Father Donlon reached for the purple stole draped over the back of the confessor’s chair, kissed it, and placed the vestment over his shoulders.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Wilfred began while making the sign of the cross. “This will be a kind of a general confession, a review of my half century as a priest and bishop.” Joe Donlon smiled at Wilfred, then lowered his eyes.
“First the usual suspects. I’ve been uncharitable in my speech and in judging others. I’ve been impatient with the chancery staff and I haven’t always been faithful to prayer. A few times, not often, I’ve had a little too much to drink.” Wilfred went still—the silence confessors know often signals what’s really on a penitent’s mind.
“But what I really want to bring to the sacrament is some unseemly behavior,” Gunnison cleared his throat, mustarded his resolve, then pushed out the words through the thin slit between his lips, “with teen-age boys.”
Donlon squeezed his eyes shut, then raised them to Gunnison’s bowed head.
“This goes back decades, Joe. I may be rationalizing, but most of the time it was just fooling around, wrestling with some boys in a swimming pool and things like that. A couple of times it went further than that. But there never was any kind of penetration.” Wilfred hesitated, then heard himself say, “I never, ever, sodomized any of them.”
Joe Donlon had heard thousands of confessions during his years as a priest and thought he had heard everything there was to hear. But Gunnison’s confession stunned him. He knew better than to ask the question that rose up from his tightened throat, but he couldn’t swallow it. “Wilfred, I need to ask. Did you ever speak to the boys? Did you ever tell them you were sorry?”
“Well, yes. A few of the boys told their parents, and when they asked to meet with me I did apologize if I had upset their sons. Some of boys didn’t seem bothered by it.” Gunnison blocked out the memory of the parents, who had been furious. “They were offered counseling and the financial vicar was able to come up with some cash for most of them. None of them, thank God, sued or went to the police or to the media.”
The penitent archbishop searched Donlon’s eyes for some flicker, some hint of understanding. Instead he saw the pain in his confessor’s face.
“I’m not a pedophile, Joe. No one’s at risk. It wasn’t anything like what you read in the papers these days. This hasn’t been a problem for a very long time now.”
“It’s very good that you’re here, Wilfred.”
Both men took deep breaths. They released soft whooshes of air that loosened the tensions draining the confessional room of oxygen. Joe Donlon reached over and put his hand on Gunnison’s arm. Wilfred teared up at the gesture. The simple kindness prompted the archbishop to say softly, “I’m a lonely old man, Joe—a man with lots of friends who are really acquaintances. Not many friends at all.” The words wouldn’t come, but Wilfred Gunnison whispered to himself, I really can’t think of even one.
“I think it’s hard for priests to develop and sustain real friendships, Wilfred. And I think it’s especially hard for bishops. You bishops seem like a pretty self-reliant lot. Your priests are very aware of the power you have over them. Friendship requires a certain common ground where people are equals. Bishops don’t have that. Sometimes I think wealthy laity who like to entertain bishops make up most of your social life.”
“You’re pretty much on target, Joe.” Wilfred paused. “There’s something else I want to tell you. It could be the reason why I’m going to confession. At my last two confirmations, as I was processing out, a red dot, a laser dot, hit me in the chest. It was gone the instant I noticed it. I’ve been afraid that it has something to do with what happened years ago. I’ve been rather nervous, thinking that something will go wrong at the Mass or dinner.”
Stay focused on the sacrament, Donlon told himself. “Let’s talk about the laser incidents and your anniversary celebration later, if you want. We both believe Christ is present in this room. And his presence is healing.”
Wilfred said a silent yes.
“As a penance, I want you to make a holy hour in the chapel this evening praying for the boys, the men now, who you abused.”
Wilfred tensed at the word “abused.” He never used that word himself.
There was nothing more to say except what Father Joe Donlon always said at this point when celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation. “Let’s be still for a little while, then I’ll offer the prayer of absolution.”
Wilfred made his Act of Contrition.
In words just above a whisper, Joe Donlon prayed:
God, the Father of mercies,
through the death and resurrection of his Son
has reconciled the world to himself
and sent the Holy Spirit among us
for the forgiveness of sins;
through the ministry of the Church
may God give you pardon and peace,
and I absolve you from your sins
in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Eyes welling with tears, Wilfred Gunnison, the emeritus archbishop of Baltimore, whispered the word believers throughout the ages have uttered when they sense the mysterious presence of God: Amen. I believe.
