Dead Wrong

by William Kienzle

  Not much homework done here, thought Koesler, who knew precisely which window faced the church. Nash should also have known. Koesler would wager that Nash knew little or nothing of the parish history as well.

  “Your parish,” Nash continued, “includes some of those high rises downtown, doesn’t it?”

  “Recently, yes. Before that, it was a German national church.”

  “Oh?”

  He didn’t know much about it at all. “That means,” Koesler said, “that anyone of German heritage could belong to St. Joe’s no matter where they lived. But recently, the archdiocese gave us territorial boundaries.”

  “So. But you do include those high rises and condos.”

  “Yes.”

  “They must contribute pretty well.”

  “Our income is improving.” Koesler was puzzled; he was also acutely aware that the sand in his twenty-five minutes was running low.

  “I must tell you, Father, that I have never gone against the advice of Father Art. Of course, I have come to realize over the years that one should never say never. But I should stress before you plead your case that after your interview with Father Deutsch, the cards are stacked against you.” Nash glanced at his Rolex.

  Koesler was dumbfounded. “You mean you think … that I … that I want money … a grant from you … from Nash Enterprises?”

  Nash spread his hands as if the matter were self-evident. “You’re a priest from the inner city. But, really Father, there are so many other parishes in the city in far worse shape than yours. Of course—” Nash frowned. “—they have … well, many of them have become quite Protestant in an effort to be relevant—I think that’s the term they like to use—to their community.”

  Koesler started to reply, but Nash went on. “What with one thing and another, Father, there is very little that Nash Enterprises—not to mention myself—can do for just about any of our city parishes. Either they’re in a financially regenerating area like yours is, or they have almost abandoned the One True Church.

  “But I don’t want to seem unfeeling. That’s why I made time for you this morning. Despite Father Art’s decision to refuse your request, I could not turn down your plea for an appointment. However, I must warn you that I take very seriously the opinion of Father Art. Nonetheless, what exactly is it you want?” Another glance at the watch. “We haven’t much time.”

  Koesler almost laughed aloud. But he restrained himself; there wasn’t time to relish the misconception.

  “Perhaps,” Koesler said, “I was not sufficiently clear with Father Deutsch. He thought what with the age of the church and church buildings, that this might be the magic moment when everything falls apart. And, while he was not far wrong, as you said, we do have a financially improving situation.”

  “You mean … you don’t … you actually don’t want money?” It was as if Nash had been told he would never again meet a panhandler on the streets of Detroit.

  Koesler smiled. “Well, if you were to throw a million or so at my parish, I wouldn’t throw it back. But no, I’m not after a grant from Nash Enterprises or even some spare change from you.”

  “But then …” Nash was almost tongue-tied. “… what … what could you want? Does it have something to do with the Ford Park Mall development?”

  “The what?”

  “I know your kind, Father Koesler. Father Art warned me that you are one of those liberals who have abandoned the absolutes of our faith. You probably think the animals that are going to be displaced by our developments are as important as humans.”

  It was coming back to him. Koesler recalled reading about the development coup effected by Nash Enterprises. He had regarded it as just one more rape of the earth—to go along with the destruction of rain forests, pollution of water and air, erosion of the ozone layer, and so forth. Compared with those disasters, the leveling of Ford Park was a minor atrocity—one more brick in the wall being built against nature.

  Koesler would not even have been mindful of the newspaper account had his eye not been caught by the corporation responsible: Nash Enterprises. Even then he would not have paid much attention had he not, at the time, been trying to get this very appointment with Ted Nash.

  “You think I’ve come here to talk to you about a decision you’ve already made and are not about to reconsider?” Koesler’s startled disbelief was evident.

  “Before you get started, Father, you should know that we’ve got the Bible on our side!”

  “The Bible?”

  “Yes. In Genesis, where God tells Adam, and through him all of us, to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’! Father Art said so!”

  “Oh, that. I think Biblical scholars agree now that a more correct translation of that passage has God telling Adam, and through him all of us, to ‘fill the earth and conserve it.’”

  “Don’t you wish! Don’t you just wish that was true!”

  Koesler shook his head. “Mr. Nash, that’s not what I came to see you about.”

  Nash, taken aback, hesitated. “It’s not?”

  “No. I don’t want any of your money, and I wasn’t even thinking about Ford Park. But, on top of that, we’ve used up my half hour—well, really my twenty-five minutes—and I still haven’t been able to address the real reason I’m here. What I want to talk to you about is a visit I had with your father a little while ago—a visit at his request.”

  “Dad? My father asked to see a priest!” Nash’s countenance glowed as if he were accompanying Moses and the tablets of the law down from the mountaintop. “I can’t believe it! That’s marvelous news.”

  “So, can we talk about it?” Koesler was aware that Nash had— once again—drawn the wrong conclusion. Nash obviously assumed that his father had made his peace with God and the Church. His erroneous conclusion might just buy Koesler a little extra time.

  “Yes,” Nash said, “of course we can talk about it. But first …” Another glance at his watch. “… first, there’s Mass.”

  “There’s what?”

  Nash led Father Koesler to a far corner of the room.

