Master of Ceremonies

by Donald B. Cozzens

  Kempe couldn’t help it. He was still bitter at being passed over. It was no doubt Charles Cullen who had tipped the scale in Martin’s favor. Cullen and Martin, he feared, were not good for the archdiocese and not good for the Church of Rome. They were among the diminishing breed of democracy-tainted American bishops and priests—too naïve to see the dangerous liberal underside to the Second Vatican Council, too trusting in the laity and the secular order. Their numbers were shrinking, Kempe thought, but not fast enough. He turned from the window and went back to his desk to call Gunnison.

  “I’ve raised the money.”

  “Thank God,” Gunnison whispered into the phone.

  “I’ll have a registered bank check drawn up and have my secretary bring it directly to your residence. You remember Margaret Comiskey, don’t you?”

  “Yes, she was one of the chancery secretaries when I was named archbishop.”

  “She will hand deliver a large envelope with your name and the word ‘Confidential’ printed on it. Inside will be a business size envelope with the check. Let me know the moment you hear from Anderlee.”

  Kempe hung up and took a black leather key case from his suit coat pocket and selected the key to a file drawer on the right side of his desk. There were no duplicates, and the key was always on his person. The drawer rolled open smoothly. Kempe kept at least ten thousand in cash in the drawer and the checkbook to the purple purse. The account bore the name Archdiocese of Baltimore, Emergency Fund. A small suburban bank held the account, and he was the only signatory. It had a balance of over seven hundred thousand dollars. Kempe’s goal was to bring the purse up to a million in the next few years. But the file guarded something arguably as useful to Kempe as the influence and power the money could wield. It held his hand-written notes of allegations brought directly to him as vicar and chancellor against a dozen or so priests, a veritable spectrum of sins of the flesh—sexual misconduct with married women and adult men, with teenage boys, with pre-pubescent children; arrests for solicitation and possession of child pornography; allegations against pastors for skimming money from the Sunday collections and abusing their parish credit cards. At considerable risk to his own career, Kempe had deftly handled these allegations and arrests without informing other archdiocesan authorities, not even the archbishop. Kempe reported none of the allegations, including those of abuse involving minors, to the police. He took these risks to protect the church from scandal. The anti-Catholic media feasted on the sins of a small minority of Catholic clergy, and he wanted to save his weak brothers from public humiliation, from losing their pastorates, and, in some cases, from prison time.

  Included in the file were three allegations of inappropriate sexual contact against Wilfred Gunnison, the retired, jubilee-celebrating archbishop of Baltimore.

  Kempe removed his confidential journal and wrote: Situation involving senior member of the Brotherhood may be resolved. Fifty K withdrawn from purple purse. Situation still a threat to the Brotherhood. Kempe added the date and placed the journal into the file. He rolled the drawer shut and locked it, returning the key case to his pocket. With elbows on his desk, Aidan Kempe rested his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day.

  In spite of his fatigue, he was pleased with himself. Years before, when he had started working at the Catholic Center after his studies in Rome, a senior chancery priest had taken him aside. “The way to survive down here, Aidan, is to get something on your colleagues.” Kempe remembered raising his eyebrows at the Machiavellian advice, but had said nothing, giving his seasoned advisor the barest hint of a smile. He was, he knew without the least bit of exaggeration, way ahead of his older colleague on that score.

  Kempe rose from his chair and glanced around his office. It was without question the most elegantly appointed office in the Catholic Center, more tasteful, he believed, than even the archbishop’s. His eyes moved from the deep purple drapes to the carefully chosen purple tones in the oriental rugs. The desk lamps had been chosen to give his book-lined office the feel of a study. He was seldom in a hurry to return to his suite in the Cathedral rectory. He moved back to the corner window, pleased with his day’s work. The rush hour traffic had given way to the normal late evening volume. There was so much chaos out there, he thought, so much infidelity and cruelty. He shivered, though his office was comfortably warm. He was safe here, protected from the late winter wind.

