by J.F. Powers
Potter was telling Bill and Conklin that the clergy should cast off their medieval trappings, immerse themselves in the profane everyday world, and thus reveal its sacred character.
“That why you’re immersed in that shirt?” said Joe.
Potter just smiled and went on as before. It was odd the way Bill looked up to Potter, odder still the way they both looked up to Conklin—as what, a layman? It was a crazy world. Father Felix was telling Hennessy that the monastery should employ trained lay personnel in key positions, replace the kitchen, if not the laundry, nuns, and also certain brothers. “So Brother Gardener has to go?” said Joe.
Father Felix turned to Joe. “You,” he said, speaking with deliberation, as if the wine, and whatever he’d had in Bill’s room, and the beer before that, had suddenly gone to his head. “You. Covered. Up. Those. Flowers.”
“Flowers?” said Joe, and listened to the silence in the study. For the first time since the party began, he felt that others were interested in what he might say. He started to tell them about the leftover sod, but saw that they already knew about it, that he was already—the pastor’s fate—being discussed before outsiders in his own rectory by the curate and the visiting priest, those natural allies. “Thought of putting the sod down around the flowers, if you could call ’em that—things like petunias. Have ’em growing right up out of the grass. Of course, you’d have to cut the grass by hand. I’ve always wondered about flower beds—who wants to look at a lot of dirt?” (Nobody else, it seemed, had ever wondered about this.) “Didn’t realize you felt so strongly about petunias, Father. Strawberries, yes.”
“Humph,” said Father Felix.
“Excuse me,” Joe said, believing that everybody was against him, and went over to the table, where he had work to do. He had to fire up the chafing dish, pour the juice from the pitted Bing cherries into the top pan, or blazer, place it directly over the flame, bring the juice to a boil, thicken with ½ tsp. of arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water, but Potter was telling the others that family life was in such tough shape today because Our Lord had been a bachelor, and so, carrying a dead match to an ashtray, Joe appeared among them again, saying, “We used to ask a lot of silly questions in the sem. Would Our Lord be a smoker, drive a late-model car, and so on. Kid stuff—nobody got hurt. But I wonder about some of the stuff I hear today.”
“So do I,” said Hennessy. “That Our Lord was celibate is a pretty good argument for celibacy.”
“No more. People today, living normal lives, can’t identify with Our Lord,” Potter said. “Or with us—because of the celibacy barrier.”
“That so?” said Joe. “And where you don’t have that barrier? I mean how well do we identify with Our Lord?” Joe put the question to Bill with a glance, skipped Conklin, and tried but failed with Father Felix, who was spearing kernels of corn with his fork, making a clicking noise on his plate—rather annoying, since it broke what otherwise would have been an impressive silence.
“He’s got you, Pot,” Conklin said, and then to Joe: “We may be closer than I thought.”
Joe, not seeing why this, if true, which he doubted, should make Bill and Potter look so sad, said, “And when you consider we work at it full time, unlike the laity—well, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“It did me,” said Conklin.
Bill sighed, and Potter held out his glass to Conklin for wine—a highball glass with ice in it. Joe said nothing about a proper glass, afraid that Potter (who’d said earlier that he longed for the day when he’d be able to say Mass with a beer mug, a coffee cup, a small flower vase of simple design, because such things were cheap and honest and made, like us, of clay) would refuse a proper glass and, furthermore, would say why. In that way, Potter could easily evade the issue he’d raised, the celibacy issue, as he had the egg. Potter was tricky, had to be watched, but Joe was doing that—and then Father Felix had to butt in.
“There’s been a lot of talk in the monastic community about family life, but whatever the future holds for you fellas, I think it’s safe to say our status, or situation—some would say our lot—won’t change. When you get right down to it, a monastery’s no place for a family man.”
“I’ll buy that,” said Joe.
“Oh, well,” said Father Felix. “The community’s family enough for me.”
And that, thought Joe, is why you’re here.
“When you get right down to it,” Conklin said to Father Felix, “a monastery’s no place for you. Priests weren’t meant to be monks, and monks weren’t meant to be priests—and weren’t in the Age of Faith.”
“We all know that,” Joe said–Conklin sounded just like an ex-seminarian, or an educated layman.
“Times change,” said Father Felix.
