Kempe rose, crossed the room, and returned with water in a crystal tumbler.
“He was alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything about going to the police or hiring a lawyer?
“No.”
“I need to know his name, Wilfred.”
“Mark Anderlee. His family belonged to Blessed Sacrament parish. He graduated from Loyola Blakefield. I vaguely remember him from my summers at Camp Carroll. He said he’s just out of the army, retired after twenty years. He was very intent, Aidan, very intent.” Gunnison put the tumbler down. “He wants money. He wants a hundred thousand dollars!”
Kempe’s eyes, cold and clear, bore into Gunnison.
“Tell me what happened, Wilfred.”
“He’s blowing this way out of proportion. I may have given him a back rub. A back rub. That’s all there was to it.”
Kempe shook his head. Gunnison knew what he was thinking. Yes, he was thinking of the other young men who had back rubs from the archbishop. Their parents had made no formal allegations nor had they filed police reports. Thank God. After Kempe had provided counseling for the boys and assured their parents their abuser would never be in a position to abuse again, the cases seemed to go away.
Kempe, to the Brotherhood’s great advantage, was part of the archdiocese’s response team created in the wake of the first clergy abuse scandals. Gunnison, of course, while he was still archbishop, had appointed him to the post. And Gunnison knew that on a few occasions, including the earlier allegations against him, Kempe acted quietly, alone, not even informing Cullen, the new archbishop. It was risky, but Kempe found that a little money, a few months of counseling, and a promise to make sure the priest wouldn’t offend again always did the trick.
What Gunnison didn’t know, however, was something that Kempe was beginning to understand all too clearly. Wilfred Gunnison was no longer an asset to the Brotherhood. His prominence and his weakness were a danger to their mission, a mission under attack on every front. Aidan Kempe knew his next step. He would, and very soon, have to seek advice from M.
Gunnison rose slowly from his chair.
“Can we talk tomorrow, Aidan?” he said, “But not here. Not in your office. Somewhere less…official.”
Gunnison waited for a hint of sympathy that never came.
In the outer office, Gunnison nodded peremptorily to Margaret Comiskey and headed to the elevator. He had seen Comiskey almost daily for the eleven years he was archbishop. Even had he not been preoccupied with Anderlee’s allegation, it never would have occurred to him to ask her how she was.
Walking back to his residence, Gunnison found himself coping with a swirl of emotions. In addition to the fear that clung like a heavy, black vestment, he was now swallowing resentment, a resentment that wouldn’t stay down, a bile rising in his throat.
It was he, after all, who had furthered Aidan Kempe’s career. He sent him to study in Rome. He named him financial vicar. He recommended him to Cullen for the chancellor’s position. Now the chancellor was treating him like some clueless priest. The hubris of the man!
Kempe, Gunnison knew, had taken as many risks as any of them. He thought of his weekend trips to the Boys Town area of Chicago, where Kempe and some of his priest friends frequented the gay bars on Division Street. Their intention, of course, was simply to have interesting conversation with like-minded men.
Gunnison paused in front of the Basilica. There was no sign of Anderlee. Perhaps it had been a little more than a backrub. One thing was certain, however. He never, never, never sodomized the boy.
Kempe and Gunnison met the next day at a restaurant a block from the Catholic Center, well after the lunch crowd had thinned.
“I’m doing all I can to make this go away, Wilfred.”
Gunnison still looked anxious and drawn. “This couldn’t come at a worse time,” he whispered.
Kempe tried not to look cynical. Yes, in a few weeks you’ll be celebrating your fiftieth ordination anniversary with a Mass at the Basilica and a Catholic Charities fundraising dinner. Let’s hope nobody finds out that half the proceeds go to you, Wilfred, you goddamn phony.
“I understand the timing couldn’t be worse,” Kempe said, trying to sound sympathetic. “But we can’t do anything about it—unless you postpone your celebration.”
“I’m not going to postpone the celebration,” Gunnison said emphatically.
“You could claim a medical emergency.”