  Koesler had not taken note of this area of the office clearly. That was due in part to the “busy” character of the place plus the dimness of this corner. Now Nash touched a switch and soft, indirect lighting immediately brightened the area.

  The main feature here was a giant television screen, before which were two neat rows of chairs with kick-down kneelers. The first thought entering Koesler’s mind was that someone—Nash?—had finally established a chapel wherein was worshipped the great god TV.

  Nash gestured Koesler to sit alongside him in the second row.

  Sound—not video—began at the stroke of noon. It was the Angelus, being recited by a man whose deep voice made Koesler think of terminal sanctity. In the background a male choir tendered the “Ave Maria” in Latin plainchant. Both Nash and Koesler replied to the “Aves” during the Angelus.

  After that there was silence. What next, Koesler wondered? Then Nash spoke.

  “Think of it,” he said with unmistakable pride. “Right now, in every office of Nash Enterprises, this is going on via closed-circuit TV.”

  Koesler thought of it. He didn’t much like it. He opposed coercion on principle. He could visualize right now throughout Nash’s far flung empire, glued to the TV screen, masses of Protestants, Jews, and maybe here and there a Muslim. He figured that most of those attending were, whatever their religious persuasion, being politically correct with an eye toward promotion—or even merely just to save their jobs?

  In this continuing moment of silence, Koesler took another look around the office. Perhaps there were other surprises tucked away in corners.

  If so, he couldn’t find them. But the dimensions of the room, sizable enough to allow a mini chapel to be comfortably parked in one corner, reminded him of something …

  Of course: the senior Nash’s apartment. That enormous space with, in effect, a medical center in one corner. Charlie has what may be the world’s
largest private hospital room, while Ted has the least-likely chapel in the business world. Like father, like son?

  The screen began to light up, but very gradually, like a slowly lifting mist. Whatever was to come was enhanced by this staging.

  The picture was now clear. The setting was a studio. There was what appeared to be a table. Given that Nash had interrupted their meeting by announcing “a Mass,” the table was probably an altar.

  Now the figure between the camera and the altar was coming through better. Some priest, with his back to the camera, was wearing an old Roman fiddleback chasuble. Koesler guessed it was good old Father Deutsch.

  Koesler began to wonder about Deutsch. What was his job description? Screening religious requests for funding, offering a televised Mass—those were things one might expect from a personal chaplain. But Nash had quoted Deutsch to the effect that the Bible tells us to subdue creation. Handy to have a verse like that when one is about to devastate nature. It was truly odd to find a priest playing such an active role in the everyday affairs of secular business.

  Koesler began to ponder how much power Deutsch might wield in Nash Enterprises. And, he wondered, did Charlie Nash know a priest was fooling around in Nash Enterprises? Could Deutsch have anything to do with the affair between Ted and Brenda? That seemed to be stretching things beyond possibility. But this whole situation was so bizarre, it could conceivably go off in any direction.

  “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Introibo ad altare Dei,” Deutsch intoned.

  So, Koesler thought, the old Tridentine Latin Mass. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was.

  For some four hundred years, Mass was offered using the exact same words and gestures by every Latin Rite priest everywhere on earth. It was only natural that pre-conciliar Catholics considered the old Latin Mass to be carved in stone. And it was only natural that many of them were bewildered when multiple formats became available in the vernacular.

  For a while, the old and new formulas coexisted. Then, for some reason known better to himself, Pope Paul VI decided not only to ban the Tridentine Mass but to go to the mat over it.

  Traditional Catholics were understandably confused when so ancient a form of worship was forbidden as if it were evil. So symbolic did this controversy grow to be that the Tridentine Mass became a major battleground between the Pope and dissident leader Archbishop LeFebvre.

  More recently, after it was far too late to affect LeFebvre, the Tridentine form was again allowed—but only occasionally, and only with specific permission.

  Koesler was willing to bet that Father Deutsch used the old rite regularly if not exclusively and without permission.

  For a moment, the thought of blowing the ecclesial whistle on Nash’s chaplain occurred to Koesler. But only for a moment. It was highly improbable that the old Latin Mass ever hurt anybody. And without exceptional cause, Koesler was not a whistle-blower. Interesting, thought Koesler, how those who want everybody else to keep strict rules find excuses when they themselves want to break those very same rules. But, although Deutsch likely was breaking a rule, turning him in would be childishly vindictive.

  So, instead of rising in pharisaical indignation, Koesler sat back to evaluate Deutsch’s celebration of the Eucharist, or, in terms more familiar to Deutsch, saying Mass.

  He was good. The spirit he communicated suggested that he understood the Latin he was using. Not every champion of the ancient language could claim that. And he was reverent. His careful gestures showed an active faith. He believed in what he was doing.

  Once again, Koesler was forced to reflect on the grays of life. So few people or things were unremittingly black or white.

  From his brief encounter with Father Deutsch as well as from what Koesler knew of Deutsch’s reputation, Koesler did not particularly like him. That was the dark side of gray. But Father Deutsch offered a pious and thoughtful Mass. That was the bright side of gray.

  Speaking of grays, Deutsch now turned to the camera and launched into a sermon. Within just a few words, Koesler knew this was going to be another dark interlude.