“Status seeking,” said Conklin.
Joe gave Bill a look for grinning, and to make it absolutely clear where his sympathies lay, as between Conklin and Father Felix, who appeared to be wounded, Joe fetched the bottle. “Father?”
“All right.”
Joe filled the monk’s glass, also his own, and went back to the table, with Potter’s voice following him. “Why put such a premium on celibacy—on sex, really? Think of the problems it creates.”
“Think of the problems it doesn’t create,” said Joe, and while Potter and the others were thinking of those problems (Joe hoped), he poured the juice from the pitted Bing cherries into the top pan, or blazer. That done, he appeared among them again, saying, “The premium isn’t on sex. It isn’t on celibacy. It’s on efficiency and sanctity.”
“Oh, no!” said Conklin.
“Oh, yes,” said Joe. “Even if we don’t hear much about that aspect of the priesthood today.” And, having given them more food for thought, Joe left them again, for he still had work to do, but before he reached the table the impressive silence his words had produced was cruelly violated.
“Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?”
Joe had to expect to hear that famous question even now from men of his era at the seminary—Potter’s permissive pastor was one—but not from someone like Conklin, Joe thought, and showed it, saying, “Good thing I wasn’t with you guys in Bill’s room. You wouldn’t have had anything to talk about.”
“Got to talkin’ . . . in Bill’s room,” Father Felix said, apologetically, and paused to watch his plate (which he’d been holding in a sloping manner) start down his outstretched leg, jump, and land on the floor, right side up. Once, twice, he nodded, as if to say no harm done, but his head hung down, finally, in an uncompleted nod.
Joe sprang into action. Others, nearer to Father Felix, had already sprung. But it was Joe who removed the fork (in the circumstances, a dangerous instrument) from Father Felix’s hand and thrust it at Potter, who hesitated to take it by the greasy end, and it was Joe who deftly kicked the plate aside and told Bill to pick it up, and Joe who instructed Hennessy and Conklin, instead of foolishly trying to firm him up, to lay the helpless monk out on the couch. Joe then changed his mind about that in view of the sepulchral effect it might have on the party. “Bedroom! Bedroom!” he cried. “Not mine! Not mine!” Conklin and Hennessy, frog-marching Father Felix this way and that, didn’t seem to know what they were doing. Then Joe saw what the trouble was. It was Conklin. Why, when there were plenty of clergy present, when the person in distress was himself one of them, why should a layman be playing such an important part? “Here, let me,” Joe said, shouldering in, but the layman wouldn’t let go. Joe ended up with Hennessy’s portion of Father Felix. And so, borne up by Joe and Conklin, the helpless monk was removed from the scene.
18. PRIESTLY FELLOWSHIP
CONCLUDED
WHEN JOE GOT back from the guest room, he found that the juice, which he had yet to thicken with ½ tsp. of arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water, had already thickened, having been kept at, rather than brought to, a boil. Until then, he had hoped to serve cherries jubilee for dessert and to do the job h
imself, so Mrs P. wouldn’t have to be present, but now he didn’t know. The juice had definitely lost its liquidity, was hardening or charring at the edges of the top pan, or blazer. To go ahead now, with or without the arrowroot, might be a mistake. So, playing it safe, he blew out the flame, dished up the cherries as they were, room temperature and rather dry without their juice, and served them swiftly, with spoons. He said nothing, and nothing was said.
The conversation died away when he sat down with his dish and spoon. He had tuned in earlier, though, while serving, and was curious to know why Hennessy thought that Conklin shouldn’t go on teaching at the Institute. “If he’s reasonably competent, and if Beans wants him back—well, why not?” Joe said, feeling broad-minded. (Hennessy too had that effect on him.) No response. “I’ll put it another way. What if he shaved off his mustache?”
Potter and Bill shuffled their feet and protested, but Joe ignored them. “Why not?” he asked, speaking directly to Conklin.
“You talkin’ about the mustache or the Institute?”
“Both.”
Potter and Bill protested again.
“It’s a fair question,” said Conklin. “About the Institute. You better tell him, Bill.”
Joe looked at Bill. “Well?”
“Conk’s lost his faith,” Bill said.
