Catholics

by Moore, Brian; Ellsberg, Robert;

  “Yes.”

  “Maaaaa-nus! Did you get a fish?”

  Shouting, his voice lifted and lost in the wind. Implacable, the loud sea on gray-green rocks. The man in oilskins heard, held up his creel.

  “We have our fish,” the abbot said.

  “Good.”

  “When Manus catches a salmon he puts it in an ocean pool and the next day, when the boat goes over, we sell on the mainland. Salmon gets a big price. So tonight is a special treat. Eating salmon ourselves. It’s things like that—” the abbot turned on the path and looked back up, his fisher hawk’s eyes searching Kinsella’s face—“it’s the little things that keep us going, here. Like the jam I was talking about. Do you follow me? That is the jam in our lives.”

  Then turned and went on down, a heavy old man in black oilskins, his head hidden by the sou’wester hat.

  While the needs of your particular congregation might seem to be served by retention of the Latin Mass, nevertheless, as Father Kinsella will explain to you, your actions in continuing to employ the older form are, at this time, particularly susceptible to misinterpretation elsewhere as a deliberate contravention of the spirit of aggiornamento. Such an interpretation can and will be made, not only within the councils of the church itself, but within the larger councils of the ecumenical movement. This is particularly distressful to us at this time, in view of the apertura, possibly the most significant historical event of our century, when interpenetration between Christian and Buddhist faiths is on the verge of reality.

  For all of these reasons, in conclusion, I will only say that, while Father Kinsella is with you to hear explanations, be it understood his decision is mine and, as such, is irrevocable.

  English was not, of course, father general’s first language. Explanations was an unfortunate choice of word. Kinsella watched the abbot jump from rock to shore, landing heavily but surely, striding across the rain-damp sand to meet the other monk, whose habit hung down soaking beneath his black oilskin coat. I would be angered by the tone of that last paragraph. And this is an abbot who ignored his own provincial for a dozen years. What if he ignores me? In Brazil, when the bishop of Manaus denounced Hartmann as a false priest he was banished from the city and, upriver, the villagers refused him food. But he stayed, eating wild roots, waiting in the rain forest until he had sapped the bishop’s power. What could I do in this godforsaken spot?

  “Hey!”

  The other monk, grinning, held open his creel as the abbot drew close. Three large salmon, silver scaled, on a bed of green moss. Grinning, arrested as though in some long-ago school snapshot, the old monk seemed, somehow, to have retained the awkward, boyish grace of his adolescent days.

  “Well, Father Abbot, and how will these suit you?” he said, then turned to nod and grin at Kinsella, as though inviting him to share an enormous and obvious joke.

  “They will do,” the abbot said, playing his part with great deliberation as he held the creel up. “Yes, I will say they will do nicely, Manus. And this is Father Kinsella, all the way from Rome. Father Manus, our champion fisherman.”

  “Hello, there,” Kinsella said.

  “From Rome? So you’re the man from Rome. I’d never have thought it.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “Well, somebody older. A real sergeant major. And most likely an Italian, or something on that order. You’re American, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “Anyway, I’m delighted to see you. Oh, God forgive me, I’m not delighted at all. Sure we’re all in fear and trembling of what you’re going to do here.”

  “Manus!” The abbot, amused, hit Father Manus a thump between the shoulder blades. “Hold your tongue, man. Aren’t you the alpha and the omega. When Manus was a little boy they told him it was a sin to tell a lie. I do believe he has not committed that sin since.”

  “Ah, but seriously, Father Kinsella,” Father Manus said. “I have to talk to you. I mean it is an astonishing thing that’s happened here. I go over to the mainland every Sunday. And you should just see the way the people react.”

  “It’s beginning to rain,” the abbot warned. “If you want to talk to Father Kinsella, I’d suggest we do it inside. Come along, now.”

  Setting a brisk pace, he turned and led them back up the path from the beach. The heavy monastery door shut stiffly behind them as they regained the cloister. First to the kitchen, where Father Manus handed over the fish to the old kitchen monks. Then, the abbot beckoning, Father Manus and Kinsella were led into a small room, furnished with draftsman’s tables and high stools. “All right,” the abbot said. “I’ll be referee. Now, Manus, here’s your chance. Have at him. What was it you were going to say?”