“Aidan, the anniversary Mass and dinner will go on as scheduled. We’ll just have to deal with this Anderlee. Can you come up with the hundred thousand?”
Both men knew the money was a major hurdle.
“I think so,” Kempe answered lowering his voice. “I could take half of it from the purple purse.” His tone changed as he said sternly, “You understand, of course, this puts a very big dent in our resources.”
Gunnison didn’t appreciate this little lecture and fought to keep his buried resentment toward Kempe from showing. He had given his life to the church and in his eyes had served it well. He was an archbishop, for God’s sake, and entitled to Kempe’s respect and best efforts to get him out of this mess. And not just for his own sake, but for the good of the church and for the good of the Brotherhood.
“And the rest?” he asked petulantly.
Kempe ignored the tone. “I’ll call on some of our faithful benefactors and tell them the archdiocese is faced with an unexpected financial emergency. Let’s hope their trust is still such that they won’t ask questions. And let’s hope our lay friends can get their checks to me in a matter of days.”
Gunnison took a deep breath. Maybe this will, please God, go away.
“When Anderlee contacts you, and you can be sure he will be contacting you soon, tell him you need to meet with him in the Basilica, in one of the pews where you can talk privately—and still be seen by anyone making a visit.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gunnison said quickly. “I don’t want to be alone with him.”
“Give him the impression,” Kempe went on, “that the money has come from your personal savings and that you want to help him out until he gets settled and established. How you play this, Wilfred, is critical.”
Again, Gunnison scarcely concealed his rising irritation at the lecturing tone. “Yes, of course.”
“If Anderlee brings up the incident, you should say you’re sorry if the backrub disturbed or upset him…that you never meant to harm him. Above all, do not ask for his forgiveness.”
Gunnison nodded his agreement.
Kempe wasn’t finished, “We’re banking that Anderlee is working on his own, that he hasn’t hired a lawyer. So we can’t ask for a letter promising silence. He’d almost certainly seek legal advice.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.” Gunnison conceded. There was sadness in his voice and his eyes were watery and tired.
“Wilfred, this is more money than I’ve ever given to anyone making an allegation. We can only pray he takes it, keeps his mouth shut, and moves on with his life.”
Gunnison could barely tolerate this last preachy piety. He sat still, with his eyes lowered, too tired to eat, too exasperated even to pray.
6
Ian Landers rose to greet Nora Martin as she approached his table. He thought of greeting her with a light embrace the way Americans do even with casual friends. Instead he offered her his hand. It was too formal, too British a gesture—and he knew it. Martin wore a light, powdery fragrance that led Landers to imagine she had just showered after a five mile run. He liked the cut of her hair, on the short side, and her simple earrings. Her sky blue eyes, not really large, but clear and intelligent, were her best feature. She wore no other jewelry except a small emerald ring on her right hand. Her white open-necked blouse revealed the exquisite, dimpled juncture of her smooth neck and upper chest. Martin’s brushed-pink Irish skin, Landers noted with a swallow, suggested a youthful wholesomeness, even innocence.
“Go
od choice of a restaurant,” Ian said smiling. Nora had suggested a small, not yet trendy place on Charles Street.
“I’ve never found it noisy,” she responded, glancing around at the tables closest to theirs. “We should be able to talk without shouting at each other.”
They sipped a 2004 Argentine Malbec and shared some fairly harmless university gossip and compared positions on the current policy issues raising the ire of their colleagues.
“You promised to tell me more about your life in England,” Nora said after the first pause in their conversation.
“All right, I’ll go next.” Ian glanced at his wine glass but instead took a sip of water. “After Leeds, I found myself at Oxford. When I finished my undergraduate studies at Balliol College, I continued on for the doctorate in medieval history.
“To be honest, it wasn’t quite that seamless. My last year at Balliol I shared my flat with another doctoral student, a very lovely woman. It was my first serious relationship, and it was liberating and intense and wonderful. I should have been a very happy chap. But I felt something wasn’t quite right. There were days when I felt confused and even sad.” Landers furrowed his brow and reached for his wine. “Now I think I understand. The whole time we were together I was having a rather intense spiritual awakening. Don’t ask me to explain it. I just had this need to sit still in prayer. I really don’t know if it was even proper prayer. I just needed to sit still and be still.”