He met Joe Donlon’s eyes. If he had been a little less self-absorbed, he would have caught the unspeakable sadness there.
“Go in peace, Wilfred.”
Father Joe Donlon knew he couldn’t return to his room. Perhaps some fresh air and some late winter sun might lift the sadness and confusion that hearing Wilfred Gunnison’s confession had roused. The wind made the relatively mild day uncomfortable. He lifted the collar of his coat and pulled up the folds of his scarf, taking slow but steady steps in the direction of Mount St. Mary University, whose campus abutted the seminary’s property. College students, he knew well, were hardly a virginal lot, but they bore a freshness and innocence that always lifted his spirits. The ones he had gotten to know were hardly promiscuous—they didn’t hesitate to tell the old priest they found casual sexual hook-ups repugnant. On the other hand, Donlon learned that some—many—of these same students had little difficulty believing sex before marriage was okay if they were in a relationship. Still, he had to admit that a number of the students he knew seemed more sexually mature than the majority of the priests and seminarians who sought him out for spiritual direction and counseling.
Donlon turned and headed back to the seminary thinking of the blur of seminarians who had sat rather stiffly in his office, confiding to him their struggles to be celibate. They were the normal struggles of young men living exclusively with men. In their naïveté, they seemed to think that with enough prayer and will power they could learn to live like angels. For many, accepting the rule of celibacy made them feel they were doing something heroic. Some indeed appeared to have the aptitude and temperament for celibate living—what the church called the “gift of celibacy.” Most did not.
A good number of the men seemed to possess the qualities necessary for priestly ministry—they were generous and caring and idealistic. Others, it was clear, were in love with an idealized and romantic notion of priesthood that was captured in films like The Bells of Saint Mary and Going My Way. They could hardly wait to don Roman collars, cassocks, birettas, and the other accoutrements of the clergy.
His troubled thoughts returned to Wilfred Gunnison. He wondered how many boys the archbishop had hurt and damaged over the years. Maybe he had been sexually abused himself. Donlon had read that more than half of priest abusers were. Yet over the years he had never once heard a priest confess to abusing minors. Donlon wanted nothing more than to relax in the warmth of the seminary, but he left his coat on and walked toward the refectory for something hot to drink. It was only then that he realized what was gnawing at him. Wilfred Gunnison had shown little concern, in fact, no concern at all, for the spiritual and emotional well-being of the boys he had abused. He would pray for him.
; 28
Monsignor Aidan Kempe, and Fathers Tom Fenton and Herm Volker had secured a window table at the Prime Rib, a favorite restaurant of the priests who worked at the Catholic Center. Kempe had seated himself facing the window so that he could watch the chilling rain that began as if on cue with the rush hour traffic. As long as he could remember, rainy nights had given Kempe a sense of emotional security, a feeling that somehow everything would work out. He attributed this romantic streak to his Irish mother and was stubbornly convinced that the wind and rain and the low, brooding blue-black clouds of western Ireland had shaped his intense loyalty to the Catholic Church.
For a moment or so, Kempe, ignoring Fenton and Volker, sat still, as if in prayer, drawing on the familiar comfort of the red, rain-muted taillights of the cars moving north on Calvert Street. Perhaps, other than the Basilica’s sacristy with its air of beeswax and redolence of incense, no room evoked a better sense of place and identity than this five-star restaurant. Good dining and good wine were, after all, sacraments in their own right, and modest enough entitlements for faithful priests. But Kempe had more than good dining on a rainy night in Baltimore on his mind.
“Very soon after Wilfred’s jubilee,” Kempe began, speaking so softly that Fenton and Volker had to lean over the table, “he will take up residence a good distance from the archdiocese—perhaps even out of the country. It’s best for the Brotherhood.” Kempe sipped his drink and took pleasure that his little announcement had caught Fenton and Volker off guard.
“Is it the allegation you told us about?” Fenton asked.
“Yes, that’s at the heart of it,” Kempe responded, “but there are other factors.”
“How do you know this?” Volker demanded. He was closer to Gunnison than Fenton or Kempe, and certainly closer than Eric St. John or Paul Carafa.
