There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The heat was crushingly intense. It was early August. A fresh batch of campers had descended on Ozanam just two days before. Time enough for them to discover that Lake Huron was still formidably frigid, there was plenty of discipline, the air was friendlier to lungs than Detroit’s smog, in most cases camp food was not like home, and with all these complaints there was no momma to wipe away a tear.
At the same time, the staff was stagnating. This was the beginning of the fourth trip of the season. So far, over six hundred boys had spent their two weeks at camp. And there was still a fifth trip to come.
Each summer, this period was known as the Fourth Trip Jitters.
Among those suffering from homesickness was one lad determined to do something about it. But what? He had heard from boys who had been at this camp in previous seasons that there was no escape.
The truth was that the overwhelming majority of campers were having the time of their lives. But this fact served only to intensify the misery of those who pined for home. Tommy had to get out of here!
He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand, sat on his bunk – it was early afternoon rest period—and pondered.
Among the more impressive aspects of this camp was how very Catholic it was. This fascinated Tommy. The campers attended Mass daily. Daily! At home, Tommy’s family did well if they went to Mass a single day other than Christmas and Easter.
Then there was the grotto.
Just across the long footbridge over a deep ravine, tucked away in the woods, was an idyllic grove. Statues of Mary, the Blessed Mother, and of Ste. Bernadette Soubirous made claim that this was a sacred spot. It was Camp Ozanam’s extremely humble response to the famed and miraculous grotto in Lourdes, France.
O-Z’s grotto boasted no crutches, braces, or wheelchairs discarded by cured clients. Its statues lacked here a nose, there some toes and fingers. But the grotto was a place where campers and counselors gathered periodically to pray.
Tommy thought long about that poor grotto until a plan formed.
He approached the bed where counselor Vincent Delvecchio, having found a rare moment of quiet, was trying to nap.
“Counselor …” Tommy stage-whispered.
Delvecchio forced one eyelid up. “Go back to bed.”
“But, Counselor, I gotta talk to you.”
“Talk to me when we aren’t sleeping.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“You gotta go to the bathroom? Go ahead. Just get outta my dream.”
“No, it ain’t that. I gotta talk to you … outside.”
Delvecchio groaned and eased himself off the bed. He led little Tommy out of the tent and tried to stay in the shade. If Vince could not nap, he would at least try to stay as cool as possible. “Okay, what’s the emergency?”
“Well …”
“Come on! Come on!”
“Well …” Tommy’s lower lip was trembling. “… after lunch I went over to the grotto—”
“After lunch?! Why in the world would you do that?”
“I wanted to pray.”
“Nice. But why the grotto? We’re trying to tell you you can pray anywhere. Besides, if you want to pray, we’ve got the chapel right here on our side of the ravine. Why go to the grotto—no, never mind! Maybe we can salvage some of this rest period. Forget why you went to the grotto. Say you just felt you were called to the grotto … okay?”
“Yeah … I was called to the grotto. A voice inside me told me to go to the grotto.”
Kid’s got a pretty good imagination, thought Delvecchio.
“Anyway, I went to the grotto and’ I was just standin’ there … you know, lookin’ at the Blessed Mother … when, all of a sudden, I saw her!”
“Saw her? You mean you saw her statue? What’s so odd about that?”
“No,” Tommy insisted, “it wasn’t the statue. It was like she stepped out of the statue. I had … a vision!” He spoke in a reverential whisper.
“A vision,” Vincent repeated. “You sure?”
“Oh yes. A vision. A vision of the Blessed Mother!”
Not knowing exactly how to react, Delvecchio postponed reaction. “Okay, then what?”
“She spoke to me.”
“Uh-huh. What did she say?”
“She told me to go home!”
It was all Delvecchio could manage to keep from erupting in laughter. He relished the prospect of telling the other counselors all about Tommy’s “vision.” But what to do now? “She told you to go home, eh?”
