The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  Let no one tell you that the Catholic Church exhorts her people to rear families beyond their economic means or the strength of the mother. Illness and want may make it inadvisable for a married couple to have more children. But the only lawful method of avoiding parenthood is abstinence, either total or periodic. It is the particular glory of Catholic marriage that many husbands and wives practice self-restraint rather than indulge in practices contrary to moral and natural law.

  I urge you to remember that matrimony is a sacrament instituted by Christ. It is administered not by a priest, but by the husband and the wife, each of whom confers the sacrament on the other. By the purity and strength of your mutual love, shown in lifelong acts of tenderness, devotion, and forbearance, you will confound those who would threaten the happiness of your marriage, the vigor of your country, and the salvation of your immortal soul.

  Devotedly in Christ,

  Stephen Fermoyle, Bp. Hartfield

  Stephen’s pastoral letter touched off a nation-wide controversy. The Associated Press picked it up, and the battle was on. In an article entitled “Miter over Mind,” The Statesman led the attack with a typical blast: “The Catholic Bishop of Hartfield refurbishes some moldy and discredited arguments against birth control in a pastoral letter to his gaping flock. How any contemporary mind can believe such nonsense passes comprehension. Isn’t it high time that the Catholic Church took off the blinkers of ignorance and caught up with the march of social science?”

  An editorial in the New York World viewed the matter from quite another angle: “To Bishop Fermoyle’s timely and sensible letter we would add the following facts. (1) Seventy-one per cent of divorces in the United States occur between childless couples. (2) Today there are a million fewer children under ten years of age in this country than there were five years ago. Regardless of what the Planned Motherhood crowd says, marital discord and race suicide seem to be the prime products of birth control.”

  Crank letters poured in: “Your recent utterance clearly reveals the contempt and hatred of womankind that is festering in your heart. I pity you.” “What does a celibate (?) know about childbearing? Stick to your incense and flummery.” “It’s your kind that keeps Mexican women ignorant and priest-ridden. As an American clubwoman and mother of two, I despise the sexual peonage you would foist upon us.”

  Other letters came in, too. One from the Governor of New York, himself the father of a family: “Thanks for sending that beam of light up the alleyway where economics and morals grapple in the dark.” Quarenghi wrote: “Sounds of cannonading reach here. Your pastoral grapeshot is cutting the enemy to pieces.” But the best letter of all came from a woman who said: “I take my pencil in hand to thank you for the fine things you said about big families and the joy they bring. You must of come from one yourself, no one else would know. Sometimes my friends tell me I ought to stop having children but I can’t, I love them so. If God sent me a hundred, I’d still pray for more.”

  The letter was signed, “Mother of Thirteen.”

  CHAPTER 3

  MARCH was flaunting the usual false promises of spring. Under a tattered cape of snow, one caught an occasional glimpse of green on Hartfield Common; umbrellas blew inside out, rubbers leaked, overshoes were too heavy to wear, and fifty thousand practicing poets touched off lyric fusees to forsythia, the first robin, and other vernal harbingers. Among the poems that actually got published, Jake Mabbott’s March Troth, heading the “Pickles and Chowder” column for March 16, 1928, was probably one of the tenderest and most original. The sonnet ran:

  Tart trollop March, of bouncingest whims and weather,

  Half winter’s still, yet half seduced by spring,

  Trapping more lovers with a snowy feather

  Than summer gets with all her emeralding;

  Show me, who loves your beauty next to autumn’s

  (Yes, I am spousaled to a tawnier queen)—

  Show me, along your lakes and valley bottoms,

  Those silver secrets spring will turn to green.

  Could I but love, March, without taint of treason,

  A younger mistress or a bolder bride,

  I should abandon to your wantoner season

  My autumn peace; and by this mountainside

  Rutted by thaws (and for a budding reason)

  We could swear faith, March, even though we lied.

  Stephen was savoring the craftsmanship of the poem when his desk telephone began jingling.

  “New York calling Bishop Fermoyle,” said the operator. Then a familiar voice: “Stuffy? This is me, George.”