“That so?” said Joe. He was sorry to hear it, of course, and felt that more was expected of him, but he also felt that condolences weren’t in order, since some people, especially young people, regard the loss of their faith as a great step forward, and since he wasn’t exactly rolling in the stuff himself. “I see,” he said—now he saw why Conklin had been invited—why so much was being made of him by Potter and Bill—what was really going on. It was an old-fashioned spiritual snipe hunt, such as they’d all read about, with Potter and Bill, if not Hennessy, pleased to be participating, and also, it seemed, the snipe. That was the odd part.
“Conk just doesn’t take God for granted—unlike some of us in the Church,” Potter said, apparently to Joe. “That’s been our trouble all along. Atheism and faith—true faith—have that in common. They don’t take God for granted.”
Joe looked cross-eyed at Hennessy.
“But Conk’s not an atheist,” Bill said to Joe. “Are you, Conk?”
Conklin smiled. “No, but I’m working on it.”
Joe wanted to hit him.
“That’s what I like about Conk,” Potter said, grimly. “He’s honest.”
Bill nodded, grimly.
Joe sniffed. “What I don’t get,” he said to Conklin, “is why you want to go on teaching at the Institute if you’ve lost your faith. Just want to keep your hand in, or what?”
“Don’t blame Conk,” Potter said.
“Conk wants to quit,” Bill said.
“He should,” Joe said, and gave him an encouraging nod.
“No!” cried Potter, and stood up. “What matters in teaching is a man’s competence, not his private beliefs, or lack of same. And that applies to Scripture and theology, if they’re teachable, and I say they are. By agnostics, infidels, and apostates, you say? Yes! I say. And, thank God, some of our better institutions agree!” Potter sat down.
Bill stood up. “But how many of our seminaries, Pot? How can we go on calling theology the Queen of Sciences?” Bill sat down.
“How about Beans?” said Joe, without getting up. Joe was pretty sure that Beans didn’t need Conklin, was just doing an ex-seminarian a favor, letting him keep his hand in, and maybe hoping for a delayed vocation. “He know about this? No? Better tell him, then, so he can find somebody else, if necessary.”
Potter and Bill both stood up, both preaching, and Potter, of course, prevailed, but he was repeating himself.
“Look,” said Joe. “The Institute isn’t one of our better institutions.” Even as an adventure in adult education, which was all it claimed to be, it probably didn’t rate too high. “And it wouldn’t be one of our better institutions if you guys pulled this off.”
“It’d be a start,” said Potter, sitting down.
“It’d be a stunt,” said Joe, getting up. Going to the door, he took the tray from Mrs P., but on his return with his mind on the trouble there could be over Conklin at the Institute—factions, resolutions, resignations, and so on—he overran the coffee table, jarring it and cracking his shin. In some pain, he backed up and put down the tray, saying, “I worry about you guys.” Pouring and handing around coffee, sloshing it, he spoke to them as he sometimes did to Bill alone, late at night.
HOME TRUTHS
He, at their age, he said, had dearly wanted to be a saint, had trained for it—plenty of prayer and fasting, no smoking, no booze (“Actually, I didn’t drink anything but beer then”), and had worn a hair shirt for a while. At their age, he had worked out on himself, not on other people, and that was the difference between the men of his generation and theirs. One of the differences. “You guys even want to be saints? I doubt it. You’re too busy with your public relations.”
CHANGING STANDARDS
There might be worlds to be won, souls to be harvested, and so on, but not with stunts and gimmicks. He had been rather pessimistic about the various attempts to improve the Church’s image, and he had been right. Vocations, conversions, communions, confessions, contributions, general attendance, all down. And why not? “We used to stand out in the crowd. We had quality control. We were the higher-priced spread. No more. Now if somebody drops the ball somebody else throws it into the stands, and that’s how we clear the bases. Tell the man in the next parish [Ed Smiley] that you fornicated a hundred and thirty-six times since your last confession, which was one month ago, and he says, ‘Did you think ill of your fellow man?’ It’s a crazy world.”
STRANDED
There had always been a shortage of virtue in the world, and evil and ignorance were still facts of life, but where was the old intelligence? He had begun to wonder, as he never had before, about the doctrine of free will. People, he feared, might not be able to exercise free will anymore, owing to the decline in human intelligence. How else explain the state of the country, and the world, today? “We don’t, maybe we can’t, make the right moves—like those poor whales you read about. We’re stranded.”