“Yes. That’s right.” Tommy was very proud of himself. He had carried this off better than he could have hoped.
“Tell you what: Let’s go back there … just you and me.”
“What for?” There was uncertainty in Tommy’s voice.
“Let’s just do it. Trust me.” In reality, Delvecchio had no idea what should happen next.
The two—the long and short of it—walked hand in hand across the bridge and into the grotto. The other campers and counselors were all in their cabins or tents. Only Tommy and Vincent were out and about.
Wordlessly, counselor and camper stood before the statue of Mary. They remained motionless for a couple of minutes that seemed like hours to the young lad.
Finally, Vincent spoke. “I think I see her.”
“You do?” Wonderment in Tommy’s voice.
“Yes … yes … I see her. She’s saying something. She says … she says you gotta stay here!”
Tears trickled down Tommy’s cheeks.
What could he do? It was his vision against the counselor’s.
Tommy would never forget the day the Blessed Mother failed him.
The Present
Father Tully grinned. “Pretty inventive—on both parts. You think that excuse for going home was unique?”
“As far as my experience and everything I’ve heard—yes. Coming right out of the blue like that, I’d say Delvecchio’s reaction was … maybe inspired. And funny,” Koesler added.
“But it doesn’t sound like the kind of guy I’ve heard and heard about,” Tully said. “It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Are you sure counselor Vinnie eventually became Bishop Delvecchio? It doesn’t add up.
“You did say the two of you were friends …”
“We were. I think we are. We don’t see each other very often, but our friendship goes back such a long way—” Koesler stopped to figure. “Forty-five years!”
“Wow!”
“Just to make sure we’re not building straw horses: What sorts of things have you heard about Vince?”
“Oh”—Tully leaned forward—”I guess the usual things you hear about most bishops: that he’s for whatever the Vatican wants—and against anything that disturbs the Vatican. A company man. Matter of fact, most of the guys seem to wonder how he got to be an auxiliary to Cardinal Boyle.”
“Well,” Koesler said, “our Cardinal is not a crashing liberal.”
“He’s got a reputation that would lead one to believe that he is.”
“I know. His talent is to tolerate people whose opinion he doesn’t share. Which is part of the reason we have Bishop Delvecchio as our auxiliary.”
“Oh? This I haven’t heard.”
“Scuttlebutt, mostly … that and clerical gossip have it that Vince wasn’t even on the list Boyle sent to Rome as bishop material. Word has it that Rome thought Detroit was slipping out of their control. And they guessed correctly that Detroit, in the person of Cardinal Boyle, would not challenge them.
“And by the same token that Boyle tolerates the more aggressive of liberals here—and we’ve got them!—so he will tolerate somebody like Vince. It doesn’t mean that ‘anything goes’ in Detroit; there are limits on both sides. And Boyle will step on toes if he’s pushed or shoved.
“Actually, Detroit is neither liberal nor conservative … just sort of ‘open.’ And that, in this day and age, is enough for me.”
“And me,” Tully said. “But, in the meantime, I’ve
got to deal with Delvecchio. He’s my area auxiliary. I’m trying to get to know what makes him tick. And I figured you’d know as well or better than anyone.”
Koesler didn’t speak for a moment. “I’d like to help you, Zack,” he said finally, “but I wouldn’t want you to think that Vince and I are the best of friends. Lots of people are closer to him than I …” He paused. “Now that I think of it, all those who are closer to him are priests. Over the years, he’s separated himself from the laity. And yet … I don’t think he would be considered ‘a priest’s priest.’”
“Well,” Tully said, “maybe I’m getting ahead of this briefing. You said you had a few things—anecdotes—to tell me.”
Koesler smiled. “Oh, there are more than a few. These stories of our time at the summer camp are meant to sort of set the scene. I thought it might be helpful if you got to know what Vince was like as a young man—a seminarian a few years from ordination.”
“I’ll try not to get ahead of the game.” Tully smiled. “Okay, Counselor: Tell me a story.”