  “What was it I wanted to tell him? What was it I wanted, ah, Lord, I do not know, I tell you, Father Kinsella, since I heard you were coming, I have lain awake at night arguing the toss with myself, saying this and saying that, and—look, it is as plain as the nose on your face, we did nothing to start all this, we went on saying the Mass over there in Cahirciveen the way it was always said, the way we had always said it, the way we had been brought up to say it. The Mass! The Mass in Latin, the priest with his back turned to the congregation because both he and the congregation faced the altar where God was. Offering up the daily sacrifice of the Mass to God. Changing bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ the way Jesus told his disciples to do it at the Last Supper. ‘This is my body and this is my blood. Do ye this in commemoration of me.’ God sent his Son to redeem us. His Son came down into the world and was crucified for our sins and the Mass is the commemoration of that crucifixion, of that sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ for our sins. It is priest and people praying to God, assisting in a miracle whereby Jesus Christ again comes down among us, body and blood in the form of the bread and wine there on the altar. And the Mass was said in Latin because Latin was the language of the church and the church was one and universal and a Catholic could go into any church in the world, here or in Timbuktu, or in China and hear the same Mass, the only Mass there was, the Latin Mass. And if the Mass was in Latin and people did not speak Latin, that was part of the mystery of it, for the Mass was not talking to your neighbor, it was talking to God. Almighty God! And we did it that way for nearly two thousand years and, in all that time, the church was a place to be quiet in, and respectful, it was a hushed place because God was there, God on the altar, in the tabernacle in the form of a wafer of bread and a chalice of wine. It was God’s house, where, every day, the daily miracle took place. God coming down among us. A mystery. Just as this new Mass isn’t a mystery, it’s a mockery, a singsong, it’s not talking to God, it’s talking to your neighbor, and that’s why it’s in English, or German or Chinese or whatever language the people in the church happen to speak. It’s a symbol, they say, but a symbol of what? It’s some entertainment show, that’s what it is. And the people see through it. They do! That’s why they come to Coom Mountain, that’s why they come on planes and boats and the cars thick on the roads and the people camping out in the fields, God help them, and that’s why they are there with the rain pouring down on them, and when the Sanctus bell is rung at the moment of Elevation, when the priest kneels and raises up the Host—aye, that little round piece of bread that is now the body of our blessed Savior—holds it up—Almighty God—and the congregation is kneeling at the priest’s back, bowed down to adore their God, aye, Father, if you saw those people, their heads bare, the rain pelting off their faces, when they see the Host raised up, that piece of unleavened bread that, through the mystery and the miracle of the Mass, is now the body and blood of Jesus Christ, our Savior, then you would be ashamed, Father, you would be ashamed to sweep all that away and put in its place what you have put there—singing and guitars and turning to touch your neighbor, playacting and nonsense, all to make the people come into church the way they used to go to the parish hall for a bingo game!”

  Clear: the challenge. His eyes ragebright, a
tiny froth of spittle on his cheek as, confused, he came full stop in his tirade. The abbot stepped between adversaries. “I wish I had all that fire and conviction, Manus. As for you, Father Kinsella, you’ve just found out we have a lot of sermons in us, here at the back of beyond.”

  “I’m sorry.” Father Manus stared at Kinsella as he would at a man he had, unexpectedly, punched in the mouth. “But, still and all, what I said is only God’s truth. Father Abbot will bear me out.”

  “I don’t know what God’s truth is,” the abbot said. “Do any of us? If we did, there would be no arguments between us. But it is true that a lot of people seem to feel the way Manus does about the old Mass. You know that, of course. That is why you’re here.”

  “Anyway,” Father Manus said, his voice loud again. “I think it would be a crime against the people’s faith if we were forced to give up the old way here.”

  “Manus,” the abbot said, gently. “I wonder would you ask Father Colum to start benediction. I would like to show Father Kinsella around. Would you do that now, like a good man?”