  “Who else would be calling me ‘Stuffy’? How’s the campaign going, Gug?”

  George sounded worried. “We need some advice about an article coming out next month in The North American Monthly. The Governor’s just received galley proofs of an ‘Open Letter to Al Smith,’ written by a fellow named Hubbell K. Whiteman. Know anything about him?”

  Stephen remembered his luncheon companion at the Inter-Faith Convocation—the chin-up chap who had unsmilingly suggested that American Catholicism “break” with Rome. “Hubbell K. Whiteman? Why, he’s made himself quite a reputation as a militant Protestant. What does he say in his article?”

  “Well, underneath the whiskered verbiage he asks what Al would do if his loyalties as a Catholic came into conflict with his oath as President.”

  “That’s absurd. No such conflict could possibly arise.”

  “A lot of voters don’t know that. And the Democratic Convention probably won’t know it either. That’s why I’m calling you, Stuff. Can you take a day off to come down here to advise us? If anyone knows the answers, you do.”

  Stephen hesitated. “You realize, Gug, that as a Catholic bishop I can’t allow myself to get mixed up in politics.”

  “You’re allowed to talk to your brother, aren’t you?”

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” said Stephen. “Mail me the galley proofs, special delivery. I’ll look the piece over before committing myself.”

  Whiteman’s “Open Letter to Al Smith” turned out to be a frank piece of anti-Catholic propaganda skillfully put together on a seeming plane of candor and dignity. The opening paragraph was particularly disarming:

  The American people take pride in viewing the progress of an American citizen from the humble estate in which his life began toward the highest office within the gift of the nation. It is for this reason that your candidacy for the presidential nomination has stirred the enthusiasm of a great body of your fellow citizens. They know and rejoice in the hardship and the struggle which have fashioned you as a leader of men. They know your fidelity to the morality you have advocated in public and private life, and to the religion you have revered; your record of public trusts successfully and honestly discharged; your spirit of fair play and justice even to your political opponents. Partisanship bids fair to quail before the challenge of your personality, and men who vote habitually against your party are pondering your candidacy with sincere respect.

  At this point Dr. Whiteman laid aside his ponderous affability. “A basic, irrepressible conflict exists,” he said, “between Roman Catholic teaching and the principles of civil and religious liberty on which American institutions were founded.” To support his argument, Whiteman quoted from Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical on the Christian constitution of states: “The Almighty has divided the charge of the human race between two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil—the one being set over divine, and the other over human things.”

  The quotation sounded familiar, but how incomplete! On looking up the reference, Stephen discovered that Whiteman had omitted the next sentence of Leo XIII’s statement, which ran: “Each power in its kind is supreme; each has fixed limits within which it is contained—limits which are defined by the nature and special province of each.”

  According to Whiteman, the Roman Catholic Church claimed “sovereign and paramount powers” over the civil government of the United States. Furthermore, said Whitema
n, in any conflict between Church and State, the Church must prevail! The Pope was represented as a foreign suzerain with the final word over American affairs.

  Whipping these fallacies into a fine froth of patriotism, Dr. Whiteman now asked Al Smith how he proposed to reconcile this “basic and irrepressible conflict between the two powers.” If, as President, Mr. Smith encountered such a conflict, would he, could he, be loyal to the oath of his high office? Rather, wouldn’t he be obliged to place Catholic doctrine and the authority of the Pope above his oath to support the Constitution?

  Startled by these interrogations, Stephen could scarcely curb his anger; his impulse was to refute, passionately, and at once, Whiteman’s insinuations. Al Smith’s fortunes faded into the background of his thought; whether Smith won the Democratic nomination or was elected President became matters of remote concern. First in Stephen’s mind was the scalding injustice that had been poured over the Church.

