Thy Brother's Wife

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The Cardinal looked pale. “Bad trip to Rome, Eminence?” Sean asked with genuine concern.

  “About the same, Monsignor.” The inevitable smile. “The Roman Curia has not changed, nor has my body clock.”

  “You ought to take some time off, Eminence. Get away somewhere and rest.”

  “I believe, Monsignor, that that is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In any event, I see from the stack of papers you brought in that you anticipated my question. You have solved the problem of St. Fintan the Hermit?” The Archbishop folded his hands in his lap, as though waiting to hear a lecture.

  “It’s a complex matter, Eminence. Every one of the five bank accounts, each with approximately fifty thousand dollars in it, is almost certainly made up of money siphoned off the Sunday collections through the late pastor’s long years in the parish. There is no evidence that he had appreciable income of his own, or that there was money from his family. Moreover, it appears from various checks drawn on each of these accounts that the pastor considered all these funds to be parish funds. For example, he has paid the salaries of secretaries from it, the construction of new basketball backboards in the gym, annual contracts for snow removal from the parking lots. He even reimbursed the parish for payments of the seminary tax to us here at the chancery. I’m convinced that the pastor created these accounts with no intent to embezzle money from the archdiocese, but rather with the intent of hiding from us the large reserve his parish had amassed. He must have been fearful that we would confiscate some of it or force him to buy Catholic bishop bonds with it, or perhaps lower the annual assessments of his parish. Unfortunately, he died without leaving any records to confirm that these accounts were not his own.”

  “As a quick estimate, Monsignor,” the Cardinal asked, “how common would you say that this practice is in the archdiocese?”

  Sean hesitated. Better to err on the side of being conservative. “I would suggest, Eminence”—he moved his chair closer to the Cardinal’s desk—“that perhaps a third of the parishes engage in practices like this, though usually not with such extensive funds or with such sloppy records.”

  The Cardinal looked tired for a moment. “We would need a certified accountant in every parish to prevent this sort of thing, wouldn’t we, Monsignor?”

  “Yes, Eminence.”

  “Well, I suppose we could engage in legal combat with his heirs at the cost of considerable fees to lawyers and even more considerable scandal. Therefore, we will settle with the heirs, giving them somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of the funds that rightly belong to the Catholic bishops of Chicago and to the people of God in St. Fintan the Hermit Parish. I presume that is what you would recommend?”

  “I see no other option, Eminence.”

  “Very well, Monsignor. See that it is done.… There is another matter on which I ought to remark. I learned in Rome that sometime this summer we will have a papal encyclical on the birth-control issue.”

  Sean’s heart sank. “Oh, no,” he murmured.

  “Oh, yes, Monsignor. And, as you can imagine, it will be the worst kind of encyclical. The only question in Rome now is whether the Pope will choose to make it an ‘infallible’ encyclical. Those who know him best say that the word ‘infallible’ will go into the text and that he will cross it out at the last minute. I am told that the encyclical will come sometime in July. I assure you, Monsignor Cronin, I will be visiting our mission in Guatemala at that time.”

  “It will be an absolute disaster,” Sean said hoarsely.

  “A position that I myself took five years ago, if you remember, Monsignor. I’m glad you’ve come around to my way of thinking. For weal or woe”—the Cardinal’s eyes twinkled briefly—“the Catholic laity and especially the Catholic clergy have available the majority position that some imprudent commission member released to the press.”

  “I can’t imagine who would have done that, Eminence,” Sean said softly.

  “Nor can I. In any event, Monsignor, I would advise you to prepare some carefully worded thoughts on the subject. Our friends in the press will surely want your comments when the encyclical is issued … especially”—again the quick smile and the quicker twinkle—“since it is well known that you voted neither for the minority nor for the majority position.”

  “Maybe they’ll put that on my gravestone,” said Sean Cronin.

  * * *

  At fourteen months, Mickey Cronin was a skilled walker, babbler, arranger of building blocks, and charmer of women, especially his sisters.