  Deutsch opened with a commentary on law. A very familiar point from which to start, thought Koesler.

  “You know,” Deutsch said, “that there is a Church law commanding all Catholics to attend Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation—of which there are six. What you probably don’t know is that the Church did not just haphazardly make up such a law. The Church never casually makes up any laws.”

  That, Koesler agreed, was so: The Church is very serious about making laws—and they’re usually laws that preserve the institution. This sermon, he realized, was going to engender a host of distractions.

  “It is,” Deutsch continued, “like Sir Isaac Newton. Newton did not make up, invent, the law of gravity. The law was there all the time. Sir Isaac merely discovered it.

  “And so it is with the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. The Church did not invent the law governing Mass attendance on Sunday. What the Church did is discover our need to gather once a week to worship God at Mass. So, you see, just as with gravity, God’s law, ordering us to follow what must be done, obliges us to attend Mass on Sunday.”

  And if you believe that, Koesler thought …

  Deutsch went on. “But those whom God has selected must obey an even higher law. Just as God calls all Catholics—good and bad, fervent and tepid, strong and weak—to worship him on Sunday, one day of each week, so God has called us to something higher: that is, attendance twice a week. That is why we, members of the Nash family, are expected to attend the holy sacrifice of the Mass not only each and every Sunday but also each and every Friday. Thus we, virtually alone in our special calling, have the opportunity of commemorating Our Lord’s resurrection on Sunday and commemorating His death on the cross each and every Friday.

  “In this, our patron and employer, Theodore Nash, has not made any sort of special law affecting us and our relation with our risen Lord. He, with inspired insight, has discovered our innate need to gather not only once but twice each week.”

  Koesler half expected Deutsch to add, “… Blessed be Ted Nash forever.” While Deutsch did not add that doxology, he certainly was acquainted with which side of his bread had butter.

  But the manner in which Deutsch got to the butter amazed Koesler.

  There had been two published collections of Catholic Church law in the twentieth century. In 1917, in addition to diocesan statutes, the provincial laws of the Council of Baltimore, and, of course, the Ten Commandments, Catholics had 2,414 laws affecting them. Some were more relevant than others. In 1982 the 2,414 laws were reduced to 1,752. To Koesler and others, the reduction was not an unalloyed improvement; in some cases, institutional control tightened.

  But in none of the laws—not the 2,414 nor the 1,752—could Koesler find any connection whatsoever with a natural force such as gravity. That was imaginatively creative of Deutsch.

  The chaplain was not finished.

  Somehow, Deutsch had arrived at moral choices that must be made during “these evil times”—and how, in these days of sharply divided liberal and conservative leaders, are we to know which course to follow?

  “The problem,” Deutsch said, “is not with conservatives versus liberals. We need both conservatives and liberals to balance the Church. The problem is with extremists on either side—while virtue always stands in the middle.”

  That sounded reasonable. What could have gone wrong?

  “Moderates are the answer, but only those who are loyal to the Holy Father.”

  Ah …

  “There are some who call themselves moderates but they are not loyal to the Holy Father.” Deutsch leaned closer to the camera. “And that includes some bishops!” he confided.

  I wonder, Koesler mused, if one of those disloyal bishops—in Deutsch’s view—might be Detroit’s archbishop, Cardinal Boyle, whose picture was noticeably absent from Deutsch’s office.

  Father Art was sum
ming up with reassuring warmth. “So, my children, when there is doubt, look to the Holy Father for guidance. It is the Holy Father who teaches in the name and with the authority of Our Blessed Lord. Once we align ourselves with the Holy Father, we understand the teaching of the Church. And once we are straightened around, we will encounter those who stray from true doctrine. When that happens, when someone denies the teaching of the Church, we must fearlessly—fearlessly—correct him. But with restrained love, as the Holy Father does.”

  Father Koesler spent a good part of the remainder of the Mass reflecting on that sermon. He choked on most of it.

  The third of the Ten Commandments—in the Catholic version—orders that the Sabbath day be kept holy. It does not specify just how the day is to be kept holy. Later Jewish traditions grew like weeds around the Sabbath. Still later, Christian law changed the observance of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Still later, Catholic law demanded attendance at Mass as one of the ways the Sabbath—Sunday, not Saturday—was to be observed.

  In none of this had anyone but Father Deutsch, to Koesler’s knowledge, ever found a kinship between this Church law and the natural law.

  Then came the familiar conservative emphasis on the Pope as, in effect, a surrogate conscience for all Catholics. The emphasis dulled all distinction between infallible pronouncements and the ordinary teaching authority of the Church.

  But, if one were to accept Deutsch’s description of the Pope as the sole possessor of dogmatic and moral truth, then of course anyone who differed with a papal opinion would be in error.

  Thus, those Catholics—not necessarily all bishops—who possessed truth through submission to and agreement with the Pope must fearlessly (Deutsch’s emphasis) correct the erring brother or sister.

  And correction must be made “with restrained love, as the Holy Father does.”

  Koesler had some difficulty equating defrocking priests, stripping theologians of their teaching tenure, silencing dissidents, removing select powers from bishops, and the like with “restrained love.”