The Good Shepherd

by Thomas Fleming

  “Monsignor,” said Matthew Mahan abruptly. “I did not come here to debate you. I came to restore peace to this parish, this rectory. Do you have any suggestion about how we should go about it?”

  “Only one, Your Excellency,” O’Reilly said. “Do your duty. Settle this issue, as other bishops have settled it, by a firm, clear, unequivocal statement.”

  “If you think you can involve the whole diocese in this personality clash -”

  “It is not a personality clash. It is a theological conflict.”

  “It is both. Do you think it’s an accident, Monsignor, that you’ve had eight assistants in ten years? Why do you think men keep asking for transfers?”

  “There are innumerable explanations. Ambition, ideology. The knowledge that I am persona non grata at the chancery office.”

  “That is not true.”

  “I am hardly grata, Your Excellency.”

  “You are sitting in the rectory of one of the best - and by that I mean wealthiest - parishes in the archdiocese. Who put you here?”

  “As far away from the chancery office as geography permits.”

  “There are other parishes. You might begin thinking about them, Monsignor. Parishes where there are no assistants. And the rectories do not have saunas in the basements.”

  “Oh. You hear all the latest gossip.”

  “I hear a good deal, Monsignor. Without trying, I might add.”

  Monsignor O’Reilly sipped his sherry. “I have only one other suggestion. Direct my curates to acknowledge the Holy Father’s teaching - or suspend their faculties. That would satisfy your desire to keep our dispute as secret as possible.”

  Matthew Mahan shoved aside his half-finished sherry. “Monsignor. I’m going upstairs to find out what Fathers Novak and Cannon have to say. When I come down, I hope you have something more realistic to suggest.”

  Upstairs in Father Novak’s third-floor room, Matthew Mahan was appalled by the unmade bed, the pieces of unwashed underwear, the plates with yesterday’s supper on them.

  “He’s refused to let the housekeeper come upstairs to clean or even to take the dishes down,” Father Novak said. “He said it wasn’t safe. Would you put up with that sort of innuendo, that sort of insult, Your Eminence?”

  Father Novak lit a cigarette. His hands were trembling. “Sit down, sit down, Emil,” said Matthew Mahan. “Tell me how this whole thing started.”

  For a half hour, Matthew Mahan listened while the two curates described in detail the war of petty slights and deprivations Monsignor O’Reilly had waged against them, when he discovered that they did not accept the teaching of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul’s encyclical on birth control. “Whether we’re right or wrong doctrinally, he hasn’t got the authority to tell me to be in by ten o’clock,” Father Cannon said, his voice thick with outrage. One night he had been locked out of the rectory and forced to stay at a nearby turnpike motel.

  Matthew Mahan accepted a cigarette from Father Novak and assured both priests that the harassment would end, today. “But that won’t settle this situation. To do that, you’ll have to give a little.”

  A wary look passed over Father Novak’s face. “What do you have in mind, Your Excellency?”

  Was Novak taking secret pleasure in this mess? Matthew Mahan wondered. He may still resent the accusation and transfer from his previous assignment. Which in turn, suggested that the accusation had probably not been true.

  “You will have to agree that under no circumstances will either of you speak publicly against Humanae Vitae. This, I might add, is something on which I insist, not Monsignor O’Reilly. He wants a good deal more from you, as you no doubt know.”

  “How can we be pastors to the people -” Father Cannon began.

  “You’re free to deal with individuals as your conscience sees fit. But when you are up in that pulpit, you are not pastors, you’re teachers, and the teaching function is reserved to me - your bishop. You will teach what I tell you to teach.”

  For a moment, Matthew Mahan was appalled by the words he had just spoken. Never had he imagined himself saying such a thing, not since the first vague vision of himself as the man in charge of the archdiocese.

  “Let me explain myself. I am trying to keep peace - Christian peace - in this diocese. That is the paramount thing. The peace of this archdiocese. I am ready to do anything - including the suspension of all three of you and putting this parish into the hands of a temporary pastor - to prevent this situation from exploding into a scandal.”