  He stood still at the window. Someone looking out from an office across Mulberry Street might see a dignified churchman standing as if in a portrait, the window casing serving as its frame. The image Kempe projected, however, was not that of a pastor. It was more of a corporate CEO or a U.S. senator. He was tired, but looked forward with pleasure to the unscheduled evening—a good meal, a glass or two of Pinot Noir, and the haunting spiritual power of Rachmaninov’s Vespers awaited him.

  The shimmering of red and white car lights in the slow-moving traffic kept Kempe at the window. It had rained a few hours earlier. Perfect. The red taillights, if he squinted a bit, seemed like vigil candles burning in all the churches of the archdiocese, and the white headlights seemed like so many candles standing guard at a church’s altar. Many, maybe half, of the people in the cars and on the sidewalks below were Catholic. And he, financial vicar and chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore and leader of the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple, had to make sure their faith in the church was not disturbed. Most of the laity didn’t know who Monsignor Aidan Kempe was. But he knew. He was, by the grace of God, their true spiritual father. At least in this archdiocese, he and the Brotherhood would save their church from the dissenters who wanted to replace the fear of God with the so-called “freedom” of God’s people. They had no idea, he felt certain, just how dangerous freedom could be.

  A dark figure moving toward the rectory’s garage down the street caught his eye. Bryn Martin. Yes, he was certain it was Martin, dressed in jeans and a dark bomber jacket with the collar turned up. Kempe glanced at this watch. 6:30. Where was young Bishop Martin going? What was he up to? Jeans and a dark jacket, after all, were the cruising attire of the more worldly clergy. If he could have reached his car in time, Kempe would have followed him. Did Martin have a double life? The idea intrigued him. Kempe’s heart was beating now with a rush of curiosity. And yes, if he were honest, with hope.

  Before leaving his office, Kempe unlocked the file to make another entry.

  Bryn Martin pulled up to the side entrance of the archbishop’s residence, the same entrance Gunnison had used on the night that, in spite of all his efforts, Martin couldn’t forget. The flashback lasted but a few seconds. Charles Cullen got in the car, dressed in dark slacks and an L.L. Bean cargo coat.

  “Good evening, Charles.”

  Cullen nodded a greeting but looked uncomfortable. “I hope this goes all right.”

  In a matter of minutes the two bishops were driving north on Cathedral Street heading for the Loyola University campus.

  “Tell me again how you got me into this,” Cullen said.

  “The director of campus ministry at Loyola asked me to give a talk on the church’s social mission. Afterwards I met with the student justice commission and heard about their ministry to the city’s street people. They invited me to come along and I found it was good for me. There was something…I don’t know… real about it. And the students are terrific. They’re my hope. So when my schedule permits, and it’s seldom more than one night a month, I join them. They were excited to hear that you agreed to go out with them. I told them what the ground rules were, but you might go over them again yourself.”

  Cullen nodded in agreement.

  “By the time we get there, the sandwiches and coffee will have been made and loaded into the campus ministry vans. I’ll introduce you, you can say a few words, one of the students will lead us in prayer, and we’ll head into the city.”

  Martin pulled up to the back entrance of the Student Union building. The bishops got out of the car and set matchin
g green Loyola College caps low over their brows.

  “Thank you for the invitation to join you this evening,” Cullen began. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you and your ministry from Bishop Martin. He’s said that you not only offer food and coffee to the homeless, you spend some time visiting with them. This effort to get to know these men and women as individuals impressed me. Help me to do that too. If they ask who I am, say I’m your godfather.”

  “Archbishop Cullen and I don’t want our evening with you to become a distraction,” Martin said. “I think you can imagine the lead on the local TV news: Two bishops feed Baltimore’s homeless. That’s the last thing we want. So, it’s important, whenever Archbishop Cullen or I join you, that you keep it to yourselves.”

