares? But why, he asked himself, had he never received any instructions or any encyclical letters on the subject? Might Rome, in secret conclave, have already concluded that the product of cloning was nothing more than a subhuman? Or, conversely, if cloning was simply a method for producing a long delayed twin, had they concluded the twin was a valid human? If so, why no official pronouncement? But, on the other hand, why announce possibilities instead of fact? Maybe to avoid embarrassment it could have been decided to keep the issue under wraps—to be disposed of on a case by case basis. And perhaps, some in the church hierarchy might have hoped that if the problem arose, and a priest clone refused to resign, it could be resolved the way they formerly handled pedophile priests—sweeping the matter under the rug by transfer from parish to parish. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe God would protect His true church and make the problem go away.

  Bishop Rhinehart’s position on the subject was quite clear: Steve was a menace to the faith. He had to be gotten out of the church by force if necessary. But what of Rome? The long history of the church gave evidence that if an issue was not considered widespread—affecting the large body of the church, or perhaps not of great theological significance, the matter was left in the hands of the local bishops. After all, each bishop was a direct descendent from one of Christ’s apostles. Each ruled in his own land. So, in the absence of unequivocal statements from Rome, Rhinehart and his junior partners, Bishop Hernandez and Brother Berard, were the absolute authority—at least until they were overruled by Rome. But by the time Rome which moved at snail’s pace, got involved, it would be too late for Steve.

  From the depths of his feelings of unworthiness, Steve wondered if he should in fact continue to think of himself as a priest and continue his priestly functions. As he grimly gripped the steering wheel plowing along with northbound vacation traffic heading for the great outdoors of Maine and New Hampshire, he almost braked to a stop when the thought occurred to him that by acting as a priest he might be breaking church law, each act a serious sin.

  As angry drivers piled up behind him—vans laden with canoes or kayaks on top, kids’ bikes jouncing on rear bike racks, attempting to pass on the left and right, some giving him dirty looks, one giving him the finger, Steve knew he had to pull off the highway and think things out. He pulled into a rest stop and sat with his head on his arms, his arms resting on the steering wheel. “I need to think this out logically,” he said aloud in the car. “If an unworthy human being said Mass, consecrated the Host, gave out communion, and heard confessions, each act would be a sacrilege in the eyes of God and the church. With each act, the individual would be committing the worst sin possible under Canon Law: Sacrilege—the sin so despicable that it cries out to heaven for the most severe punishment. But on the other hand, if a subhuman—a protoplasm that had not undergone ensoulment by God, conducted these holy offices, how could he be accused of sacrilege? If a chimpanzee could be taught to say Mass, it would be a mockery, but how could that same chimpanzee be committing a sin, and even less likely a sacrilege? Animals simply do not sin.” Somewhat comforted by these thoughts that tended to absolve him personally, Steve began to drive again, but before long, his mind whirled in a series of roller coaster thoughts that mimicked manic-depressive swing
s. Through it all, he realized he was on the brink of a momentous decision. The controlling bishopric had apparently concluded that he was merely the product of a laboratory experiment, nothing more. Something to be discarded. Possibly even to be disposed of if it would avoid embarrassment and protect the faithful from further harm. ‘Put down’ in the parlance of vets. In view of this, was it morally right for him to continue as a priest?

  As Steve drove along the Spaulding Turnpike heading for Wakefield and the family summer home on Pine River Pond, he had a sudden horrid thought that made his hands tremble on the steering wheel: If a clone was not a valid human being, it could not be a valid priest and the priestly vows would not be valid. And for all those years in which he had consecrated the host at Mass— the essence of the Mass which involved the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ—all of that would have been a sham, make-believe. Steve remembered how as a young altar boy, answering the call to be a priest, hungry to become a priest, he used to set up a play altar at home when he was alone. A board on a set of books at either end to represent the altar, a white towel covering the ‘altar’, a box to represent the tabernacle, a large book to represent the missal, a wine glass filled with grape juice as the chalice and white Necco candy wafers representing the sacred host—all the accoutrements needed to make an imitation Mass. “Good grief,” he said aloud in the car as he drove, were all my thousands of Masses since ordination nothing but imitations too? Has it all been just a charade?”

  He thought of the Catholic women in the church who had been pressing for ordination of women—a lost cause according to the latest papal encyclical letters. He went over it in his mind: Here we have women who, unlike clones, are unequivocally one-hundred-percent human, yet who are forbidden ordination. The argument goes that they do not reflect the ‘image of Christ’. Very simply, because they are not males. Aloud in the car, he blurted out: “Now...now...I understand how it is that many women feel disenfranchised by their church. And the shocking thought is that I may be far less qualified to conduct the holy offices of the church than they!”

  Steve’s only hope was that Bishop Rhinehart and some others in the church hierarchy were wrong or might eventually take another position, and that even as a clone, God was on his side. Would God have given him his vocation, his devotion to the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin, his competence in his performance as a priest and as a pastor over many years if he were nothing more than a lab product masquerading as a human? Would God have let him do these things? No, he was certain God would have stopped him cold.

  As he approached the little town of Wakefield, New Hampshire, summer home of the Murphy family, Steve began to settle down. Feeling he had little other choice and that God was really on his side, he arrived at the notion that he should go on being a priest; that is, if he could find a place where he could practice the ministry without interference from the church hierarchy, meaning Bishop Rhinehart and Brother Berard’s monks, in particular.