  Now there was a wary, vaguely resentful look on Father Cannon’s face. Plus a little fear. The beginning of wisdom, Matthew Mahan hoped. But Father Novak was the one who needed more delicate handling.

  “This must be especially hard for you, Emil. You’ve already had a taste of injustice at St. Brendan’s. Our Lord went through the same thing. He has a devil, they said. Do you remember how furious that made him? There’s nothing wrong with being angry about this situation. I’m not telling you to swallow your feelings. Admit they exist, and then ask yourself: All right - but what should we do? What’s the best thing for the Church, for the people - all of them?”

  Father Novak was silent. He was like most liberals, Matthew Mahan thought. He was not satisfied with an Archbishop who allowed him freedom of conscience on this agonizing issue. He wanted the Archbishop - or the Archbishop’s power - on his side. He assumed that his personal opinion should be the official position of the Church. Like the new president of the National Liturgical Conference, who had recently called those who hesitated at the prospect of everything from bongo drums to modern dancers on the altar “stiff-assed honkies.”

  “Try to see the situation from my point of view. From the point of view of Catholics who have made tremendous sacrifices to have big families.” A voice suddenly howled in Archbishop Mahan’s mind, the cry of a lost soul. He could not see his brother’s face, only the twisted mouth sneering: You tell ‘em, Bishop. “Think of how you’ll disrupt their faith, disturb their consciences. . . .”

  Matthew Mahan sat back in his chair. A pulse throbbed in his forehead. The pain prowled in his stomach. Hard work, he thought, hard work. He looked out the window at the spring sunshine and suddenly wished he was far away, in Florida perhaps, watching a baseball game. Or on that Bahamian cay where Archbishop Hogan used to spend a month each winter.

  “What’s your personal opinion, Your Excellency?” Father Novak asked. His tone was earnest, his manner suddenly open. Matthew Mahan sensed a trap. Emil was very active in the Archdiocesan Association of Priests, which had rebellious tendencies.

  “My opinion isn’t the issue here, Emil,” Matthew Mahan said. “Let’s just say I agree with Cardinal Cushing. You can’t put a cop under every bed.”

  From the sudden pleasure in Father Novak’s eyes, Matthew Mahan suspected he had said too much. The mention of Cushing was a mistake. He was a character. He could hold all sorts of far-out opinions without upsetting anyone. In a painful flash, Matthew Mahan recalled a morning at the Second Vatican Council, when Cardinals Cushing and Spellman were standing in one of the coffee bars, conversing animatedly. “There they are, the roughie and the smoothie,” said an American bishop from Michigan who was standing at Matthew Mahan’s elbow. Instantly, he had realized that he preferred the smoothie style - without Spellman’s conservative politics.

  “Well,” said Father Cannon, “I’d like to resolve this. It’s no way to live. I’ll agree to keep silent publicly.”

  Matthew Mahan suspected that he had been wanting to say this for some time. “Emil?” he asked.

  Father Novak was clearly disappointed in Father Cannon. But he was now in the minority. He capitulated with a nod.

  “Good,” said Matthew Mahan with a heartiness he did not feel. “Let me talk with Monsignor O’Reilly for a few minutes.”

  Downstairs, he found Monsignor O’Reilly had retired to his study and was watching the home team play down in Florida. “Losing as usual?” Matthew Mahan said, pa
using in the doorway.

  “As usual.” Without getting up, Monsignor O’Reilly turned off the sound with a hand selector but left the color picture on. “No doubt you’ve heard me thoroughly reviled.”

  “On the contrary. I got the distinct impression that you had two very contented curates until this business came up. Why shouldn’t they admire you? This is one of the two or three best-run parishes in the diocese. Now, have you given this thing a little more thought?”

  “Yes,” said Monsignor O’Reilly coldly, still looking at the screen, where the home team’s best hitter was in the process of striking out. “I can’t see any solution that would let me live with my conscience as a pastor other than the one I have proposed.”