  Part of his wrath sprang from a sense of futility in debating with adversaries who kept on reviving the ancient clichés against Catholicism: “implacable threat of the papacy,” “divided allegiance between Church and State”—arguments dragged from the rubbleheap of other centuries. How long would these men persist in regarding the Church as a band of conspirators plotting against the Constitution? Would such men never realize that Catholicism in the United States was a cornerstone of civil order, a bulwark against the corrupting forces of anarchy and decay? To those who accused the Church of undermining American freedom, Stephen wanted to cry out: “Our sole aim is to inculcate patriotism founded upon divine law. Our only objective is to help men keep alive the light of their souls, the hope of heaven, the love of God.”

  Arrows of sleet were breaking against the windowpanes of Stephen’s study; arrows of grief and anger were splintering in his heart. Hopeless to combat such prejudice. Inconvenient, too, at this busy season of the year. Stephen strode back to his desk, leafed through his calendar, solidly booked for the next two weeks with conferences, diocesan inspections, confirmations in distant parts of the state. Why add the burden of futile polemics to an already overcrowded schedule? To draw up counterarguments against Whiteman would mean several days’ work in the library. Let someone else sweat over the source books and dig out the answers that Al Smith needed.

  Stephen was attempting to phrase a “Sorry, count me out” telegram to George, when his indecisive eye fell upon the motto on his desk pad, one of those text-a-day appointment calendars given away by ecclesiastical supply houses. The text for March 20 happened to be St. Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, written almost two thousand years ago, when the Church was struggling to establish herself in the midst of enemies:

  “Preach the Word: be instant in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.”

  Paul to Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus? No, Paul to all bishops everywhere—then, now, and always—counseling them in the supreme tactic of the Word.

  Not in anger or arrogance, but in all patience, must Catholic doctrine be preached, in and out of season, personally convenient or no. In loving severity, error must be reproved, the enemies of the Church rebuked over and over again till the Word prevailed.

  Stephen sent his telegram to George:

  NORTH AMERICAN ARTICLE FILLED WITH GRAVE ERRORS OF FACT AND INTERPRETATION. REBUTTAL IMPERATIVE. MUST SPEND A COUPLE OF DAYS IN LIBRARY LOOKING UP REFERENCES. WILL MEET YOU WEDNESDAY P.M. CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS NEW YORK. AFFECTIONATELY STUFF.

  GEORGE FERMOYLE was standing under the big clock of the Biltmore when Stephen entered the lobby. Seeing his brother first, George enjoyed for a moment the pleasure of observing him with a secret eye. Attired in the habit of a working priest, the Bishop of Hartfield needed no insignia to mark him as a full-powered male. In build, he approximated the life-insurance ideal of how much a six-foot man should weigh at the age of forty-one. Though Stephen’s blue-black hair was prematurely streaked with gray, and his coloring a touch too pale for outdoor taste, in motion he seemed younger, more elastically muscled than senior prelates have a right to be. By some private management of head and limbs he appeared to be treading a slight incline—whether the tilted deck of a clipper ship or the broad steps of a dais or tabernacle, George could not decide. Curiously mixed hints of an ascetic philosopher, a renaissance prince, and a field officer of general rank hung about the Bishop of Hartfield as he crossed the lobby to greet his brother.

  “Good of you to come, Stuffy,” said George, leading the way toward the bank of elevators. “I’ve taken a suite for you on the seventeenth floor. How long can you stay?”

  “It’ll have to be just overnight, I’m afraid. My Hartfield franchise expires unless it’s renewed every twenty-four hours.”

  George took his brother’s bag, hefted it questioningly. “What’ve you got in here?”

  “Pajamas, toothbrush—and a portable library. We must talk by the book, else we’re ruined.”

  “Does Whiteman really know his stuff?”

  “He’s been around theologically.” In the suite Stephen opened his bag and drew out a manila envelope crammed with notes. “Here’s the whole dossier. Glance through it while I wash up.”

  Like a fact-hungry prosecutor George devoured the notes. “What a lawyer you’d have made!” he said as Stephen came out of the bathroom, rubbing his face with a towel. “The Governor will stop chewing Perfectos when he sees this brief. Ready to go?”

