Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  “A portrait of the human race.”

  “Yes, the human race. It doesn’t change much from people to people, nation to nation. Only the seasons and the themes of the struggle change. If I had been a little older, I’m not sure whom I would have followed, my martyred uncle or my heroic cousin. Does that shock you?”

  “No.”

  “It shocks me, Elijah.”

  “You were a boy.”

  “I was never a boy like you. It is true that I was a youth during the Holocaust. Technically speaking I committed no sins. I console myself with that at certain moments, but it’s cold comfort. The Holocaust was a warning to the whole world. The most cultured, religious nation in Europe allowed the unthinkable to arise in its midst. My relatives and neighbors.”

  They sat in silence for several more minutes until the prior shook himself and stood.

  “You had better wash and pack. Brother Sylvester will drive you to the airport in the morning. Don’t wear your habit.”

  “Why may I not wear the habit?”

  “There have been incidents in Rome. Priests and nuns spat on and physically attacked. It’s growing more frequent.”

  “What if there is someone on my journey who needs to confess? If he sees a priest he may be moved to ask for help. Can we deny him the opportunity?”

  The prior looked at the floor and thought.

  “As usual, you are right, Elijah. Wear your habit.”

  He bowed his head for the prior’s blessing. Then the two men embraced without another word, and Elijah went to his cell. There he prayed for several hours and slept fitfully until about four in the morning, when Brother Sylvester woke him.

  They drove south on the coastal highway in the predawn. As they went through the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv, he glanced east toward Ramat Gan, where he and Ruth had lived for two years. He wondered, as he had many times, what his life would have become if the bomb had not exploded. Or if she had gone to Jerusalem early, as he had suggested. But she had shrugged off his anxiety.

  “I’m a sabra, Dovidl. I’m used to terrorist threats. They’re just part of the landscape.”

  She had a class to teach at the university in Jerusalem that afternoon and would not be home until late. She said that she would buy some feta cheese, pears, and smoked cod at the market first and would leave it in the refrigerator for supper. She scolded him fondly. He promised to feed himself properly. Go, he said, go. If she hurried she would be on time for her class. She kissed him and left. A half-hour later he heard the explosion from the office, and he knew. He could not explain how he knew, because he was not then a believer. At that time he believed only in Israel and in Ruth.

  Brother Sylvester passed Ramat Gan at just above the speed limit, and mercifully they slipped through the city before traffic began in earnest. They checked in at Ben Gurion terminal by eight. There were some raised eyebrows at security when they saw his habit, but the name on his passport and a brisk consultation between officials got him through without the usual strip-search—a custom intended more for the purpose of humiliation than for prevention of terrorism.

  “You’re lucky you have friends in the Knesset”, said a guard.

  At nine o’clock, Father Elijah was aboard the morning flight to Rome. He had a window seat. It had been many years since he had flown, and he enjoyed each sensation immensely. The jet rose up at a sharp angle over the Mediterranean, which was already a sheet of molten silver.

  * * *

  His two seatmates barely acknowledged his presence. The middle-aged woman beside him wore yellow plastic jewelry and smelled of gardenias. She was reading a French mystery novel. In the aisle seat, a sunburned man in a blue-flowered sports shirt typed on his lap computer.

  Elijah drowsed until breakfast.

  The stewardess served the meal to his two seatmates, seasoned with smiles and friendly chatter. She served him without a glance and did not respond to his thanks. He dismissed her omission as absentmindedness. But when she took the trays away a half-hour later, repeating the same warmth toward the others, and increasing the chill toward him, he thought it might be deliberate. He said a prayer for her and resisted a mild tug toward paranoia.

  The in-flight film portrayed a legal battle between the lawyers of an unnamed Western superpower and a psychotic cult-leader. The idealist young lawyers, male and female, were handsome, witty, brilliant, moralistic (aside from their fornications), and determined to save the world from fanatics. By contrast, the cult leader was nothing short of loathsome. Between acts of sexual violence and brainwashing, he repeatedly barked his fidelity to “my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. At the film’s climax, he led his entire following in an act of communal suicide. Father Elijah wondered if he had missed a few developments since entering the monastery twenty years before.

  The stewardess returned and repeated the pattern of selective charm. She offered a choice of periodicals. Elijah took Jerusalem Daily News and Worldview. He had never heard of the latter. Its masthead informed him that it was a journal of international events, published weekly in English, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, and French editions. Worldwide circulation: seven and a half million. The face on the cover was unknown to him. A distinguished-looking man in his early fifties. The caption read in bold letters: A New President for the Federation of European States.

  The feature article discussed the President’s rapid rise, his background, his numerous achievements, honors, degrees. A figure of outstanding human qualities. There was a paragraph about his sociopolitical philosophy. He was first and foremost a humanist, it seemed. He was speaking everywhere about the “forging of a global civilization” and the “rebirth of a fundamental option for mankind”.