  Rage boiled in Matthew Mahan’s brain. Part of it was anger at himself for the conciliatory tone he had just taken. He switched off the television and let O’Reilly have it in a voice that could be heard on the third floor. “I may not have a Roman education, Monsignor. But I am not stupid when it comes to motivation. I consider this entire charade an oblique attack on me. Now, by God, I have never let you arouse my enmity - but you are very close to doing it now. Do you wish to continue as pastor of this parish? Answer me.”

  For a moment, a triumphant hatred - there was no other word for it - gleamed in Monsignor O’Reilly’s eyes. In this same moment of the naked display of his power, Matthew Mahan felt a twist of defeat. He had been forced to say what O’Reilly would have said to him if their positions had been reversed. You’d better get used to saying that sort of thing, he told himself bitterly.

  “You know the answer to that question, Your Excellency.”

  “Then listen to my solution to this mess.” He quickly summed up the compromise he had extracted from Fathers Cannon and Novak. “This seems thoroughly fair to me. They have agreed not to make any statement of their views from the pulpit or in any other public forum. You can’t ask more than that.”

  “I say they should interrogate every woman that comes into the confessional on what she is doing and thinking about the Holy Father’s encyclical.”

  Matthew Mahan almost smiled grimly. Monsignor O’Reilly had overreached himself and given the Archbishop an easy answer. He had been expecting and dreading the issue of the confessional.

  “I absolutely disagree, and if, I get any evidence that you are doing such a thing, I will revoke your faculties,” Matthew Mahan said. “The confessional is not a witness box in a law court, and a priest is not a prosecuting attorney. The care of souls, Monsignor, does not involve forcing them to reveal their guilt.”

  “Would you put that in writing?”

  “No,” Matthew Mahan said. “Will you or won’t you accept the compromise I have just outlined?”

  “If you order me to accept it, I will accept it.”

  “I order you. I also order you to restore civil discourse to this rectory, to give Fathers Cannon and Novak the housekeeping services they require, and their seats at your dinner table. I must also insist that you give them keys to the front door so that they can go and come as they please.”

  “As you say,” said Monsignor O’Reilly. “I trust you will also take responsibility for the gross misconduct that may arise from this freedom? Particularly on Father Novak’s part.”

  “Father Novak is thirty-five years old. He will take responsibility for his own actions.”

  A contemptuous nod. “Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing else,” said Matthew Mahan, “except a little advice. I think it was Cardinal Mercier who said that the besetting sin of priests was not liquor or women. But jealousy. I urge you to think about that, Monsignor.”

  Matthew Mahan walked to the door and paused for a moment. Monsignor O’Reilly sat in the chair, his face immobile. He switched on the television set, and the announcer said: “Well, that’s all for the home team in the bottom of the sixth. The score -”

  Matthew Mahan shut the door and trudged up to the third floor again. There, he told Fathers Novak and Cannon what had been decided and urged them to do or say nothing that would further aggravate the situation. He looked hard at Father Novak as he said this. Did he get the message? One could only hope.

  As he walked down the rectory steps to the street, Matthew Mahan was again engulfed by a tremendous rage. He saw O’Reilly’s face contemptuously staring past him at the television set. Should he go back? No.

  He struggled to calm himself and gradually succeeded. With calm came exhaustion and a severe attack of doubt. Would it have been better to capitulate, to take the hard, heartless line that the Pope - apparently without realizing its heartlessness - had laid down? Had he - Matthew Mahan - won anything in this compromise? He rubbed his twinging stomach. He had tried to meet them as a fellow priest, a brother in Christ. But how do you maintain that stance when you have to deal with shifty, resentful double-talkers like Novak and sons of bitches like Paul O’Reilly?

  The tap of the Archbishop’s ring on the car window interrupted Dennis McLaughlin in the middle of Goggin’s last paragraph. He hastily stuffed the letter into his pocket and opened the door. Matthew Mahan eased himself into the back seat. “God help us, what a mess,” he said. “I feel like a member of a United Nations truce team.”

  “How did it go?”

  “It’s solved, temporarily.”

  Dennis, who knew only that it was an argument about birth control, ached to hear some details. But Matthew Mahan obviously had no intention of giving him any.