Nora nodded and flushed at the budding intimacy between them, trying hard to hide her own confusion in hearing this personal and private episode in Ian’s life. She understood his desire for contemplative stillness well enough—but the affair, and his telling her about it now, caught her off guard.
“After she moved out,” Ian continued, “I even spoke to a Dominican on the history faculty about the possibility of entering the Dominicans and studying for the priesthood.”
He shook his head and smiled, saying without saying: That never happened, of course.
“Perhaps we should look at our menus before the server thinks we’re here just for drinks,” Nora said, to fill the sudden void.
Their orders placed, they nibbled at the bread while Ian struggled not to stare at that delicious point at the base of Nora’s throat.
“So you thought of becoming a priest.”
“It was a long time ago,” Ian said crisply, an apparent signal he didn’t want to say anything more about the subject. Nora nodded her silent understanding, a slight smile softening her gaze that seemed to say: Of course.
“Well, Professor Martin, I’m waiting.”
“Well, Professor Landers, I could tell you that after graduating from Penn State I did graduate work in psychology at The Catholic University. I got my Ph.D. there four years ago. And that would be true. But I would be leaving out an important part of my story.”
Nora was thankful to be interrupted by the server filling their wine glasses.
“Don’t leave me hanging.”
“After college, my parents, brothers, friends…they all expected me to do graduate studies in psychology. They had good reason—I talked about it a lot. But instead, I entered the convent.”
“You entered a convent?” Ian repeated lamely.
“Yes, a contemplative monastery to be precise. The Carmelite Monastery just north of the Beltway, not far from Goucher College.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Ian said. “One of my graduate students recommended the 9:00 Mass on Sundays.”
“If you go, you won’t be sorry,” Nora said. “When you mentioned your need for stillness, as you put it, I smiled to myself. I thought of Pascal’s maxim, ‘All the evil in the world can be traced to our inability to sit still in a room.’ During my last two years at Penn State, I felt something very similar—a need for contemplation. I wanted to try a simpler way of living, a less driven way, a less competitive way. On the positive side, I wanted a more radical way of being a Christian. I believe I got a taste of that when I went to Mass at the Carmel. So, one Sunday after Mass I decided to speak to the prioress.”
The arrival of their entrees broke the flow of Martin’s story.
“I’m very glad I did. Six months later I entered the novitiate. The Baltimore Carmel is one of only about a dozen Carmelite monasteries in the world that renewed or updated after the Second Vatican Council. The sisters still wear cowled white robes for Mass and the chanting of the office, but they dress in ordinary, functional clothes when not in chapel for liturgy. The order of the day is pretty much what it’s been for centuries—common prayer, two hours of contemplative prayer, common meals, common recreation, house responsibilities of various kinds. Some of the sisters offer spiritual direction to people outside the cloister.”
“Didn’t the deadly silence get to you after a while?” Ian asked.
“I thrived on it. It was anything but deadly. The renewed monasteries have a different understanding of cloistered life. It’s less a matter of geography—sacred space within closed walls—than it is of a commitment to living in the presence of God in a monastic setting, in a monastic community. So we talked when necessary and when it seemed the healthy and human thing to do. We went to the dentist and doctor, we shopped for groceries and other necessities, we might visit our families for anniversaries and funerals if they lived nearby.
“No, it wasn’t the silence that got to me. I came to see that my truth—that’s how I think of vocation or calling—was to lead a contemplative life beyond the monastery.”
“So you left.”
“Yes, I left after my temporary vows expired. A few of the sisters remain dear friends. I visit as often as I can.”