  The students nodded their understanding.

  Martin turned to Cullen, “Archbishop, when I’m in the city with these young men and women, I’ve asked them to call me Bryn.”

  Cullen picked up the cue and said with a wink, “Well then, when I’m able to be with you, I’d suggest you simply call me ‘Archie.’”

  A few of the students said half aloud, “Cool.”

  “That means, of course, that this old man wants to get to know your names. Help me with that, will you please?”

  Most of the students had never talked with an archbishop before. And with those few words, Charles Cullen became, in reality as well as title, archbishop and shepherd and friend to the Loyola students. They were slowly growing comfortable with him, and they sensed that he took them seriously. The archbishop was feeling the same way about them.

  In the van during the drive into the city, Cullen asked, “What’s it like being a young Catholic in today’s world—and in today’s church?”

  The students went silent. They were already pretty comfortable with Martin when it came to talking about their lives and what mattered to them and disturbed them, but with the archbishop, it was a different matter.

  A voice broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “Archbishop, I’m Mary Ellen.” Cullen was thankful that she was thoughtful enough to repeat her name. “I think most of us, at least the students I hang with, are trying to escape the success trap—making a lot of money and living in a big house in the suburbs. That’s okay, of course, but we want to do something a little radical, like living simply and helping folks who don’t have as much as we do.”

  “Yeah,” another voice said from the back of the van. “I’m Matt, Archbishop. We’re really turned on by the church’s teaching on social justice, on peace in particular. That really gets to us. We admire Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Pope John Paul, and Archbishop Tutu. Maybe Bishop Martin told you that most of us have spent our spring breaks on service trips to El Salvador and Honduras. And Mary Ellen has gotten some of us to spend Wednesday evenings at the Catholic Worker house.”

  Matt stopped suddenly, thinking he was making himself and the others sound weird. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued. “We do our share of partying and we know most of the bars in the Harbor area. But these food trips to do something small for the homeless, and the evenings at the Catholic Worker house…I don’t know how to put it, but there is something real about it.”

  Cullen had the front passenger seat and he turned his back against the van’s door so he could see the students in the rows of seats behind him.

  “I don’t think we’re cynical,” Mary Ellen said, “but we don’t really trust institutions—like big business, big government, even big church. No offense, Archbishop.”

  “None taken,” Cullen said, catching Martin’s eye.

  On the way back to Loyola, one of the seniors who had pretty much stayed at the archbishop’s side throughout the evening suddenly said, “What we don’t understand is much of the church’s teaching on sex. You tell us that every sexual fantasy, desire, or act—if we’re not married—is a mortal sin, like a spiritual felony. Man, aren’t there any misdemeanors when it comes to sex?”

  The others laughed nervously at the unintended informality, but they were glad for the senior’s nerve in bringing up sex. Cullen and Martin were smart enough to just listen, and to say that they understood the student’s concerns. A conversation had been joined.

  Both Cullen and Martin knew how easy it would be for the students to let it slip that sometimes when they went into the city to meet and feed the homeless they were joined by the archbishop of Baltimore himself. The students, it turned out, were mature enough to keep the bishops’ involvement in their ministry to themselves. From the students’ point of view, Martin learned later, it was a special night when he and “Archie” were able to join them.

  8

  Nora Martin made a left turn off Dulaney Valley Road onto a private, gently rolling drive that led to the Carmelite Monastery of the Sacred Heart, originally a mansion of colonial-style elegance constructed of craggy tan and brown Maryland stone. The additions the sisters made to accommodate the needs of the monastery blended the old and the new without distraction. The low-slung tile roof of the chapel caught Ian Landers’ eye as he stepped out of the passenger door of Nora’s car.

  “The prioress is expecting us,” she said to Ian as they approached the modest entrance. “She’s Sister Miriam and a good friend. Before the renewal we would have addressed her as Mother Miriam. But now it’s ‘Sister.’”