  Eileen, Mary, and Noreen bounced into Nora’s study. “We want to play with Mickey.”

  With a show of great reluctance, Nora handed her son over to the three girls, for whom he was a fascinating live doll.

  “Unfaithful punk,” she murmured as Mickey eagerly extended his arms to Eileen.

  Mickey would cavort with anyone. His face and his coloring were pure Cronin, and his disposition was a carbon copy of Noreen’s, save for the fact that, unlike his active sister, he slept soundly through the night, every night.

  As Nora watched him crawl from sister to sister, delighted by the dilemma of having to choose between three enthusiastic surrogate mothers, she murmured, “You kids will spoil the little so-and-so rotten.”

  That was not true. Mickey was such a happy even-tempered child that nothing ever seemed to spoil him.

  Yet Nora’s happiness with her son was well on the way to being spoiled. She had been slow to reflect on what had happened between her and Sean. Sickness during pregnancy, the long recovery after Mickey’s birth, and her involvement at the Cronin Foundation had been excuses not to think about it. It was a subject which she had been walling away in its own separate compartment.

  It would not stay within its walls, however. Nora’s reactions were not the reckless guilt of Sean but rather an aloof self-disdain. She, who had so prized her own fidelity to commitments, had blithely violated the central commitment in her life and led another to do so too. That Mickey was probably the result of such a shattered commitment did not change the facts. Self-possessed and self-controlled Nora Riley Cronin was as much a victim of the fires of irrational passion as were her husband, and Uncle Mike, and Mary Eileen and Maggie Shields.

  Welcome into the human race, she told herself bitterly.

  Sorry? She didn’t know. Given another chance, she might do the same thing again and once more drive away the loving Presence that had been with her so long and which was now gone, perhaps forever.

  There would be punishments, of that Nora felt certain. She waited for them calmly, knowing that the costs would have to be met. In the meantime, the Foundation provided an outlet for those dangerous energies within her.

  “He loves you more than us.” Noreen broke into her mother’s reverie.

  Mickey had crawled to his mother’s feet and was looking up expectantly, not so much demanding affection and attention as patiently and brightly waiting for what was his due.

  “Poor Mickey,” she said, lifting him off the floor, not altogether sure why she should say that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  1968

  When Paul Cronin arrived in Los Angeles, there was a note waiting for him at the hotel that said Maggie called. Paul sighed. Maggie had worked like a trooper during the primary battle. Paul had avoided her carefully, both because his desire for her had cooled and because Maggie was becoming irrational. He could not afford to be mixed up with someone like that, especially when he was running for the Congress of the United States. Besides, the last-minute Kennedy campaign, shaken badly in Wisconsin, had involved a considerable number of young women, mostly graduate students, for whom sex, power, and opposition to the rules meant virtually the same thing. They were outspokenly liberated and ready for almost any sexual experimentation. Indeed, there were three of them, roommates, who were undoubtedly eagerly waiting for him in their room on the ninth floor.

  He noted that there was an additional single-word message on the pink slip w
ith Maggie’s phone number. “Urgent.” He crumpled the piece of paper and dropped it in the cigarette receptacle by the elevator door.

  Maggie was waiting for Paul in front of the hotel the next morning. She was wearing a soft blue dress and looked more appealing than ever. She told Paul that Tom was tied up at a conference. She wanted only to talk to Paul for a few minutes. He was uneasy, but she brought back too many pleasant memories from the past for him to refuse.

  They had barely left the hotel before she was pressing against him as though they were in a bedroom instead of a car.

  “Maggie, please don’t do this,” he pleaded. “I thought we agreed that my father’s sickness—”

  “What does he have to do with it?” she said, more pathetic than sullen.

  “We can’t take the risks,” he said. “A scandal would kill him. I … I can’t live with that on my conscience.” It was as good an excuse as any. He didn’t want to hurt her. It had to stop. Yet he felt himself slipping. She was so soft and warm and ready.

  “You don’t care about me any more.” Her voice was so low he could hardly hear her. “No one does. I might as well be dead.”