Landers sat back in his chair. He was moved. So this is where her spiritual depth came from. A line from Cicero’s De Amicitia came back to him, a line he had memorized in his first year of Latin studies: Nihil enim virtute amabilius. Nothing is more lovable than goodness. Yes, Nora Martin was attractive, but what really quickened his pulse was her unvarnished goodness.
They walked together south down Charles Street, looking for some quiet place to stop for coffee or an after dinner drink, their shoulders and elbows lightly touching.
“What are you teaching this semester?” Nora asked, breaking the comfortable silence.
“It’s a graduate seminar, Politics and Power in the Medieval Church. It fits nicely with the book I’m working on.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’m not sure I should. It has a ring of the cloak and dagger about it.”
Nora gave him an encouraging smile.
“We’ve known for a long time about secret clerical societies in Europe during the late Middle Ages and well into the early modern era. They claimed to be committed to identifying and rooting out heretics and to fighting the external enemies of the church. What I’m trying to do is not only understand the social dynamic at work there but to measure, in so far as any historian can, their influence on the church. The more I dig, the clearer it is that most were ambitious men eager for ever more lucrative, high-ranking appointments in the church. Many of the lower clergy desperately wanted to be bishops or abbots and get their hands on the riches such appointments would afford them. They all were rigidly orthodox theologically, but some of the prelates and priests I’ve come across had quite unorthodox views on sexuality, especially physical affection between members of their own clandestine society.”
“Ian,” Nora asked with rising energy in her voice, “have you heard of a secret society known as Fideli d’ Amore—the Brotherhood of the Faithful in Love?
“How in the world did you ever hear of Fideli d’ Amore? There are church historians who don’t know a thing about the Fideli.”
“I just know a secret Brotherhood existed,” Nora said quickly. “I wouldn’t say I know much about it.”
“I really don’t know that much about it, either. But then, who does? Kind of the point of a secret society. There’s considerable evidence that the Fideli were an offshoot of the Knights
Templar, the secret society of poets and financiers who considered themselves ‘guardians of the supreme center’—the very heart and soul of the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. This is quite a coincidence…the Fideli are on the syllabus for my graduate seminar.”
Pleased too at the coincidence, and with herself, Nora had to tell Ian how she had come to know of the ancient secret society.
“The Baltimore Carmel is the oldest order of religious women in the colonial U.S. Our nuns arrived in Baltimore, actually Port Tobacco, in 1790, and moved to Baltimore proper twenty or thirty years later. The monastery’s archives are in very good order. I came across the Fideli while trying to acquaint myself with the monastery’s history. You really should take some time to see what’s there.”
Suddenly Nora wasn’t pleased with herself at all. This discussion of Fideli d’ Amore had smothered any romantic embers their dinner had fanned.
“I’d like very much to visit the archives. Can you really help me there, Nora?”
“I believe I can,” Nora said. “Yes, I certainly can.”
7
It took a half-dozen calls to raise the money, and the tedious process anchored Aidan Kempe to his desk until late in the afternoon. Now alone in his office, he stood at the corner window surveying the intersection of Cathedral and Mulberry Streets. It was almost five and the late January clouds layered the low sky in feathery bands of blue and gray. Streetlights were on, and Kempe drew a strange comfort from the stalled rush hour traffic and the anonymous figures filing heavily along the sidewalks. Few if any of the people below his window had the sense of mission and purpose that made his life so fascinating, so heroic. They were making a living. Monsignor Aidan Kempe was saving the Roman Catholic Church.
He loved these short days of winter, especially when the streets were wet with snow or rain. He did his best thinking and praying in this silent after-glow of twilight.
The Catholic Center staff was closing down for the day. Another fifteen minutes and he would be alone in the building. Only he and Bryn Martin regularly worked well into the evening. He clenched his teeth at the thought of Martin, the new auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese. Kempe had been informed by M and a local priest with Roman connections that his own name had made the short list. He had believed his chances were very good. Both he and Martin were protégés of Gunnison, but Kempe was Martin’s senior in terms of ordination and Gunnison surely would have spoken up for him. It would have strengthened the Brotherhood to have a second bishop in its inner circle.
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