“Last week I flew to Rome to brief M on Wilfred’s situation. He thinks it best that Wilfred should move his residence as soon as possible after his jubilee celebration. This is M’s decision—for the good of the Brotherhood.”
“But Aidan, you said the allegation against Wilfred was false. That the man had exaggerated a back rub into abuse,” Volker said, his color rising.
Fenton, looking at Volker rather than Kempe, said, “I think M is sacrificing Wilfred to protect the Brotherhood. This isn’t right.”
“It might be for the best,” Kempe said solemnly, “both for Wilfred and the Brotherhood. Something quite strange—and ominous—occurred at Wilfred’s last two confirmations. As he processed to the back of the church, he was struck with a laser dot square in the middle of his chest. The dot disappeared after just a few seconds and it seems only a few parishioners noticed it.”
Volker and Fenton looked confused.
“I take it neither of you heard about this?” Kempe asked.
“Of course not,” Volker said, obviously irritated. “I would have called you if I had.”
“I didn’t hear anything either, Aidan,” Fenton added.
“That’s good. Wilfred is damn lucky this didn’t get picked up by the media,” Kempe said sternly. “And so are we. M believes—and so do I—that it would be best for Wilfred to move a good distance away as soon as possible.
The three men sat still for a while, Volker and Fenton quietly processing Kempe’s announcement. Kempe stared out the restaurant’s window, watching the evening traffic thin. Get over it, boys, he said to himself, and then opened his menu.
“How’s Wilfred holding up?” Volker asked.
“Not as well as he thinks he is,” Kempe answered abruptly. “Beneath the bluster, he’s actually quite fragile.”
“He loves this city,” Fenton said. “How does he feel about moving?”
Kempe sipped his Johnny Walker Black Label and carefully lowered his glass. “He doesn’t know yet.”
“He doesn’t know?” Volker said sharply.
“He’ll be informed,” Kempe said with a hint of sarcasm, “after his little celebration. M thought it best this way.” Aidan Kempe always enjoyed playing the M card. It reinforced his authority as the Brotherhood’s leader. “And another thing,” he continued, “it’s prudent that we suspend our monthly meetings—indefinitely.”
Fenton and Volker sat stunned. They glanced at each other. What could this mean?
“Of course,” Kempe added before either priest could speak, “I expect you to make the usual monthly contribution to the purse.”
Fenton and Volker remained silent, suddenly not quite as smugly confident in the mission of the Brotherhood as they were when they sat down at their corner table at the Prime Rib.
Kempe turned to Fenton, “Tom, call St. John and Carafa and tell them we won’t be meeting until they hear from you. And let them know their monthly offering to the purse is not suspended. Don’t say anything about Wilfred’s move. They don’t need to know that now.” Kempe looked out the window to see the rain had stopped. Frowning, he returned to scanning his menu. The server approached to take their orders. Only Kempe felt like eating.
With military efficiency, Mark Anderlee detached the Leupold scope from his Remington 700. He wouldn’t need the scope. He wrapped the rifle in an oversized bath towel, holding the towel in place with strips of duct tape stretched around the barrel, the chamber, and the stock. He set the rifle aside and proceeded to fold a hand towel around the Sig P226. Anderlee picked up both weapons, walked into his bedroom and placed the rifle in the back of the closet and the Sig on the closet’s shelf. They had to be close at hand.
The decision he had come to just days ago made his chest swell. His abuser’s anniversary Mass and dinner were just two days away—the Mass at five o’clock in the Basilica of the Assumption and the dinner at the Sheraton at eight. He knew the schedule down to the minute. And he knew where he would be stationed. “You won’t see me, Archbishop,” he said out loud, “but I’ll be there. I will be at the Basilica. I will be there for my Aunt Margaret and for all the boys you messed with.”
29
Nora Martin, suddenly aware of her shallow breathing, walked with a business-like stride down the carpeted hall to Ian Lander’s office. Two of Ian’s colleagues nodded as they passed her. Nora managed a slight smile, feeling her neck blotch as she approached Landers’ office.
“Got a minute?” she asked with two light knocks on Ian’s half-open door.
Landers pulled his half-lens reading glasses from his nose. “Actually, I have quite a few minutes…for you anyway.”