  The mention of death calmed his desire. “That’s a foolish thing to say, Mag. You have everything going for you. You don’t need me to be happy.”

  “Yes, I do,” she insisted, but she drew back toward the other side of the car. “You’re the only one who ever cared.”

  “That’s just not so,” he argued. “Everyone likes you.”

  She was sniffling softly. “No one has ever liked me.”

  Maggie needed help, but Paul knew that he wasn’t the one to help her. He thought about talking to Tom. No, that would never work. The best thing he could do was to stay away from her.

  * * *

  Nora joined Paul in Los Angeles the night of the California primary. The energies of Camelot had slowed. Many of the familiar faces were older, and the younger faces, particularly those of the women, were much harder. Nora wondered, without too much concern, how many of them had been in bed with her husband.

  There was an uncomfortable hush in the ballroom of the hotel as everyone watched the early tabulations on the huge blackboard behind the stage. Gene McCarthy was obviously doing better than anyone had expected. McCarthy was the spoiler. He had spoiled Johnson’s chances for reelection, and he might well spoil Bobby’s chances for the nomination, throwing the primary to his bitter rival, Hubert Humphrey. And that, Nora realized, would mean Richard Nixon in the White House. She shuddered. She had met Nixon once at a party in Washington, a strange man whose eyes and gestures were unconnected with his words.

  “Glad to see you, Nora.” The candidate walked over and embraced her briskly.

  Nora pecked at his cheek. “I hear they have some swimming pools outside,” she said.

  “I like you, Nora, because you’re still a fighter, but I think I’ll stay away from those swimming pools.” Bobby smiled. The strange mixture of diffident charm and ruthlessness had its usual effect on Nora, depriving her of her aloofness.

  “How well are we going to do tonight?”

  Robert Kennedy grimaced. “We’re going to win and we’re going to claim a big victory, but we’re not going to win by much. So nothing’s going to be decided. I hope you can persuade your friend Mayor Daley to support us. By the way, I hear you’re doing great with the business.”

  “Yes—I’m getting along swimmingly.”

  Bobby Kennedy laughed, squeezed her hand, and walked toward the platform.

  Paul joined her a few moments later. “Did you see Bobby?”

  “He just walked up to the platform and then disappeared—back to the Kennedy suite, I suppose.”

  “We’re going to win big,” said Paul. “California will finish off Clean Gene.”

  Much later in the evening it was clear that Clean Gene had been beaten, but only by a few percentage points. Robert Kennedy’s victory statement was hollow and tired, and the enthusiasm of the supporters forced. Paul and Nora were standing near the platform, and as the Senator climbed down from the stage, he signaled them to follow him.

  They crowded after him into a corridor just off the main ballroom. Nora wondered how anyone could stand to be a politician with the enormous pressure of campaigning and endless media attention.

  There were two quick, sharp explosions just ahead of them. People shoved forward, shouting and screaming. Someone was being wrestled to the ground. Without thinking, Nora moved ahead and then stopped in unbelieving horror.

  On the floor, with part of his head blown away, was Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the second of the Kennedy brothers to fall to an assassin’s bullet. The crowd swirled and pushed around Nora. Pale, worn, shattered, but very much in charge, Ethel Kennedy was giving instructions. The Senator was carried down the corridor and out of the building. Nora, still immobile, leaned against the wall, reciting over and over to herself, mechanically and automatically, the words of the Act of Contrition:

  “Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because I have offended thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.…”

  In August of 1968, while Paul was discreetly moving into the Hubert Humphrey camp, opposing the war but also opposing the McCarthy-McGovern peace forces converging on Chicago for the Democratic Convention, Sean was interviewed by an Associated Press reporter who was doing an article on the recent birth-control encyclical.

  He was on the spot. It was the spot of his own making and his own choosing, and he might just as well pay the price. He didn’t much care. The birth-control encyclical was a catastrophe for the Church and would appall, insult, and infuriate American Catholics. Yet as a churchman he had to loyally honor it. To be a good churchman meant that you be a good hypocrite.