  Walking down the corridor to Al Smith’s headquarters, George brought up a little matter of protocol. “It’s a minor point, Stuff, but both you and the Governor rate the title ‘Your Excellency.’ How does a master of ceremonies introduce two Excellencies to each other? Who gets presented to whom?”

  “The old problem of Church and State,” said Stephen. “A good rule to remember is that the visiting team bats first.”

  Introduction offered no real problem when George brought his two Excellencies together. “Governor Smith, may I present you to my brother Stephen, Bishop of Hartfield?” he said simply. Al Smith, already halfway across the room, extended both hands. “You honor us by coming, Bishop Fermoyle.” Reverence for Stephen’s office took nothing from the Governor’s dignity or the human warmth of his greeting.

  Stephen appraised the fabulous “Brown Derby,” the ex-fishmonger of Fulton Street who had emerged from the shadows of Brooklyn Bridge to become the first four-time Governor of New York. The most noticeable mark of that rough-and-tumble passage appeared in Al Smith’s speaking voice. It was a brusque, inelegant organ, seemingly contemptuous (at times) of those who spoke with a more cultured diction. The Brown Derby’s too-florid complexion and rather bulbous nose were offset by a spacious forehead and a pair of ocean-blue eyes honest as a carpenter’s level. Close up, the “barefoot boy of the Biltmore” was better-looking, Stephen decided, than his campaign pictures indicated.

  The Governor laid his hand on an armchair and kept it there until Stephen sat down. “A cigar, Bishop? … Do you mind if I smoke?” Under his deference the Brown Derby was tensing himself for an overwhelming question.

  “Well, Your Excellency,” he asked, “what do you think of Dr. Whiteman’s little essay in understanding?”

  “Judging the motive from the deed, I’d say he was out to ruin you. The article is very polite and quite sinister.”

  “That was my feeling.” The Brown Derby leveled a point-blank query at Stephen. “Can it be answered?”

  “It can.”

  The ash that Al Smith flicked from his cigar seemed to take a ten-ton weight from his shoulders. Vocal harshness disappeared as he explained his problem to Stephen. “You understand, Bishop Fermoyle, that I’m no theologian. I didn’t get my Catholic faith from books, and I’m at a disadvantage when an opponent like Whiteman here jumps out from behind a hedge, and cross-examines me on doctrinal points that never even entered my mind. Could you help clear the ground for me by answering one or two questions about this matter of Church and State?”


  “I’ll be glad to try, Governor.”

  Al Smith’s first question was as frank as his ocean-blue eyes. “Is there anything in our religion that might, by some wild stretch of imagination, bring a Catholic officeholder into conflict with the Constitution of the United States?”

  “The answer,” said Stephen, “is no. Flatly, unequivocally, no. Catholic doctrine teaches that the civil government and the Church derive their separate and quite distinct authority from the same divine source. God did not intend that the two powers should clash. Legitimately exercised, they cannot. When anyone declares or even insinuates otherwise, he’s either ignorant or malicious.”

  “Good! Now one more question. Suppose the Pope were to issue a command in some purely civil matter? As an American citizen and officeholder, what would my duty be?”

  “The Pope will not issue such a command,” said Stephen. “But if he did, your duty would be to disobey him. Cardinal Gibbons treats the matter explicitly in his essay, ‘The Church and the Republic.’” The Bishop consulted a note he had made on the galley proofs. “This is what Cardinal Gibbons says: ‘If the Pope were to issue commands in purely civil matters, he would be offending not only against civil society, but against God, and violating an authority as truly from God as his own. Any Catholic who clearly recognized this would not be bound to obey the Pope; rather, his conscience would bind him absolutely to disobey, because with Catholics, conscience is the supreme law which under no circumstances can we ever lawfully disobey.’”

  Al Smith smacked the heel of his hand down hard on the desk. “That does it. We’ll rake Whiteman with the facts. How do you think we should begin?”

  “Why not use your favorite ‘Let’s look at the record’ approach?” suggested Stephen. “Start off by disclaiming Whiteman’s imputations, then chop his fallacies to matchwood, one at a time.”