3
“Are you even old enough to remember the Requiem Mass?” Father Koesler regarded his successor dubiously.
Father Tully snorted. “You mean the black vestments and the interminable Dies Irae and that? You mean the kind of Mass almost every priest used to say almost every day, Monday through Saturday?” Tully nodded. “I grew up with it as an altar boy and it was still around a little while after Vatican II. So, yeah, I remember the Requiem Mass.”
Catholic laity regularly ask that Masses be offered for their intention. And nine times out of ten—or even more often—the intention is à prayer for a deceased person. For centuries, the Mass offered for a deceased person was the Requiem, with its foreboding music and scary language. And, of course, the actual funeral liturgy was the Requiem, with additional chants at the beginning and end.
Gradually, after the Second Vatican Council, the Requiem disappeared as the Church chose to emphasize the joy and fulfillment of heaven, rather than the sorrow of death. Few parishes even kept black vestments. Few choirs remembered the solemn chants.
Thus Koesler’s questioning Father Tully’s memory of the Requiem was not capricious.
“Okay,” Koesler said. “Well, at camp, fortunately, the chaplain tried to keep down the number of Requiem Masses. Most of the campers gave every indication that they were pretty well bored with daily Mass. The repetition of the Requiem would only have intensified the monotony.”
Tully seemed puzzled. “But what happened to all those Mass intentions for the dead?”
“There weren’t all that many. The camp chaplain was on the priest faculty of the minor seminary—Sacred Heart.”
“So?”
“So, he just did parish work on the weekends during the school year. He didn’t have access to Mass intentions or their stipends.”
“Compared with the other Detroit priests, your chaplain comes out as a poor relation.”
“Not really. Most of the faculty went out every morning—or as often as they wished—and picked up the stipends for the scheduled Masses they offered. The point is, Zack, that at camp we had an occasional Requiem, but not as regularly as in the parishes.”
“What does this have to do with Delvecchio?”
“Just this: Over all those summers we were at Camp Ozanam, I was the organist and choir director.”
“You play the organ?”
“Not very well.” Koesler smiled. “Ozanam couldn’t afford E. Power Biggs. There was an old pump organ in the chapel. That was our Casavant—just like the grotto with its broken noses, missing toes and fingers, was our Lourdes.
“The thing is that Vince also played the piano—and thus qualified on our pump organ. This—nineteen fifty-three—was my last summer at camp—no matter what happened. Either I would drop out of the seminary or I would be ordained. Of course, I was ordained in June of ’fifty-four. My camping days were over.
“And before that summer of ’fifty-three ended, I wanted to pass the baton to Vince. So we kind of relieved each other by the week. I introduced him to the kind of music we used, and he got the practice he needed to go from piano to organ.
“Well, one morning toward the middle of June, Vince directed and accompanied the gang in his first Requiem Mass. Afterward, when I could talk to him privately after breakfast …”
1953
“Vinnie … hey, Vinnie, wait up.”
Bob Koesler trotted to the side of Vince Delvecchio and joined him in walking to the cabin side of the ravine. “What’ve you got this morning?”
“I’m supposed to take squads two and five for boxing instructions.” Delvecchio snickered. “It’d be nice if I knew what I was supposed to do.”
“Nobody took you through boxing instructions?”
“Uh-uh. I just looked at the bulletin board this morning, and there I was: taking two and five. I guess I’m supposed to teach them how to box. I don’t think they meant making boxes for packing things.”
Koesler threw an arm over Delvecchio’s shoulder. “Congratulations! The way I hear it, that’s pretty much how we’re expected to function once we’re ordained.”
“What?”
“Ex officio,” Koesler explained. “From what I’ve heard, we’ll find little use for a lot of what we learn in the seminary. I mean, we’re not expected to put down Manichaeanism or refute Jansenism. We’re supposed to count and bank the weekly collection. And teach catechism–even though we’re not qualified as teachers. Everything is ex officio.