  Regardless of the position the church might take on ensoulment of clones, Steve resolved that until the voice of God that had originally called him to the priesthood became silent, until he believed God had turned his back on him, he would continue saying Mass, hearing confessions, comforting the sick, burying the dead—in short all of the things he believed God wanted him to do. He felt his pulse quickening as a new resolve gave him an upwelling of missionary zeal. As the pines and scrub ferns lining the roadside on the turnpike whirred by, he gripped the steering wheel of the car with a new firmness. He decided that if the church hierarchy wanted to stop him, they would have to catch him first. He was distressed at the thought of being a renegade priest, labeled an outlaw in his own religion, but resolved nonetheless to continue doing what he saw as his God-given duty.

  22

  Steve turned off Spaulding Turnpike about a mile outside of Wakefield Center. He smiled as he pulled into the parking lot of The Wakefield Diner, its shiny metal roof glinting in the sun. As a boy, he had always thought it was a real railroad dining car that had run off its tracks, was abandoned, and later turned into a restaurant. He remembered when he was five or six, on summer mornings when they were off for a day of fishing, he had often eaten at the diner with his brother, Jonathon, who was then a young man in his twenties.

  As Steve entered the crowded diner, the strong aroma of frying bacon came to him as he glanced left and right, looking for an empty booth where he could relax and maybe read a local newspaper. But finding every booth taken, he slipped onto a stool at the counter amidst the bustle as waitresses scurried in a dead run between the kitchen and the hungry customers in the booths.

  Hungrily cutting into a huge stack of breakfast pancakes, Steve asked the young waitress behind the counter about St. Mary’s Church. “Never heard of it,” she said as she refilled his coffee cup. “Must have been before my time.”

  “If you mean old St. Mary’s Catholic Church, it’s been shut down for years. The building’s still there but they haven’t had any services in maybe five or six years.” The voice came from an elderly man seated at the counter near Steve. The man slipped into an empty stool next to Steve. Although he couldn’t be sure, Steve thought he remembered that the old man had been a neighbor of his family on Pine River Pond. Steve hadn’t seen the man in years. He noted that the person who he remembered as short, stocky and vigorous was now gray-haired, bent over somewhat, and with a tremulous voice that made him appear feeble. The most noticeable and disconcerting feature of the man at the counter was the strange wide-eyed stare out of his left eye.

  “It’s glass,” the old man said. “And if you notice, I keep swinging my head around to the left so’s no one can sneak up on me from that quarter. Learned that the hard way living in South Boston. In fact, that’s where some son of a bitch poked my eye out.”

  “Your name is Lew, isn’t it?” Steve asked. “You and your wife have the place on the pond out on the end of the peninsula.”

  “You’re part right. Came up here every summer for over fifty years with my wife, then when she died, couple years ago, I decided to retire and move up here permanent. They’ll never get me back to the city. Live here year ‘round now.”

  “You remember the Murphy’s?”

  “No, can’t say as I do.”

  “What about Larkin? That was my mother’s family name. Do you remember the property owned by Larkin?”

  “You mean do I remember that damned seaplane they used to fly off Pine River Pond? Depending on which way the wind was blowing, they’d sometimes take off right over my house. Scare the hell out of us and come near turning over our canoe one time with the wash from the pontoons. You know that thing’s gotta get up to fifty or sixty some miles an hour to clear the water. Raises hell with boats and fish I tell you. I don’t mind the speedboats pulling water skiers way out in the middle of the pond. They get going pretty damn fast too, but I’ll tell ya one thing—they don’t fly right over my house.”

  Steve was a little surprised. At the mention of the Larkin name, the flood gates of the old man’s memory seemed to have let loose. “I know the family you’re speaking of,” the man continued, “although I haven’t seen anyone except the older son in some years. He comes up once in awhile and takes that airplane out. The father was all right, but the woman was a hell-raising bitch. I used to see her whacking the living be-Jesus out of the younger boy. Seems to me he was an ordinary young fella, kind of a shy boy who never did much wrong. His name was...aah...can’t rightly recall. I used to take him fishing with me. The older one’s named Jonathon. If I remember right, he’s some twenty years older than the younger boy. Never could understand how the Larkins had two offspring twenty years apart, but maybe one was from an earlier marriage or adopted. Of course, Jonathon’s gettin’ on in years now and I heard the old man and his wife are dead. Jonathon sends a cleaning crew up periodic-like and then I figure he’s about to spend some time up on the pond but he don’t come up very often. O’course tha
t’s OK with me because if the house ain’t occupied, the airplane will just sit hangared in the boathouse. Haven’t heard it roaring over my house for some time now, thank God.”

  “I’m Jonathon’s younger brother, Steve. I’m planning to spend some time up here. Might live here year ‘round in fact.”

  At the mention of his name, Steve saw the old man’s eyes get so wide that, for a moment, he was afraid the glass one would fall out and bounce on the lunch counter. “Now I’m really ashamed,” the old man said. “Wish I could take back what I said about your mother. Although I’m not about to take back anything I said about that damned plane.”

  “There’s no need for apologies, Lew. I understand.”

  “If you’re planning to stay at the pond, I welcome you. I could use the company, but I sure hope you ain’t a pilot. Tell me, if you will, I never could understand whether that family...your family, was named Larkin or Murphy. The sign said ‘Larkin’ but now, as I recall, some did call you Murphys.”

  “I can explain,” Steve said. “My father was Congressman Murphy from a district west of Boston. And in order to get away for vacations from politics and the media he bought the place on the pond and put it in my mother’s name: Larkin. So we sort of wanted people to think we were Larkins. By the way, are you Catholic, Lew?”

  “Sure enough, what with all the Irish, isn’t just about everybody Catholic up here in New England?”