The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  In the 1927 terna forwarded by Cardinal Glennon to the office of the Apostolic Delegate, Stephen saw his own name, bracketed with those of Michael Speed and Hubert Silvera of New Bedford. A shiver of apprehension ran along Stephen’s spine. The day was nearing when he would be called upon to defend, judge, interpret, ordain, confirm—and rule!

  The call did not come at once. When Bishop Shields of Maine died that summer, the Right Reverend Michael Speed was named as his successor. Stephen attended Mike Speed’s consecration; with sixty-five other members of the American hierarchy, he watched his old friend prostrate himself before the altar, then rise to receive the miter and crozier, symbols of episcopal authority, from the hands of his consecrator, Lawrence Cardinal Glennon. Afterwards, at the reception in the new Bishop’s residence, there was much handshaking and felicitation all around. Not a man present begrudged Mike Speed his advancement; it was agreed that of all the younger clergy in the United States, the ex-Chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese best deserved, and would most eminently fulfill, the honors and responsibilities of his new post.

  Scarcely a month later, the Most Reverend John T. Qualters, D.D., Bishop of Hartfield—a man heavy with years and riddled by five contending diseases (heart, kidney, liver, arthritis, and gallstones) gave up the ghost. To honor the deceased Bishop, whose diocese was the second largest in New England, the Apostolic Delegate accepted an invitation to attend the funeral and deliver the eulogy in person.

  “I shall be gone a week or more,” said Quarenghi to Stephen shortly before he left. “In my absence, you will act as temporary charge d’affaires. If matters of special importance arise, you can get in touch with me at the residence of Cardinal Glennon in Boston.”

  The Associated Press put the full text of Quarenghi’s eulogy—a moving oration in the highest tradition of sacred eloquence—on its wires. Letters and telegrams poured in from all parts of the country; even non-Catholic commentators hailed Quarenghi’s speech as the fruit of a new understanding between Rome and America.

  When the Apostolic Delegate returned to Washington, his mood was quietly jubilant. “Well,” he said, “I’ve made my little swing around the circle. Isn’t that the idiom used by campaigners in this country?” Quarenghi went on: “I saw many remarkable things and people, but perhaps the most remarkable of all was your Lawrence Cardinal Glennon. Why, he’s a monument—a phenomenon.”

  “I’m glad you discovered his real stature,” said Stephen. “In Rome he was overshadowed. But in this country people regard him as the ideal of what a prince of the Church should be.”

  Quarenghi was going through the mail on his desk, apparently searching for a special envelope. “His Eminence thinks highly of you, Stefano. In fact, he sends you a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  “Yes.” Quite casually, Quarenghi handed Stephen a small box tied with an amethyst ribbon, then returned to the business of scanning his mail. Stephen snipped the amethyst ribbon, removed the outer wrapping of Glennon’s gift, and saw a ring case of faded blue velvet. He snapped the lid open, and there, in a groove of white satin, lay a ring—a beveled amethyst with a bezel of seed pearls.

  It was the Dolcettiano ring that Orselli had given him years ago. The ring that Stephen had sold to defray the expenses of Ned Halley’s final illness. The ring that Glennon …

  He looked up wonderingly at Quarenghi, who, having found the envelope he was looking for, was slicing its seals with an ivory-handled knife. “Si, si, Stefano.” The Apostolic Delegate was nodding and smiling. “Cardinal Glennon believed that you’d be needing your amethyst again,” he continued, glancing at the heavy fold of vellum he had taken from the envelope. “And my mail from Rome tells me that he was right.”

  Quarenghi handed Stephen the vellum sheet bearing the personal crest of Pius XI. Stephen glanced at the document: three paragraphs in Latin covered the page. The first paragraph set forth the regrettable fact that His Excellency the Most Reverend John T. Qualters was deceased. The second paragraph recited that the See of Hartfield had consequently fallen vacant. The last paragraph read:

  By virtue, therefore, of the authority transmitted to us in unbroken descent from Peter the First Disciple, we declare and publish our desire that the Right Reverend Stephen Fermoyle be consecrated Bishop of Hartfield in the United States of America, and that he shall enter at once upon the powers, duties, and obligations laid upon him by the solemn oath of his office. In testimony whereof we give this Apostolic mandate on the 14th day of July, anno Domini 1927.

