The Good Shepherd

by Thomas Fleming

  “From now on there’ll be another name I won’t let you call me.”

  “Eminence? By God, don’t tell me a wandering particle of actual grace has pierced the Roman miasma and inspired them to do something intelligent for once? That’s the best news I’ve heard since Vatican II ended with a whimper.”

  “I’d like you to come to Rome with me for the consistory.”

  “Out of the question, Matthew me boy. Aside from the fact that a man of eighty has no time to waste, I don’t trust myself to stand up to the triumphal pretensions of that accursed city.”

  “Nonsense. Don’t make me pull rank on you. I want you to come.”

  “There’s only one way you’ll get me. You’ll have to import a half-dozen of the holy blatherer’s Swiss Guards and a straitjacket.”

  “I may do it. We’ll take you along as a Sister of the Divine Heart complete with wimple.”

  “I dare you. I dare you,” said Cronin, laughter breaking through the last words. He caught his breath. “Well, it’s glorious news, lad. You know you’re always in my prayers. It just shows you how much pull I’ve got with His Infinity upstairs.”

  “Stay in contact with him for my sake, will you please?” Matthew Mahan said.

  “You know I will. God love you now. Thanks for the call.”

  Matthew Mahan dropped the phone back into its cradle. The pain had mysteriously subsided. They were on the expressway now, moving rapidly past the ugly outskirts of the city, humming across the miles of meadowland created by a meandering fork of the city’s river. Matthew Mahan pointed to four sets of steel rails that crossed the meadows on a cindery embankment several dozen feet lower than the expressway. “I can remember going down to the shore on summer excursion trains during the depression. These meadows were dotted with tin shanties that men were living in.”

  “Sometimes when I hear stories about the depression,” Dennis McLaughlin said, “I wonder why we didn’t have a revolution in this country.”

  “People were too - too defeated, I think,” Matthew Mahan said. “I remember in 1938 a half-dozen of us in the seminary came down here to the meadows to see what we could do for those poor devils. It was heartbreaking. They’d lost all hope. All they wanted was an unlimited supply of smoke, cheap fortified wine, to keep them semiconscious until oblivion. You couldn’t even get them to go to confession.”

  “Is that what you did?” Dennis asked. “Tell them to repent?”

  “Of course not. But we thought that if we could get them back to the sacraments, it might be a step on the road to rehabilitation.”

  A suggestion of a sarcastic smile formed on Dennis’s lips. “I guess the theory was sound. How did it work in practice?”

  “It didn’t. They were too far gone. Too broken. It was - a terrible time.”

  “I wonder how they would have reacted if you took them back to the seminary, gave them your rooms for a weekend, and lived in their shanties.”

  “In those days the seminary was run by Monsignor Walter Kincaid. He was about six feet four and had a voice like a diesel engine whistle. He would have expelled every one of us.”

  “Oh well,” said Father McLaughlin, “just brainstorming.”

  With no warning, the pain exploded again, filling the center of Matthew Mahan’s body with cold fire. They were in the suburbs now, still on the expressway. At the wheel, Eddie Johnson was relaxed, guiding the big car with one slim black hand, humming a song that the wind from his half-open window obliterated. Eddie loved the expressway. They were doing well over seventy, Matthew Mahan suspected. Two or three days ago a state cop had pulled Eddie over. When the lawman saw who was in the back seat, he had waved them on with profuse apologies. Dennis McLaughlin had sat there silently, commenting only with his enigmatic smile. Matthew Mahan had angrily suspected what he was thinking. These were the kinds of privileges that the Church must cease accepting.

  What should he have done? Matthew Mahan asked himself, growing angry all over again. Insist on the trooper giving Eddie a ticket? If a judge suspended his license, he would be out of a job. He had six children to support. That was the kind of practical dilemma Father McLaughlin’s generation blithely ignored.

  “Easy, Eddie, easy,” Matthew Mahan said. “We’re in no hurry.”

  The car slowed perceptibly - from seventy-five to sixty was a highly probable guess. Matthew Mahan began to think about their destination, now only ten or fifteen minutes away, the College of Mount St. Monica. “This is the last time I’m going to make this trip,” he told Dennis McLaughlin. “I’m trying to prove my good faith in this thing, but if I don’t make any more progress than I did last week -”

  He groped for the ultimate word or phrase.