“Thanks to my brother, we’re in a reserved pew, along with your mother, at the big Mass tomorrow. Are you driving?”
“I am. Can I pick you up?”
“I’d like that,” Nora said, wondering what it might be like to be at Mass with this very reserved, very interesting Englishman.
“My mother’s driving up to my place around four. I’ve talked her in to staying over rather than driving back to Silver Spring. She wouldn’t get home until almost midnight. I offered to pick Margaret up, but she has a role in the liturgy—I think she’s doing the Prayer of the Faithful as I recall—and has to be in the Basilica sacristy a half hour before the Mass begins.”
“Bryn has us seated at the same table,” Nora said casually, “The reception and dinner should be quite nice. No long speeches, or so he promised.”
“Really, Nora, I’m sure the dinner will be quite nice indeed, but I don’t feel good about the archbishop’s decision to go ahead with his jubilee celebration.” He had more reason to be concerned than Nora knew, but he hesitated to tell her so.
“Bryn doesn’t feel good about it either. He can’t wait until it’s over.” Nora got up to leave. “I think he’s more worried than he lets on.”
Landers frowned at the possibility of something going amiss but didn’t know what to say. He went on, a bit dismissively, “Mother and I will pick you up around four thirty then.”
“Great,” Nora said at the door. “Okay.”
Tell her, Landers said to himself. “Do you have another
minute, Nora?”
“Sure,” she responded, coming back to her chair.
Landers got up deliberately from his desk chair and closed the door to his office. “My mother is hardly an alarmist, but she’s really worried about Margaret. To be honest with you, Nora, ‘worried’ is too weak a word. She told me Comiskey believes she knows why Archbishop Gunnison was struck by those laser dots.”
“I’m not sure I get this,” Nora said.
“Apparently, the rumors about Gunnison and young boys are more than rumors. It appears one of Gunnison’s victims was Margaret’s nephew and godson.”
“Dear God,” Nora whispered. “If that’s true, Margaret’s inner world, all that’s given her life a sense of coherence and meaning…all that’s been destroyed.”
“I know my mother’s concerned. No,” Landers corrected himself, “my mother’s really worried about Margaret’s state of mind. I’m worried about her myself.”
Monsignor Giancarlo Foscari took a room at the Mount Vernon Hotel, within walking distance of both the Basilica and the Sheraton. At ten each morning he called Bishop Montaldo, reaching him before he left his Vatican office for the day. From his daily reports to M, Giorgio saw how little respect his boss had for Monsignor Kempe. Yes, it had been a note of contempt he had caught in Bishop Montaldo’s eyes the night he had returned the arrogant American to the Inghileterra. Still, M treated Kempe with formal courtesy. Giorgio smiled. Of course M would treat Kempe with a certain respect. The Baltimore Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple remained a major source of income for Bishop Pietro Montaldo’s behind-the-scenes work at the Vatican.
For the past two mornings, Giorgio had walked to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He imagined himself an officer on the sloop of war, the USS Constellation, and the retired submarine, the USS Torsk. But his service to Bishop Montaldo had awakened this former policeman to the more refined pleasures of art and architecture, so he visited the Walter’s Art Gallery. It was hardly Rome, but he liked this American city. This morning, wearing a black leather jacket over a silk Armani shirt, Giorgio found the winter day mild enough to sit at an outside table at an Inner Harbor Starbucks. He propped his designer sunglasses on the top of his head and thought of the international call he was about to make. The espresso was good enough, but he missed the pastries he enjoyed at the coffee bars of Rome’s piazzas. A copy of the Baltimore Sun, his phone, a double espresso, and a raisin scone were spread before him. He ate his light breakfast while scanning the major stories in the Sun. Because of the past few mornings with the paper, his English had improved. Thirty minutes later, staring at the crumbs from the too-heavy scone, Giorgio saw it was time to complete his only assigned task of the day. From his inside pocket, he pulled out an oversized leather wallet. Slipped into the narrow pocket facing his Vatican passport was a folded piece of note paper. Giorgio withdrew it carefully, replaced the wallet in the inside pocket of his jacket, and reached for his cell phone. The tables around him were empty, and it was chilly enough for the Starbucks employees to remain inside.
Master of Ceremonies Page 16