  The letter was signed Pius XI, and underneath the signature was the imprint of the Fisherman’s ring.

  BOOK FIVE

  The Crozier

  CHAPTER 1

  ATHENAEUM AVENUE is not one of the chief thoroughfares of the United States, but few American streets are handsomer. From the circular hub of Hartfield Common, the broad maple-shaded avenue runs due south through the most prosperous quarter of the second-largest city in New England. For the first few blocks Athenaeum Avenue is flanked by imposing semipublic structures: here in pillared grandeur stands the Phoenix Mutual Assurance Company; beside it rises the cool white spire of the Congregational Church, one of the purest examples of meetinghouse architecture in America. Opposite them are the Hartfield National Bank, St. Alfred’s Episcopal Church, and the Greek-porticoed Athenaeum, which gave the avenue its name. Alongside the Athenaeum is St. Philip’s Cathedral, seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hartfield. That these structures, together with the Hiram K. Weatherby High School and the Central Fire Station, support and preserve, each in its own way, an existing order and a desirable mode of life has never been pointed out to the four hundred thousand citizens of Hartfield. The fact itself is either too self-evident or has become too deeply unconscious for comment.

  It was not always so. Time was when only property holders were allowed to enter the shadowy bookstacks of the Athenaeum—and none but worshipers at St. Alfred’s or the Congregational meetinghouse could become directors of the Hartfield National Bank. That era was already on its way out when, shortly before the turn of the century, Bishop John P. (“Desperate”) Desmond bought the two-acre lot on Athenaeum Avenue and broke ground for St. Philip’s. “Overweening,” “cheeky,” “riding for a fall,” were some of the kinder things said about Bishop Desmond. The only fall the Bishop feared was the aesthetic tumble one might easily take while building opposite the chill white perfection of the Congregational meetinghouse. What he said to his architect will never be known, but his directions went something like this:

  “Design a Cathedral that will translate Chartres, Strasbourg, yes, and St. Peter’s, too, into American terms. Use native freestone; it weathers best. Besides, our local quarries need the business. Build out of the eternal past, into the industrial present, for the unforeseeable future. Give Catholicism and Hartfield a monument they can be proud of!”

  How an architect could manage to translate the symbolism of rose window and flying buttress into an idiom acceptable to a Yankee community is only part of the secret that clings to the Gothic. Undeniably, this architect had succeeded. St. Philip’s massive strength seemed to spring from the unshakable rock of Peter; its stone poetry, ascending in twin magnificent spires, suggested the devotional dream that nourishes the lives of men. On September 7, 1927, both the strength and the dream were renewed in the profoundly mystical ceremonies accompanying Stephen Fermoyle’s consecration as Bishop of Hartfield.

  At ten o’clock that morning, while four thousand worshipers knelt inside the Cathedral and an exterior multitude clogged traffic on Athenaeum Avenue, a procession of richly vested clerics, preceded by crossbearer, acolytes, and choristers, entered the center door of the great church. A full organ swelled jubilantly into Ecce sacerdos magnus; bourdon, Doppelflöte, and open diapason hurled triumphant thunder down the long nave as the ecclesiastical train approached the altar. Soon the sanctuary was a pool of crimson and gold; throughout the Cathedral softer blocks of color marked the presence of religi
ous orders: Carmelites and Dominicans in white, Paulists in black, Capuchins in coarse brown. Kneeling in the first pew, Dennis and Celia Fermoyle scarcely dared lift their eyes to the solemn pageant in which their son was playing the central role.