  “Sister Agnes will have to come to Canossa?” Dennis said.

  Matthew Mahan looked blank.

  “Pope Gregory VII made the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV stand outside his residence for three days in a snowstorm before he talked to him.”

  “I’ll settle for one day, to show my moderation,” Matthew Mahan said with a quick smile. “The truth is, I think I’m still afraid of Agnes. I sat next to her for a year in St. Patrick’s. She was so damn smart she gave me a permanent inferiority complex.”

  “I wonder if the Pope could get President Nixon to Canossa?” Dennis McLaughlin murmured.

  “He’d be a fool if he tried it,” Matthew Mahan said. “Nobody wins in confrontations.”

  “But what if winning isn’t the name of the game? What if losing is better?”

  “Realistically,” Matthew Mahan said, irritation welling in his chest again, “that makes no sense to me.”

  “Speculative theology,” Father McLaughlin said with another fleeting smile.

  “Freedom and order. The Church stands for both. The Church must have both.” The new Cardinal emphasized his point by bringing his big hand down on his thigh.

  Dennis nodded, but his eyes drifted away from Matthew Mahan to the suburban scenery. “Fantastic,” he said. “Look, those trees, they’re beginning to bud and it’s not even the end of March.”

  “It’s been a short winter,” Matthew Mahan said.

  They rode in silence for a few miles, until Eddie Johnson whipped the big car around one of those looping expressway exits, paid the toll, and swung onto a two-lane blacktop that ran through woods filled with bare birches. In a few more minutes, Eddie eased the limousine through a set of massive iron gates. On some iron fretwork above them was a plaque that read:

  COLLEGE OF MOUNT ST. MONICA FOUNDED 1910 SISTERS OF THE DIVINE HEART

  They rolled up a curving path through a half mile of open woods and emerged onto a wide lawn, dull green beneath the overcast sky. The massive main building, Sacré Coeur, was six stories high. Its gray fieldstone walls were topped by three weird white cupolas which made it look like something from a berserk fairy tale. The other buildings ranged from vaguely Colonial to a stridently Gothic chapel, complete with fake flying buttresses. “Every time I come out here,” Dennis McLaughlin said, “I wonder how they managed to create such ugly buildings.”

  As Eddie slowed to a stop in front of the main entrance of Sacré Coeur, the chapel bell began clanging mightily. Instantly, a horde of young women came racing out of the building to swarm around the car. Many of them were wearing blue denim shirts and overalls. More than a few were in miniskirts that drew a pleased “Wow” from Dennis McLaughlin. Now the doorway of Sacré Coeur was filled to capacity with a clump of older women, headed by the president of the school, plump, placid-faced Sister Agnes Marie. Only a half-dozen older nuns were wearing the traditional black robes and high white wimple. The others, including Sister Agnes Marie, were wearing tweedy, conservatively cut suits.

  Inside the car, Matthew Mahan was temporarily stunned. “What the devil -” he muttered.

  “Maybe they’re going to burn us at the stake,” Dennis McLaughlin said. “Or at the Cadillac.”

  The pain stirred greedily in Matthew Mahan’s stomach, flickering
up his chest and turning the palms of his hands cold. Summoning calm by an act of the will, he said, “They’ve heard about me. It was probably on the eleven o’clock news.”

  Matthew Mahan opened the door and climbed out of the car, forcing a smile. “What’s this? What’s this?” he asked Sister Agnes Marie.

  Sister Agnes Marie raised her hand, and 500 feminine voices simultaneously cried: “Congratulations, Your Eminence.”

  “Now, now,” he said to Sister Agnes Marie, “you shouldn’t call me that until I get down on my knees before the Holy Father, and he makes it official.”

  “We like to be a few steps ahead of the Church,” said Sister Agnes Marie.

  A wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. Everyone obviously understood both meanings of the remark.

  “You will say a few words, won’t you, Your Eminence?” said Sister Agnes Marie.