“But boxing: That’s an entirely different can of worms. You could get killed!”
“That thought crossed my mind.” Delvecchio stopped walking, turned to Koesler, and grinned. “Some of those guys are bigger than I am.”
“You’ve got something going for you.”
“I’d really appreciate knowing what.”
“The kids probably think you’re an expert at the manly art of self-defense.”
“Excuse me, but how does that help me not get my block knocked off?”
“You must’ve seen some amateur or professional boxing matches someplace down the line.”
“A few.”
“A few,” Koesler repeated. “Just enough to carry this off, I think.”
“You think!”
“Show the kids footwork. That’s a big part of boxing … at least I seem to have read that. You know how to dance?”
“I’m a seminarian.”
“I know. But you have a sister, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But I never danced with her. And they’re sure as hell not teaching it in the seminary. Unless … at St. John’s …?”
“No, no. I’ve got only one more year at St. John’s—and I’m pretty sure the record of keeping seminarians away from girls will remain unblemished.
“Okay …” Koesler thought for a moment. “Here’s what you do: You ask the kids if anybody knows anything about footwork in the ring—”
“And if somebody volunteers, I let him teach everybody whatever he knows.”
“Exactly.”
“And if there aren’t any volunteers?”
“You’re still in business. If nobody knows anything, make it up as you go along. Just keep moving. Try like hell to remember what you’ve seen in the movies or whatever.”
“And after footwork?”
“Try to make it last.”
“For an hour and a half?”
Koesler tended to agree that might be stretching things. “Maybe then you could do a little shtick on the role of hands and arms as instruments of self-protection.”
“You mean, put the gloves on?”
Koesler shook his head decisively. “No! Under no circumstances do you get in the ring with anyone. Some of our darlings may be itching to take out their frustrations on the staff. Not necessarily you … but you would make an interesting target in a boxing ring with the gloves on. Just offhand, who do you think the kids would be rooting for?”
Without a
nswering, Delvecchio turned and headed on. Koesler walked along with him.
“So,” Delvecchio said finally, “what I do is I fake it for as long as possible. And if, after I do everything I can, there’s still time to kill …”
Koesler pulled at his lower lip. “You might match the kids according to height and weight and let ‘em go at each other for a minute or two.”
“Yeah, but given that I haven’t actually taught them a damn thing, isn’t it likely they could hurt each other?”
“Haven’t you seen the gloves we use?”
“No. I didn’t have any reason to look for them.”
“Well, when you go to the property room, I guarantee you’ll be impressed with the gloves. I think the camp got them brand-new about thirty or forty years ago. Unless you know how to tuck the excess padding under your fingers and make the surface taut, it’s like having a pillow fight.”
“Okay. Thanks, Bob.” Delvecchio stopped and lifted his eyes heavenward. “I’ll let you know how it all comes out,” he said as he turned back to Koesler. “But if something goes wrong with the advice you so generously gave me, look me up in the infirmary.”
Koesler chuckled. He took a fresh look at Delvecchio. Vince resembled Murphy’s Law animated. If something could go wrong with him in a boxing ring, it would. At six foot two or three, he had plenty of height, but he was rail-thin. In a year, when he would graduate from Sacred Heart to St. John’s Seminary, the food would take a sharp turn for the better and he probably would fill out. Meanwhile, height alone would not help him survive in the ring.
Delvecchio needed prayer.
And this reminded Koesler of the reason he wanted to talk with Vince. It had nothing whatever to do with the squared circle. “But teaching boxing isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I was wondering …” Delvecchio’s look was open but puzzled.
“It was about Mass this morning.”
“Really? Was I bad? I’m still trying to master a legato touch. You don’t have to worry very much with the piano.”
“No, it isn’t the legato; you’re doing all right with that.”
“I’m just lucky I don’t have to mess with pedals. I don’t think I could coordinate the whole thing … not unless I had a lot more time to practice.”
The Greatest Evil Page 2