  Addressing the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague the week before, he had said, “Because of the widespread violation of human rights during the past century, we have suffered a loss of confidence in man.” He reminded the jurists that the age of nation-states waging war for territorial acquisition was drawing to a close. “As we approach the third millennium of the Common Era, all mankind must turn toward the future and accept a vision of our destiny that embraces everything human, in its totality, including the concept of man as a spiritual being.”

  Elijah paused.

  This indeed was a leader above the usual run of politicians. A philosopher perhaps.

  The woman beside him tapped the cover of the magazine.

  “C’est beau, ça! Le monde a besoin de cet homme.”

  Speaking in French, Elijah agreed with her that the President was saying some important things. True things. He might, indeed, do some good for the world.

  She looked at him askance.

  “Some good? But this man is the best thing Europe has produced since the War. He’s the one to do it. You watch. He’s the one.”

  Elijah nodded and went back to the article. It said that the President was currently at his villa near Naples, resting from a prolonged speaking tour.

  The woman leaned over him and pointed out the window. “Look, over there. It’s the heel of the boot. We’re going to cross the coast of Italy in a minute.”

  Elijah offered to trade his seat, and she readily accepted.

  The man on the aisle glanced over and said in English, “Going to see the Vatican?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Rome’s a great place. You been there before?”

  “No.”

  “Israeli?”

  “Yes.”

  The young man did not need to tell Elijah that he was an American.

  “Are you returning to the United States?”

  “Uh-huh. Shore leave.”

  “How long have you been away?”

  “Three years.”

  “Are you lonely for America?”

  “You bet. Land of the free, home of the brave.”

  “Ah, yes. Tell me, please, what do Americans think of this new European president?”

  “We’ve got our own new president to
worry about. They’re all pretty much the same these days, you know.”

  “In what way?”

  “Everybody’s a sociologist.”

  “But not you?”

  “Nope. My workshop’s the good old dependable human body. Give me an appendix over a psyche any day.”

  “You are a doctor?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve been an embassy staffer in the Near East the last couple of years.”

  “Jerusalem?”

  “Several places.”

  “Are you a military doctor?”

  “Navy”, he said tonelessly.

  Changing the subject, the American flipped open a copy of Worldview. It was an older issue of the magazine.

  “Hey, this guy’s in every one of these. He gets around. Here he is arranging with the World Bank to prop up the Russian economy again. A month ago he stopped a war between two banana republics in Africa. Quite a guy. Looks like a class-act hero.”

  “So it seems”, said Elijah pensively. “You some kind of monk?”

  “Yes. I am some kind of monk.”

  “I used to be Catholic.”

  “No longer?”

  “Nope. I gave it up for Lent a long time ago.”

  “Why did you give it up?”

  “It didn’t work. It never did work too well, did it? Hell, you people are still galloping into the twentieth century on the back of a snail. This ain’t the Middle Ages anymore, fellah.”

  He proceeded to instruct the priest on the several follies of the Church’s doctrine.

  “I was at the Cairo conference on population, as an observer. You know what they were saying in the halls? They were saying there are two main problems in today’s world. The first is, there are three billion people too many on this planet, and they gotta go. The second problem is the Roman Catholic Church. And it’s gotta go.”

  “I have read reports about this conference, and I saw no such remarks.”

  “It was the kind of thing delegates were saying in the hallways, private conversations, you know. The public speeches were something else. Working papers and all that stuff. You could get the drift of it, but not loud and clear, not what people really felt. Even so, your Pope rejected most of the Cairo statements. He’d better smarten up fast if he wants to keep what remains.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, your Church is the only thing that stands in the way of making this a healthy planet to live on.”

  “You are perhaps overlooking the Red Chinese.”

  “Things are changing there. They’re bringing their population problem under tight control. Capitalism’s coming on strong, and elections scheduled for two years from now.”

  “The Chinese can be masters of illusion.”

  “The bottom line is they’ve got massive birth control and compulsory abortion now.”

  “If we destroy three billion people to make this a supposedly healthy place to live, what kind of a place will it be? Would you want to live with the people who remain?”

  “Look, it’s the age of democracy, and you guys are still trying to run a medieval monarchy over there in Rome. At least the U.S. bishops have got it right. They’re trying to decentralize, trying to get power back into regional governments.”

  “I have heard.”

  “Not that it matters really, because I don’t think you have too many believers left over there.”

  “Fifty million.”

  “How many of them listen to the Pope?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, there y’go. Take a look around, pal. It’s a whole new world shaping up fast.”

  The American opened his magazine and began to read to himself.

  Elijah glanced over at the window and saw mountains below. The Apennines. The jet banked imperceptibly and began its slow descent toward Rome. He saw across the aisle the west coast and a bay that must be Naples.

  He opened his copy of Worldview and turned to the religion section. Under the title, World’s Theologians Reject Latest Papal Encyclical, he read the following:

  Six decades ago Albert Einstein rejected the idea of an anthropomorphic God and declared his love for beauty, mystery, and contemplation of the “marvelous structure of the universe”. Theologians at the time were upset that he bypassed the tradition of Judaism and Christianity, which proclaimed a God who exists beyond and above his creation. But theology has come of age, and the perennial role of theologian as handmaiden to the papacy is gone forever. A new generation of religious thinkers strives to address transcendent realities from a broader perspective.