  There was no hope of escape. Matthew Mahan walked up the steps and turned to look down on the crescent of smiling young faces. For some reason, the innocence he had grown used to seeing in his visits here over the years was no longer visible to him. Was it because he had changed? Or was it the cascades of black, brown, blond, red hair, the proletarian blue jeans that seemed to flaunt an alternative lifestyle? Although they wore less makeup than their sisters of earlier decades, their faces somehow seemed more knowing - yes, even slyly knowing - the smiles subtly mocking. For a moment, Matthew Mahan doubted his ability to say anything. What was the use of trying to communicate his real feelings, his desire to reach into their hearts with the healing power of grace?

  “This is - a delightful surprise,” he began. “I don’t feel I deserve those congratulations. I don’t feel the honor that the Holy Father has said he plans to confer upon me is in any way a personal tribute. It is a recognition of the steady growth of this archdiocese, not only in numbers, but in loyalty to the Church and the word of God that she preaches. I mean that, I really do. It heartens me - heartens me tremendously. Without the support of young Catholic women like yourselves, all the titles in the world will not do me or the Church any good. Without you, I am nothing.”

  There was a scattering of applause, not very enthusiastic, Matthew Mahan thought. Then, out of the crowd at the front of the car stepped two girls with guitars. They strummed the opening bars of a melody, and everyone began to sing.

  We are one in the Spirit

  We are one in the Lord

  We are one in the Spirit

  We are one in the Lord

  And we pray that all unity

  May one day be restored

  And they’ll know we are Christians

  By our love, by our love

  Yes they’ll know we are Christians

  By our love

  We will work with each other

  We will work side by side

  We will work with each other

  We will work side by side

  We will guard each woman’s dignity

  And save each woman’s pride

  And they’ll know we are Christians

  By our love, by our love

  And they’ll know we are Christians

  By our love

  The faces swayed with the rhythm, and the voices rose and fell in a melody that seemed both mournful and joyful. Matthew Mahan began to feel better, more in command of himself, more certain of his feelings. When the song ended with a final flourish of the guitars, he said, “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will always remember this day. I’d like to give you my blessing now.”

  Two girls in the front of the crowd knelt, but most of them did not even bow their heads as he raised his hand and lowered it swiftly, then moved it horizontally to form an invisible cross, saying, “May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you forever.”

  He turned to Sister Agnes Marie and said, “That was very nice of you, Mother Agnes - I mean, Sister Agnes.”

  Why couldn’t he just call her Agnes? he mused for a moment. When they sat side by side in St. Patrick’s School, he had called her Aggie. Sometimes, when in the company of those who hated her for her astronomical marks, he had called her Baggy Aggie. He decided it made him feel better - or safer? - to use a title, even if her refusal to accept the traditional “Mother” which went with her position confused him.

  She turned aside his thanks with a meek nod. “It was the girls’ idea. We announced the news at breakfast, and they decided that you deserved a royal welcome.”

  “It was royal. Most definitely royal. I’d like you to meet Father Dennis McLaughlin. My new secretary.”

  Sister Agnes Marie nodded and shook hands with Father McLaughlin. They moved past the rapidly dispersing faculty into the lofty domed rotunda, with a faded mosaic of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove on the marble floor. Casually, Sister Agnes Marie caught the arm of a young woman who wore her dark hair in an interesting sort of knot at the nape of her neck. She was also wearing a suit, but her skirt was several inches shorter than Sister Agnes Marie’s. There was no doubt that she had very shapely legs, and equally little doubt that Dennis McLaughlin was noticing them.

  “Sister Helen,” said Sister Agnes Marie, “would you join us in my office, please? We need someone to do some note taking.” As they walked, she introduced Sister Helen, whose last name was Reed.

  “Reed,” said Matthew Mahan. “Is this Dr. Bill Reed’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “My goodness. I haven’t seen you since you entered the novitiate -”

  “Five years ago.”

  “I thought between us we’d have your father converted by now.”

  Matthew Mahan’s tone was humorous. Sister Helen’s reply was at the opposite emotional extreme. “You can’t convert a stone.”