  “Yes, Father Abbot, I will do that directly.”

  “You’ll see each other again, at suppertime,” the abbot promised.

  Impulsively Father Manus caught hold of Kinsella’s arm. “There was nothing personal, Father.”

  “I know. I appreciate hearing your point of view.”

  A very dirty monk, face and hands stained with earth, appeared at the door, unaware that he was interrupting. “We found the lamb!” he shouted, then stared slack mouthed at the visitor.

  “Good man yourself,” the abbot said. “Where was it?”

  “But that’s the story of it. In an old byre, by the ruin where the Cullens used to live. And lying down, keeping warm, up against a wee pony.”

  “With a pony?”

  “Right forenenst it. A wee pony of Taig Murtagh’s.”

  “And the pony didn’t mind?”

  “Divil a bit.”

  “There’s the power of prayer for you,” Father Manus said, his good humor restored.

  “It took more than prayer,” said the dirty monk. “It took the whole day.”

  “Go along now,” the abbot ordered, and the dirty monk went off with Father Manus. “Are you interested in Romanesque?” the abbot asked Kinsella.

  “Very much.”

  “Well, I’ll show you a couple of things, then. Coming from Rome you will be hard to impress. Oh, what grand sights! I was there at the time of Pope John, years ago, may he rest in peace.”

  “To study?”

  “Ah, no. Just on a holiday. I had been sick and so I was sent off on a jaunt. I went to London, then to Rome, and on to Lourdes, in France. My first and last visit to the continent, I expect.”

  “You enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, I had a grand time. It was grand to see England again. I served my novitiate there, in Buckmore Abbey in Kent.”

  “I know.”

  “Ah, yes, sure you probably know all about me. They make you do your homework well, there on the Lungotevere Vaticano?”

  Kinsella, smiling, shook his head. Walking now between cloister arches, abbot and stranger, the object of constant, covert curiosity. Monks, meditating or reading their Office, paced the covered walk, in silence. A light drizzle of rain fell in the rectangular cloister garth. These monks; this place. Most of them would know no other. Hartmann, in class, sitting in his specially built orthopedic chair, by the window overlooking the Charles River in Boston, his eyes peering down, shaded by thick freckled fingers. There was a two-man skiff on the water below. “The key,” Hartmann said, “was when we discovered that no one, or almost no one, in the entire hierarchy of Brazil, Chile, Argentina—no one was truly happy with his posting or his position—once we grasped that truth, we could unlock any door. See that skiff down there? I will bet that one of those two rowers believes that the other man has the better seat. I would bet my life on it. Sometimes to force an issue, you have to bet your life on things like that—things you know nothing about.”

  “This way,” the abbot said, leading him into the church. Now, standing in the nave of the abbey, Kinsella felt again that sudden, vivid emotion, that elation in silence of the great bare church at Vézelay, most beautiful of all French Romanesque abbeys, greater even than Autun. Here, as in Vézelay, on this remote Irish island on the edge of the Gothic world, that hush, that bareness that contains all the beauty of belief. Above him, gray stone rose to arch in the Gothic symbol of hands joined in prayer. As in Vézelay, it was an edifice empty as silence, grave as grace. In the chancel, the altar, a bare stone slab on which stood a small tabernacle with a door of beaten Irish gold. Two wooden candlesticks were its only ornaments. No second altar, Kinsella noticed, nothing to conform with the liturgical change of 1966. In the south transept, a small shrine to the Virgin and, above the main altar, a Romanesque crucifix, high on the chancel wall, starveling stone Christ, hung on nails on cross of Irish bog oak.

  The abbot’s boots were loud in the nave. “Twelfth century, most of it. But this doorway and these windows are thirteenth century, a transition from Irish Romanesque to Gothic. This cross motif is similar to that in the Monastery of Cong, a Cistercian house. But this one is finer. Probably the finest in Ireland, they tell us.”

  “It is beautiful.”