HUMAN NATURE
The Church was irrelevant today, not concerned enough with the everyday problems of war, poverty, segregation, and so on, people said, but such talk was itself irrelevant, was really a criticism of human nature. Sell what you have and follow me, Our Lord had told the rich young man—who had then gone away sad. That was human nature for you, and it hadn’t changed. Let him take it who can, Our Lord had said of celibacy—and few could take it, then or now. “And that applies to heroic sacrifice of all kinds. Let’s face it.”
BRUEGHEL THE ELDER
People, most people, lay and clerical, just weren’t up to much. Liturgists, of course, were trying to capitalize on that fact, introducing new forms of worship, reviving old ones, and so on, but an easy way would never be found to make gold out of lead. Otherwise the saints and martyrs would have lived as they had, and died, in vain. Zero multiplied a million times is still zero. All this talk of community, communicating, and so on—it was just whistling in the dark. “Life’s not a cookout by Brueghel the Elder and people know it.”
TOO FAR?
Sure it was a time of crisis, upheaval, and so on, but a man could still do his job. The greatest job in the world, divinely instituted and so on, was that of the priest, and yet it was still a job—a marrying, burying, sacrificing job, plus whatever good could be done on the side. It was not a crusade. Turn it into one, as some guys were trying to do, and you asked too much of it, of yourself, and of ordinary people, invited nervous breakdowns all around. Trying to do too much was something the Church had always avoided, at least until recently. At the Council, the so-called conservatives—a persecuted minority group if ever there was one—had only been afraid of going too far too soon, of throwing the baby out with the bat
hwater. “And rightly so.”
FLYING SAUCERS
The Church couldn’t respond to all the demands of the moment or she’d go the way of those numerous sects that owed their brief existence to such demands. People had to realize that what they wanted might not be what they needed, and if they couldn’t—well, they couldn’t. Religion was a weak force today, owing to the decline in human intelligence. It was now easy to see how the Church, though she’d endure to the end, as promised by Our Lord, would become a mere remnant of herself. In the meantime, though, the priest had to get on with his job, such as it was. As for feeling thwarted and useless, he knew that feeling, but he also knew what it meant. It meant that he was in touch with reality, and that was something these days. Frequently reported, of course, like flying saucers, were parishes where priests and people were doing great things together. “But I’ve never seen one myself, if it’s any consolation to you guys,” Joe said, and paused.
Did the impressive silence mean that they were now seeing themselves and their situations in a new light, in the clear north light of reality? Bill, finally? Potter? Even Conklin? Joe hoped so, in all cases. On the whole, he was satisfied with the response. The bathwater bit hadn’t gone down very well (groans from Potter, “Oh, no!” from Conklin), and there had been other interruptions, but Joe had kept going, had boxed on, opening cuts, closing eyes, and everybody, including Conklin, looked better to him now.
He wanted Hennessy and Potter to come out again, and not just to discuss their problems with him (Joe), though that would be all right. He wanted them to come out whenever they felt like it, whenever they needed a lift, a little priestly fellowship. Actually, there might be more for them with him, and more for him with them, than with Bill—who, to tell the truth, wasn’t much fun. It could happen, first Hennessy and Potter coming, then coming with others, and these in turn with others. There would be nights, perhaps when Bill wouldn’t leave his room. “Where’s Bill?” “Oh, he’s listening to FM.” Joe’s rectory could become a hangout for the younger clergy, a place where they’d always be sure of a drink, a cigar, and if he put a table in the living room, never used now, a cue. Pastors at first critical (“Stay the hell away from there!”) would sing his praises (“He sure straightened out that kid of mine!”). Time marching on, Hennessy seldom seen, a bishop somewhere, first, and last, of the old crowd to make it, but the others still around, pastors now with curates of their own—tired, wiser men, the age gap narrowing between them and their old mentor, not so old, really, and in excellent health, eating and drinking less. A few missing, yes, the others, though, still coming out to Joe’s—in a crazy world, an asylum of sanity—for priestly fellowship, among them, perhaps, Father Conklin, old Conk, a pretty lonely guy for a while there, until he started coming out, shaved off his cruel mustache, found his lost faith, the road back, second spring, and so on.