Eminence

by William X. Kienzle

  Koesler had long since tired of the ritualistic march of canons. “Then, why bother, Eminence? Why not just skip over the middleman, get the Tribunal in here, and settle the matter?”

  “Every base must be touched, Father.”

  Odd hearing him use a sports metaphor.

  “This is a matter of law,” Boyle continued, “and it must proceed accordingly. The Code is very specific on these matters and it must be followed. You see, Father, in the event—and I do not anticipate this, but it is a distinct possibilit—in the event that any sort of punitive action need be taken, we must be sure that every procedure has been completed correctly.

  “The Code calls for a preliminary investigation to be carried out by myself or by someone I delegate—in this case yourself—and then a more formal investigation by the Tribunal.”

  So that’s it, thought Koesler. There’s no getting around it. I’ve got to do it. “When do you want me to start this, Eminence?”

  Boyle lifted a French cuff and consulted his watch. “It’s just 11:30. Time enough for you to attend one of their Masses, perhaps observe their procedures in dealing with the people who come to them for special help, and then spend some time interrogating them—any questions that come to your mind.”

  Koesler was plainly surprised. “So soon! Right now? I’d like some time to collect my thoughts, prepare some questions . . .”

  Boyle’s blue eyes hardened. “I would prefer that you do it now. Finish it today. Keep in mind that almost certainly your inquiry will be followed by a more formal and definitive investigation. I would like this preliminary inquiry to be concluded quickly.”

  “May I ask why? Why the hurry?”

  Boyle hesitated, apparently mulling whether to explain. His eyes narrowed. “Did you happen to see this morning’s edition of the News?“

  “Not yet, Eminence.”

  “It contains a detailed description of yesterday’s unusual event at St. Stephen’s Chapel. Father Robert is quoted as recommending that the woman who seemed to be cured have nothing more to do with doctors or the medical profession. We have looked into that allegation and found that it was accurate.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Father, were she to follow that advice and because of it to worsen or die because she separated herself from medical help, the liability would be staggering. And there is every indication that this sort of advice might well be given again to others.”

  The liability would be staggering. That pretty well explained the necessity for an immediate investigation. It was easy enough to be jaundiced over such a motivation, but the reality was sobering.

  It was not all that difficult for an outside group such as the Congregation of St. Stephen to lawfully establish itself in Detroit. Given that, someone with only one oar in the water could cause havoc, to be followed by a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. And before you know it, the Church would be forced to sell St. Peter’s Basilica. It made sense then, to get this Church investigation over with as quickly as possible.

  Koesler could think of only one further problem. “One thing more, Eminence: Won’t it seem odd to those men for me to come riding in asking questions? It seems that they could have reasonable objections to an invasion of their privacy . . . no?”

  Boyle smiled. “The necessary papers appointing you to this position are prepared. Monsignor Iming will have them for you as you leave.”

  As he left the Cardinal, Koesler recalled the Gospel story of the landowner who sent his son to find out what was going on with the farm. But the malefactors killed the messenger. Koesler fervently hoped the Gospel fiction would not become reality in his case.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Koesler had seen smaller crowds for a Tigers-Yankees game. The fact that he was not far from Tiger Stadium undoubtedly inspired the comparison. There were even vendors around—although he couldn’t tell what they were hawking. He was too occupied with trying not to run anyone down.

  He hated to be in crowds. Ordinarily, the sight of a crowd was more than enough to turn him around and send him somewhere else, anywhere else.

  But he had a mandate. He was trying not to take the mandate too seriously, but it was a commission from his archbishop. So, he felt he really ought to give it an honest try before giving up. The first traffic officer who waved his car away from the scene would get complete and grateful acquiescence.

  After all, his task in this was little more than a ritual. The real investigation would follow his inquiry regardless of what form his report would take.

  On the other hand, the Tribunal’s investigation was waiting until he at least went through the motions. So, he inched forward in the nearly gridlocked traffic.

  By craning, he was able to see a Detroit traffic patrolman ahead. The patrolman was doing just what Koesler had been hoping and praying for: He was directing drivers to turn and leave the area.

  As Koesler reached the head of the line the oddest thing happened: The patrolman smiled and waved him forward. As he pulled up even with the patrolman, Koesler took note of the name tag.

  “Sergeant Lukas,” Koesler said, “I was all set to leave.”

  “No need, Father. We always reserve a little space for people who have legitimate business here.”

  That stopped Koesler for a moment. Could news of his appointment as petit inquisitor have been made public? Hardly. Besides, what difference would that have made to the police, whose job it was to control the crowd, not be on the lookout for the Cardinal’s representative? Then it came to him. The clergyman’s uniform! Could it be possible? “Sergeant, by any means might you be a Catholic?”

  Big smile. “Yessiree, Father. Holy Rosary Parish. Father Mac’s my main man.”

  How lucky can you get, Koesler thought, as Sergeant Lukas directed a patrolman to take good care of the good Father’s car. There aren’t all that many black Catholics in the city. It was Koesler’s good fortune, when he might now have been driving back to the peace and quiet of St. Anselm’s, to have encountered a member in apparent good standing of Father Mac’s parish. And a police sergeant to boot.

  It was providence—providence with a streak of mean humor.

  There was a good bit of pushing and shoving going on, and language inappropriate to a place where miracles were being sought and dispensed. But with the recognition of his clerical status and some assistance from some of the police, he managed to make his way indoors.