  They waited in a parlor warmed comfortably by the afternoon sun while the sister at the reception desk rang the prioress’ bell code. Landers stood at a French window offering a broad view of the enclosure lawn and let the spirit of the place come over him. The monastery’s footprint was a giant U, with the open end facing a grassy knoll on which a large crucifix stood facing the enclosure. Beyond the crucifix, Landers could see the monastery’s wall, which eventually gave way to a wire fence. He would have loved a glimpse of the rolling meadow behind the monastery that Nora had described during their drive to the Carmel.

  “First impression?” Nora asked now standing at his side, slipping her arm easily into his.

  “It’s a monastic gem,” Ian said thoughtfully, putting his hand over hers on his arm. “From the towering trees to the striking architecture to the location in this wooded area.”

  “I thought you would like it. Really, most visitors are rather taken with the beauty.”

  “Welcome,” said a soft but confident voice from the doorway behind them. Sister Miriam approached Nora and the women embraced.

  Nora turned to Landers. “Miriam, I’d like you to meet my colleague at the University, Ian Landers. He’s a professor of history, medieval history.”

  “I’m happy to meet you,” Miriam said, catching Nora’s eye with a smile.

  “Thank you for making time for us, Sister,” Ian responded, looking into the alert dark eyes of an attractive woman in her mid-fifties. As Nora had predicted, the nun was dressed simply—almost Amish-like—in an ankle-length dark brown skirt and an oxford blue, long-sleeved cotton blouse. “Your monastery is quite impressive.”

  Miriam smiled at the compliment and gestured to the linen-upholstered chairs.

  “Nora mentioned you would like to view our archives.”

  “I would, very much.”

  “We’ve had a number of scholars interested in them. We like to think there’s a good bit of history tucked away in them, and you’re most welcome to spend as much time here as you need. Nora is familiar with their contents and will help you get acquainted with our cataloging system.” Miriam glanced at Nora and added, “Let’s have some coffee—or tea.”

  They moved to the guest kitchen used primarily for retreatants, where the prioress boiled water while Nora opened a box of cookies.

  “Tell Ian about Father Combier,” Nora said, placing a plate of cookies on the table. “He was one of our first resident chaplains.”

  “Well,” Sister Miriam began while pouring the tea, “Father Gilbert Combier, a Jesuit, arrived at our monastery in 1897. Apparently he came to America after working in the Vatican Archives and library for
many years. He arrived, according to our oral history, with only two suitcases. The smaller of the two contained his breviary, bible, and a half dozen or so books. It also held a sheaf of papers, church documents of various sorts, carefully wrapped in sturdy paper and bound with heavy string. We know of these details from Mother Bernard, the former prioress, who was a novice when Father Combier arrived. Two of our older nuns, Benedicta of the Holy Cross and Ann of the Child Jesus, were novices under Mother Bernard. They are our last living link with our scholarly chaplain.

  “They rather enjoy keeping his memory and legacy alive. I know they would enjoy meeting you. They’re both up in years, but quite alert.”

  “I’d love to meet them if possible,” Ian replied.

  Sister Miriam went to the intercom and asked the receptionist to invite Mother Benedicta and Mother Ann to come to the guest parlor. “Both sisters,” she said, returning to the table, “served as prioress many years ago, when the prioress was addressed as ‘Mother.’” Ian smiled at Nora, aware of this fine point in Carmelite nomenclature. “They carry the honorific titles with graceful dignity,” Sister Miriam said, almost winking.

  “What seemed mysterious to the sisters when Father Combier arrived was his apparent haste in leaving Rome,” Nora said, injecting a little mystery into the story.

  Ian didn’t pursue this bit of information. But he wouldn’t forget it.

  “Perhaps Nora mentioned that I’m working on a book on the dynamics of clerical ambition, politics, and power in the late Middle Ages, Your archives, and especially the papers of your chaplain, might turn out to be very helpful to me.”