  Tall tapers wavered in vagrant drafts as Lawrence Cardinal Glennon, flanked by Alfeo Quarenghi and Michael Speed as assistant consecrators, moved in the slow tempo of ceremony to their positions at the Epistle side of the altar for the reading of the Apostolic mandate. Meanwhile, Stephen had put on his amice, alb, cincture, stole, and cope. Kneeling before his consecrators, the Bishop-elect took a solemn oath of obedience to the decrees and ordinances of the Church. He pledged himself to defend it from evil men, promised to visit the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome at five-year intervals, and render during these visits a full accounting of his stewardship to the Pope. Examined briefly regarding his orthodoxy in matters of faith and morals, Stephen declared his firm belief in the fundamental doctrines of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

  While choir and organ burst into Haydn’s Kyrie eleison, Solemn High Mass began with Cardinal Glennon as celebrant. Stephen meanwhile put on the stockings and slippers proper to a bishop. Taking off his cope, he received the pectoral cross together with the dalmatic. Attired in these traditional vestments, each symbolizing the powers and duties laid upon him by the Church, Stephen was again brought before his consecrators. Mitered, they knelt while Stephen prostrated himself at full length before the altar. In the position of the meanest suppliant, he lay flat on his face, humbly entreating God not to mark his iniquities as a man or his unworthiness as a priest. No jubilant music now; no supporting ritual. Only a whispered plea for grace—the sanctifying gift by which God bestows on men some part of His nature.

  Muffled in his robes, Stephen heard the choir chanting in Latin the Litany of the Saints—that roster of names blessed in heaven and venerated on earth:

  St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael … All ye holy patriarchs and prophets,

  Pray for us.

  St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John … All ye holy Apostles and evangelists,

  Pray for us.

  St. Benedict, St. Dominic, St. Francis … All ye holy monks and hermits,

  Pray for us.

  St. Magdalene, St. Agnes, St. Cecily … All ye holy virgins and widows,

  Pray for us.

  The note changed; the plea for protection and mercy ascended directly to God:

  From Thy wrath,

  Deliver us, O Lord.

  From anger and hatred and ill will,

  Deliver us.

  From the spirit of fornication,

  From lightning and tempest,

  From plague, famine, and war,

  From everlasting death,

  O Lord, deliver us.

  Again the note deepened; became somber with fear of the Lord:

  In the Day of Judgment,

  We beseech Thee, hear us,

  That Thou wouldst spare us, that Thou wouldst pardon us,

  Lord, we beseech Thee.

  That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to govern and preserve Thy

  Holy Church,

  That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to confirm and preserve us

  in Thy holy service,

  We beseech Thee, hear us.

  Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,

  Spare us, hear us, have mercy on us, O Lord.

  The Litany ended. No human voice or action seemed worthy to break the hush that followed. Worshipers, choir, consecrators, the muffled figure lying prostrate before the altar, were motionless, silent. For a moment the ritual passed into a realm of mystery as the sense of the Apostolic succession about to take place hung over the Cathedral.

  Stephen rose to a kneeling position. Assisted by coconsecrators, Lawrence Glennon laid the open Book of the Gospels on Stephen’s neck, murmuring as he did so, “Receive the Holy Ghost.” In the name of the Holy Trinity, the Cardinal then anointed Stephen’s forehead with a chrism composed of precious oils and resin blessed for the purpose. The anointing disarranged Stephen’s hair; Glennon smoothed it back with a gold-handled ivory comb. He anointed Stephen’s hands that he might labor for God, then gave him his crozier, saying: “Receive the staff of the pastoral office, so that in the correction of vices thou mayest be lovingly severe, giving judgment without wrath, softening the minds of thy hearers whilst fostering virtues, not neglecting strictness of discipline through love of tranquillity.” Blessing the episcopal ring, he slipped it onto Stephen’s finger as a sign that as Christ is wedded to the Church, so the bishop is wedded to his diocese.

  In return Stephen presented his consecrator with two votive candles, two small loaves of bread, and two tiny gold barrels of wine.