  “Is it accidental that the Archbishop is in Guatemala, Monsignor?” asked the reporter.

  “Quite accidental. The Cardinal’s trip to Guatemala has been planned for months.”

  “Is your statement official?”

  “I’m not making any statement. Bishop Conway’s statement is the official stand of the Archdiocese. We welcome the Pope’s decision and we will commend it to the Catholic faithful for their attention and their obedience.”

  “You were one of the few who voted with the minority in favor of the encyclical, weren’t you, Monsignor?”

  “No, I didn’t vote with either the minority or the majority.”

  “Then are you in favor of or against the encyclical?”

  “The encyclical is the official though not infallible teaching of the Church. I support the teaching of the Church, while I regret the fact that it was issued before the subject of sexuality in the Church was given an opportunity to achieve greater maturity.”

  “Does that mean, Monsignor, that you think the Pope may have made a mistake in issuing this encyclical, Humanae Vitae?”

  “As regards to the timing, he may well have made a mistake.” Again, more furious scribbling. To hell with the reporter. To hell with the Pope. To hell with everybody.

  “Do you expect American Catholics to obey the encyclical?”

  “I am sure that many of them will continue their present practices,” he said flatly.

  “Do you think the Church will ever change on birth control, Monsignor?”

  Sean stared glumly at the floor. “No one claims that this encyclical is infallible. And in the words of Harry Truman, ‘Never say never, ’cause never is a helluva long time.’”

  The journalist laughed. “One final question, Monsignor. If you had to do it over again, how would you have voted?”

  Sean hesitated. He wasn’t certain of anything any more. God, church, priesthood, doctrine—all were confusion. “I think I might very well have voted with the majority.”

  * * *

  The Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago was exhausted upon his return from Guatemala. Even after two days resting at the house at 1555 No
rth State Parkway, he still looked drawn and withered when his chancellor joined him in his office. “You look tired, Eminence.”

  “I am tired, Monsignor Cronin, very tired.” He nervously fingered the press clippings on the desk in front of him. “Someday, Sean, I’m going to understand you. Six years ago you were one of the most conservative clergymen of your generation. Now you are a blunt and outspoken radical. You must know that somebody’s going to send these clippings to Rome.”

  “Let them,” Sean said.

  The Cardinal sighed. “I have given your name, Sean, to the Congregation for the Making of Bishops, as my top recommendation for a new auxiliary bishop. Do you realize that your statement on the encyclical may affect the possibility of Rome’s acquiescing to my recommendation?”

  “To hell with them, Eminence. I don’t want to be an auxiliary bishop. If you’d asked me, I would have told you no.”

  “That, Monsignor Cronin, is precisely why I didn’t ask you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  1968

  Nora Cronin, still badly shaken by the memories of the awful scene in Los Angeles, had warned her husband to stay away from the Conrad Hilton Hotel during the Chicago Democratic Convention. Even if Nixon should be elected, Paul’s seat was relatively safe. He should avoid the hippies and the police and the National Guard, oppose the war, support Mayor Daley, and vote for Hubert Humphrey, who had the nomination locked up.

  Nora tried to follow her own advice. She worked late at the office, since the children were at Oakland Beach with the housekeeper, but she made certain that the limousine was waiting to drive her home.

  One night, however, as they made their way out of the city, she saw police, National Guard troops, and screaming kids rushing up and down Wabash Avenue. At the corner of Harrison and Michigan, a car careened by and a paper bag thrown from it exploded against the Cadillac, spilling human excrement down the side of the car door. Appalled, Nora did her best to ignore the nightmare around her: police on one side; foul-mouthed kids on the other, shouting obscenities at National Guardsmen who were, if anything, even younger than the protestors. Bullhorns bellowed, blue lights swirled, police and protestors dashed back and forth across the street. Tear-gas canisters were fired, sounding like exploding shells. Nora felt for a moment as if she were plunging into Dante’s Inferno. Then the driver turned the limousine off Michigan Avenue and away from the debacle. Not until they were well away from the city did she feel the tension leave her body.