  Meeting last week in Tübingen, Germany, the International Association of Catholic Theologians hammered out a definitive response to the latest papal encyclical. The result is nothing less than a little masterpiece, an articulate manifesto for a religious vision appropriate to the twenty-first century. The co-chairperson of the association, Dr. Felix von Tilman, a former priest and present director of the Gala Institute for Studies in Religion and Politics, spoke for the 5,000-world membership when he said, “The time has come for the human community to take a quantum leap in its theology of creation. The former distinctions between plant, animal, and human realms have proved disastrous for our planet. No longer can thinking persons accept without question the tragically stunted utterances of hierarchs or bonzes, ayatollahs or gurus.”

  Although Dr. von Tilman made no accusations against the present Pope or direct association of the religious tyrannies of the past with the papacy in its present form, he emphasized the concern of world theologians that the Pope’s encyclical, On Freedom and the Human Person, neglected consideration of recent breakthroughs in theology and spirituality—what von Tilman calls “the deep ecumenism”. There is a consensus among theologians, he states, that the papal document overemphasizes the concept of absolute truths to the detriment of dialogue between world religions.

  Taking the podium, Dr. Mary-Beth Miller, OSVM, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, past president of the International Council of Superiors of Women Religious, affirmed her organization’s support of the IACT’s document and called for the Vatican to reassess its positions on moral theology.

  Speaking calmly, with conviction, she pointed out to the assembly that “hierarchies tend to degenerate into tyrannies. There are vestiges of the Inquisitional Church still active in the modern church, forces that work against the progress of humanity toward an era of universal harmony. These forces must be confronted at every turn and forced into powerlessness. The empowerment of the people of God has come into its own.”

  Citing numerous references from the recent encyclical, she demonstrated that the church of Rome clings to a kind of absolute authority over the conscience, which, she argues, negates the concept of personal freedom and contradicts the avowed objectives of the encyclical. The manner in which theologians have been handled by the Vatican, she pointed out, is a prime example of its actual view of freedom. “Enforcement of bad theology by hierarchs is unworthy of the name church and should be called by its true name”, she concluded. “Its name is injustice. Its name is sacrilege.”

  Archbishop Raymond Welland of New York added his voice to the growing chorus of dissent, when he said in a homily at the association’s closing mass, “Under this pontificate, the church has displayed a flagrant disregard for the vox populi. The voice of the people is, in a profound sense, the voice of God. We have too long ignored this grass roots magisterium in favour of an isolated man sitting on a lonely throne in distant Rome, demanding blind obedience.”

  Elijah shook his head slowly.

  The jet’s wheels hit the runway at that moment, and the lurch of the craft prevented any return to the article.

  He was cleared through customs after considerable difficulty. He just barely passed an interview with the head of airport security, who snapped questions at him and interrupted every one of his answers. He was strip-searched by two guards, one of whom was female. They tore his luggage apart. When he emerged through the customs barr
ier he was somewhat dazed and unprepared for his reception committee.

  II

  Rome

  It was a committee of one, a short, fat man with a florid face waving to him from the end of the gate at the main terminal lobby.

  “Davy!” the man yelled with a show of teeth. “Over here, lad!”

  It took a moment for the face and the grin to register, and then Elijah burst out laughing. “I don’t believe it! Is that you, Billy?”

  “In the flesh!”

  “This is a surprise. Are you the one sent to meet me?”

  “None other.”

  “I had no idea you were in Rome.”

  “I came visiting with the primate of England last year, and the Curia asked if they could keep me for a while. Special missions for various congregations. A glorified ‘gofer’ is what I am, with a Monsignore tacked to the front o’ me name and a purple sash and every thin’.”

  “I don’t believe it! You, a monsignor.”

  “That sounds like a compliment and an insult all in one.”

  “Same old Billy.”

  “Yeah, same old Billy.”

  “Congratulations! That’s wonderful news.”

  He pumped the Englishman’s hand.

  Billy Stangsby was now over fifty years of age. Despite his rise to the position of curial monsignor, he was as fresh-faced and as childlike as ever. “Billy the Kid”, someone had called him at L’École Biblique. Many people thought him a frivolous personality. Elijah had spotted the depths and taken to him instantly. Obviously, someone at the Vatican had too. To look at him you would never guess that be was a master of biblical theology, a civil lawyer, ex-Member of Parliament, and a famous convert from Anglicanism. He was a diocesan priest of Birmingham, England. In his last letter, written from there over a year ago, he had mentioned that he was trying to obtain his doctorate in canon law. He looked like a taxi driver and talked like one. Elijah noted that he was not dressed in blacks and collar. He wore a salmon pink sports shirt, a light cotton jacket, gray flannel slacks, and expensive leather shoes. The wristwatch was gold, the pen in his breastpocket was gold, several of his teeth were gold, but the shock of unruly hair was pure Billy.