  Matthew Mahan recalled an angry discourse from Bill Reed when he had visited him for his annual checkup last year. Bill had been vastly exercised about the way “left-wing” Catholics were turning his daughter into a radical.

  As they entered the office, the pain grew so intense that, for a moment, Matthew Mahan wondered if he could conceal it much longer. He forced himself to think about how totally the appearance of this office had changed. During the long reign of the foundress of Mount St. Monica, Mother Mary Catherine, heavy maroon drapes had cut off the light that was now streaming through the bay windows behind the desk. The furniture had all been fake medieval, with hand-carved devils and angels dueling on the backs of the massive chairs. Sister Agnes Marie had transformed the room from a gloomy European cavern to a light-filled model of modern American decor. The desk had a free-form top resembling a figure eight, with one end slightly smaller than the other end. The floor was rugless. The walls abounded with explosive prints of modern paintings by Henri Matisse, Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, and several others that Matthew Mahan did not recognize. Along one wall was a beige couch, its cushions thin as communion wafers. On the other side were several chairs in the same spare design, the ribs and armrests so delicate that they seemed to be one-dimensional, drawn on some invisible screen.

  It made Matthew Mahan think about getting rid of the collection of European antiques with which he lived. Up in Boston, Cushing had sold off Cardinal O’Connell’s splendid treasures when he took over. But Matthew Mahan found a certain satisfaction in sitting on old Hogan’s ancien régime couches and chairs. Besides, the stuff impressed antique fanciers such as the mayor’s very rich wife, Paula Stapleton O’Connor.

  Sister Agnes Marie’s furniture was clearly unsuited to a six-foot-two-inch Archbishop, who weighed 195 pounds, Matthew Mahan thought. Even Dennis McLaughlin seemed to have the same feeling as he carefully sat down. Sister Helen Reed, as petite as Matthew Mahan was bulky, was perfectly at ease in her chair, crossing her legs and paying no attention to the way her almost-miniskirt rode up her thigh. Sister Agnes Marie sat down behind the inner loop of her desk.

  “I wish we had some sunshine,” she said. “It usually p
ours through these windows at this hour of the day. Would anyone like some coffee?”

  The decision was unanimous in favor of coffee, and Sister Agnes Marie pushed a buzzer. It produced a tall brunette wearing a miniskirt that almost raised Matthew Mahan’s eyebrows off his forehead. He could only hope she was a student.

  “Now,” Sister Agnes Marie said, as the coffee was served within seconds from a hot plate in the rear of the room, “what have you heard from our esteemed apostolic delegate?”

  The pain prowled deep into Matthew Mahan’s body. He hastily swallowed almost a third of his coffee. The question was typical of Sister Agnes Marie. It was asked in the mildest tone. She was no longer the know-it-all of their grammar school days. Diffidence was her style now. But her words, in spite of their aura of humility and submission, so often suggested the very opposite of those virtues.

  “Mother - I mean, Sister Agnes,” he said, “I have no desire to decide this matter purely on the basis of authority. I would hope to reach a consensus with you and the other sisters. A consensus that would preserve the peace of this archdiocese, and yet permit the discretionary freedom you want, to some extent at least.”

  Did the semi-smile on Sister Agnes’s face mean that she knew exactly why he had avoided answering her question about the apostolic delegate? If so, she was being unfair to him. He agreed with the A.D. The last thing he wanted was a donnybrook such as the one Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles had created between himself and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

  “Perhaps you might begin by giving us some idea of what this discretionary freedom entails,” Sister Agnes Marie said.

  More mockery? “I approved, without a word of criticism, your decision to alter, and finally to abandon, your habits. I have gone out of my way to find you a chaplain that you approve. I have never tried to stop you from participating in civil rights protests, antiwar rallies.”

  The expression on Sister Agnes’s face seemed to imply that these were hardly gestures of liberality. His temper flickering, Matthew Mahan abandoned the positive approach and said: “But I would prefer to begin by telling you what I will not tolerate. What I will not tolerate for another day, in fact. I will not tolerate sisters moving into a parish, unannounced, uninvited, and with no warning starting a guerrilla war against the pastor. That is the only possible description of what is going on in St. Thomas’s parish.”