  “A big church this, when you think of the place it’s in. Of course there used to be more families living on Muck. The main construction is the original structure. There used to be a holy well on the island, at the time those things were popular. People came over from the mainland by boat to visit it. Little rowboats, made of skin and wood frames, coracles they were called. Those people had faith.”

  “Buckmore is a beautiful abbey too, I hear?”

  The abbot twisted around, head cocked oddly to one side. “It is. Different, of course. This abbey is older and has never been burned. It’s one of the few in Ireland that escaped both Henry VIII and Cromwell. There are advantages to being remote.”

  Before leaving Rome, remembering Hartmann’s advice in class, Kinsella had mentioned to father general the question of a transfer. “Sometimes a more rewarding posting brings about a great change of heart,” Kinsella said. Father general agreed. “But, only as a last resort. Use it, if absolutely necessary.”

  “The other thing I wanted to show you is up there in the south transept,” the abbot said. “Come this way.” Genuflecting, moving past benches where four monks knelt in prayer, heads cowled, faces hidden. “All of the abbots of Muck are buried under this wall. Every one. Can you imagine that? As far as we know, it goes back to the founding. According to the records there are fifty-one laid down there like bottles of wine. And, God willing, I’ll be fifty-two. It’s rare having abbots laid down like that. Our abbey in Santiago de Compostela is the only other one I’ve heard of that has this sort of arrangement.”

  “If you were appointed abbot elsewhere, would they not send your body back here to be buried?”

  “No. The rule holds only if the abbot dies here. I’d say my chance is very good. I hope so, anyway. It’s an idiotic sort of ambition, but I have it. Funny. This island is not exactly a summer resort, but, do you know, if I go out on the mainland now, I’ll not sleep one night over there if I can get back in. I feel at home here. I am at home nowhere else.”

  Kinsella stared at his host. Transfer foreseen and forestalled. Did this abbot leave nothing to chance? And now, as though continuing a guided tour, the abbot led him away, as monks in twos and threes, cowled, came in at every door until, some twenty-five, they filled the two front benches. From the sacristy, a priest emerged in a cope, silk and gold cloth, richly embroidered by nuns long dead. Before him, a lay brother with censer and chain. Benediction. The abbot, hurrying his guest from this scene of irregularity, pushed open a heavy door in the side of the nave. They went out under rain-dark skies.

  “We have a little guesthouse, it’s not very grand, but there is a hot tub. We’ll have our supper at seven. Th
at will give us plenty of time afterward, if you want to have a chat.”

  “Thank you.”

  Following the abbot along a mud-edged path under the west wall of the monastery toward a building like a large outhouse alone in a field. “It’s off on its own, as you can see.” The abbot turned a key in the door. Inside, a small hall, with an unlit turf fire set in the grate. A coat hanger, a visitor’s book on a wooden table, and, on the whitewashed wall, a crucifix made of woven reeds. Off the hall was a bedroom with a narrow monk’s bed, a wooden chair, a sheepskin rug on the floor. The bathroom, adjoining, was primitive but adequate; tub, washbasin, toilet, all in a tiny space.

  “We will pick you up at six fifteen. If you are cold, just put a match to that fire.”

  The door shut. Kinsella moved like a prisoner in the cell-like rooms, then, deciding, stripped off his clothes and ran water in the old-fashioned bathtub. Lay in the tub, the steamy water blurring mirror and windowpane, listening to the cry of gulls, mind idling as his body, gentled by the warm water, grew slack and at ease. The abbot seemed to be in charge. Father Manus had, no doubt, been brought in early, to dispose of the emotional appeal. There were probably others of his persuasion here. The abbot used Father Manus to say what he himself is too shrewd to say. Father general’s letter is what really interests him, he read it at least three times. He is not angling for preferment or power. Reasonable in what he says; captain of his ship. If this letter from the owners tells him to dump a cargo of ritual, my guess is he will do as he is bid. Hartmann, looking down at the two-man skiff on the Charles River, saying one must be prepared to gamble everything on a hunch. Will I gamble on the abbot if he gives me his word? Or is there a gray eminence here, a Mann im Schatten I have not faced?