  “Just got a news flash on the radio,” Eddie Johnson said. “Ike’s dead.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Matthew Mahan said. “When I was in Washington yesterday, several people told me there was no hope.”

  “You knew him pretty good, didn’t ya, Y’Excellency?” Eddie Johnson said as he started the motor.

  “No. I just shook hands with him once or twice.”

  For a moment, as they rolled through the quiet streets of the Golden Ghetto, Matthew Mahan had an impulse to tell Dennis McLaughlin everything that had just happened inside Holy Angels’ rectory. In fact, it was more than an impulse, it was a need - a need to share with someone the agonizing loneliness of the role he was playing. Perhaps even more important, a need to communicate, really communicate, with the priests of Dennis’s generation. He could endure the hostility and contempt of the O’Reillys. He had toughened himself against their cruelty a long time ago. But the subtler, more indirect and impersonal hostility of Dennis’s generation disturbed him enormously. The averted eyes, the down-turned mouth, of Fathers Novak and Cannon rose before him in memory. To his dismay, as he turned to Dennis, he saw the same patina of negation on his somber face.

  Abruptly Matthew Mahan began talking about the death of General Eisenhower. “It makes you feel old,” he said. He began telling Dennis where and when he had seen Ike in Europe. This led to one of his favorite World War II stories. “It was right after the Bulge. Everyone was shaky. It was hard to tell what was going to happen next. Suddenly, we got word that Ike was inspecting the division in exactly one hour. The general - the division commander - started screaming for his orderly. He wanted his boots polished. The poor guy came running in with the shoe polish and a rag and a cardboard box. The old man forgot he was wearing carpet slippers and put his foot on the box - and the orderly started polishing the slipper. I couldn’t repeat what was said next without a papal dispensation.”

  It was a story that had never failed to draw uproarious laughter from previous listeners. Dennis managed the merest ghost of a smile. Matthew Mahan sighed and rubbed his aching stomach. “It reminds you of the grim fact that we are getting pretty old, all of us World War II types. Is it true what they say, that for people your age and the kids in school, it’s just a lot of history like the First World War and the Civil War?”

  “For a lot of them it is. Then there are some, like me, who’d like to forget the whole thing for personal reasons.”

  “What are they?”

  “My father was killed in it.”<
br />
  “Dennis - I had no idea -”

  For a moment, the young eyes flashed almost wickedly at him, a penetrating glare that seemed to see as well as hear the hollowness of his automatic sympathy.

  “Where - was he killed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What outfit was he with?”

  “He was a pilot. That’s all I know. My mother never talked to us about it.”

  The sad implication of those words was instantly clear to Matthew Mahan. But now, he sensed, was not the time or place to try to do anything about it. He let Dennis continue talking on about World War II.

  “I think it’s your enthusiasm that turns the kids off, more than anything else. They just can’t understand how you could be enthusiastic about any war, even if Hitler was as much of a monster as everyone says he was.”

  “I don’t think we were enthusiastic,” Matthew Mahan said warily. “Not the people I was with, the ones who were getting shot at. The enthusiasm came later, after we won.”

  “It amounts to the same thing,” Dennis McLaughlin said. “Nobody over thirty seems able to understand why we don’t have the same attitude toward Vietnam.”

  “I see,” Matthew Mahan said, “I see.”

  A white lie. He did not see. Everything about the young had been growing more and more opaque for two, perhaps three years now. With a sigh, he let the conversation lapse and began worrying about his next appointment, lunch with Monsignor Harold Gargan at Rosewood Seminary. They were a half hour late already. It would not improve Gargan’s mournful mood. But it would take a miracle to manage that feat.

  “How did things go with the apostolic delegate yesterday?” Dennis McLaughlin asked. “Did Roma locute?”

  “I’m afraid not. He spent most of the time telling me to avoid a scandal. They don’t want a repetition of Los Angeles, McIntyre’s brawl with the Immaculate Hearts.”

  “It’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? Having to take a problem like that to the A.D. It sort of contradicts what they said in Vatican II about the Pope treating bishops as equals.”