  Not until the Mass was over did the new Bishop receive his miter. When Glennon placed the gold-embroidered crown on Stephen’s head, choir and organ burst into the Te Deum of St. Augustine. Turning for the first time to his people, Bishop Fermoyle descended the altar steps and moved down the aisle, showering benediction on his flock as they bent before his upraised hand.

  The first to receive his blessing were Dennis and Celia Fermoyle. They took their son’s benediction with bowed heads and hands clasped, right thumb over the left. When Stephen passed on, they brought their heads close to each other, as dumb creatures sometimes do when sharing knowledge not communicable to others.

  THE PUBLIC RECEPTION on the Cathedral lawn combined the best features of a civic holiday, a Hibernian picnic, and a family reunion. From refreshment tables set up by the Knights of Columbus, eight thousand sandwiches and two hundred gallons of grape-juice lemonade vanished in forty minutes. A uniformed K. of C. band gave music while notables of all sects and politicians of both parties shook Stephen’s hand. The governor of the state (Repub.-Episc.) ended his address of welcome on the elegant note gloria virtutis umbra, which meant, he was careful to explain, “Glory is the shadow of virtue.” The Mayor of Hartfield (Dem.-Cath.) presented a scroll illuminated in Book of Kells style; into his address he worked a Gaelic phrase meaning “plow deep.” The Protestant clergy sent a noble delegation headed by the patrician Bishop Forsythe of the Methodist-Episcopal Church. Rabbi Joshua Felshin of Temple Beth Israel shook Stephen’s hand. A bevy of little girls from St. Rose’s Academy tendered Stephen a spiritual bouquet. Prelates of the Cathedral parish and heads of religious orders filed past, each kneeling to kiss the episcopal ring; some seven hundred pastors, curates, and nuns from all over the Diocese did likewise. Flash bulbs snapped; reporters begged for statements, and traffic through Hartfield Square had to be rerouted.

  At one-thirty P.M. the last sandwich had disappeared, and the band played its final number—a medley of “Adeste fideles,” and “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” composed for the occasion by Professor Valentine Mullaney, principal of the Hartfield Academy of Music. As the crowd drifted away, Stephen turned to greet his family and friends gathered in the parlor of the episcopal residence.

  The parlor, furnished in what might be called Irish Victorian style, was trying hard to preserve the museum atmosphere that Mrs. Goodwin, the “old Bishop’s” housekeeper, had stamped upon it during her long reign. The windows were lace-curtained, with beige overdrapes caught up in a swirl of silver knots so admired by undertakers. Though the deceased Bishop had not been addicted to dressing his hair with bear’s grease, Mrs. Goodwin had taken no chances—every chair was protected by an antimacassar. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling like a frozen stalactite, outproportioning everything else in the room but the Ivers and Pond piano, a claw-footed walnut monster that Mrs. Goodwin had seemingly tried to conceal with a triangular lace throw. In the center of the room a glass bell stood on a marble-topped table, and under the glass bell was the missal used by the first Bishop of Hartfield. Empty, the parlor would have been a tomb. Now, filled with Stephen’s family and friends, it buzzed with quite untomblike gaiety.

  Having changed his robes for a black broadcloth suit given him as a consecrati
on gift by his parents, Stephen stood in the doorway. “Alone at last,” he said, and plunged shoulder-deep into the laughter caused by his remark. Here, gathered in a single room, were the people who, by blood or love, were most nearly part of himself. One by one he greeted them: Din and Celia, givers of life itself; Din, painfully barbered and wearing a baggy blue serge suit undistinguishable—saving the arm stripes—from his motorman’s uniform; Celia, almost comely in the silk print and chic new hat her daughters had urged upon her. With awe and curiosity Celia fondled her son’s amethyst ring. “Handsome, Steve, handsome,” she murmured. Then a touch of mischievous humor lighted Celia’s once-pretty face. She held out the third finger of her left hand on which she wore the thin gold band that Din had placed there thirtyeight years before.

  “This had to come before that” she said with mimic hauteur. And not all the theologians between Origen and Mercier could have refuted her.