  Once inside the packed chapel, Koesler did not fare so well. The police were almost overwhelmed with trying to protect the crowd from harming itself. In addition, self-assertiveness was not Koesler’s long suit. So he settled for being pressed against a side wall of the chapel. Fortunately, he was tall enough, and those in his immediate vicinity were short enough, so that he had a fairly good and relatively unobstructed view of the proceedings.

  Others might have been unable to look upon this as anything but an old bank building. But he could recognize its value as a chapel. He had experienced churches and chapels in almost every guise imaginable.

  There were cathedrals and churchy churches. There were also lots of churches and chapels that were built with the express purpose of later becoming something else. So, many new suburban churches were intended to become a school, a social hall, an all-purpose building, with a permanent church to come. Often the permanent church never got off the drawing board.

  Koesler, himself, had been in one of the earliest classes when St. John’s Seminary opened in the late 1940s. During his four years of theological study, the students’ chapel had been a section slated to become the library reading room. In fact, it had been not unlike this building, with its generous use of brick and marble and hard terrazzo floor. But Koesler’s chapel had not been anywhere near as dark as this.

  Why would the monks want to paint over these large windows and make things so dour?

  No rime for further speculation. A bell sounded, there was a good bit of shushing; the crowd quieted markedly.


  Koesler watched as the small, solemn procession of monks moved toward the plain table that served as an altar. His attention was riveted on the priest. Father Koesler was experiencing an occupational hazard.

  The hazard would be easily understood by anyone, particularly a professional, who watched as someone else performed a job for which the professional had been trained. A police officer, a doctor, a pilot, watching a movie wherein his or her profession was being portrayed could scarcely help being critical: “That’s not the way a real cop [doctor, pilot] would do it!”

  So it is with priests. Watching another priest function, it is all but impossible not to critique the performer.

  So this was Father Robert. They shared the same first name, except that Koesler’s was given at birth and the monk probably chose his when he entered religious life. The priest was the only monk whose head was not covered by a cowl. Still, Koesler had great difficulty making out his features. It was so damnably dark!

  Koesler’s first observation had nothing to do with the man’s priestly function. Father Robert appeared to be feeble, maybe very ill. He walked slowly, with the hint of a limp. He seemed to list slightly to the left. But he reached the altar safely. Three of the monks, all pretty much the same size and—covered by their habits—appearing identical, took places to the right. The much larger monk—he must be the one called Brother Pau—-stayed close to the priest.

  Father Robert bowed low before the crucifix; he would have fallen had Brother Paul not supported him. Koesler began to think that the “miracle worker” needed a miracle, or at least a doctor. But Koesler could provide neither a miracle nor the doctor. With a sigh, he returned to what he couldn’t help doing, evaluating another priest’s performance of a common function—offering Mass.

  Robert was carrying the fully covered chalice. A nice touch, Koesler thought. Not many did that anymore. Usually, nowadays, Mass began with the chalice and wafer plunked on a side table out of the way of the “Liturgy of the Word,” the principal feature of which was the reading of Scripture. While that arrangement made sense, it was a nice bit of nostalgia to see it done as in days of yore.

  Robert set the chalice to one side, removed the burse, or purselike container, and, in turn, removed from the burse the large linen cloth called a corporal.

  As Robert removed the corporal, the cloth opened up fully above the altar, almost as if the priest were shaking it out. Koesler almost gasped. The corporal was the cloth on which rested the chalice and wafers. After Communion, priests—at least priests of the vintage of Robert and Koesler—would scrape the corporal with a flat, gold-plated disc called a paten, and finally fold the corporal a prescribed four times, making sure that not even the smallest fragment of the consecrated bread was spilled on the altar or the floor.

  It was a reflection of an ancient theology that Catholic writer Garry Wills referred to as “the war against crumbs” and one of Koesler’s friends called “crumby theology.” One simply did not allow the cloth to open and possibly spill breadcrumbs after all those precautions. Koesler took it as an indication of how feeble the poor man must be.

  The Mass began. When he heard Robert pronounce, Fratres, agnoscamus peccata nostra, ut apti simus ad sacra mysteria celebranda, Koesler recognized the Latin of the new Mass formula. All was kosher.

  He did not anticipate that his report to the Cardinal and the Tribunal would be at all lengthy. Actually, he would have to pad it. He now knew he would begin by reporting that while the monks used a Latin liturgy, it was not the outlawed Tridentine formula, but one that was current and in good standing. Now, if only he could find a few more particulars to fill out his pro forma investigation.

  “Hmmm, that’s interesting,” Pat Lennon commented with some feeling.

  “What? What is?” Joe Cox’s voice betrayed a certain nervous anxiety. He was taking his role as protector very seriously.

  Lennon had found a heating duct that ran along the wall. By leaning against Cox, she was able to balance atop the duct and get a better view across the crowd.

  “Can’t you see him, Joe? Over against the side wall.”

  By standing tiptoed, Cox was able to see over the heads of at least some of his neighbors. The trouble, besides the physical challenge of actually spotting someone in that crowd, was that he didn’t know whom he was supposed to identify.

  Lennon glanced down to see Cox’s head swiveling pointlessly. “Against the wall, Joe; with the Roman collar.”

  “Uh-huh; okay, I’ve got him. Don’t I know him?”

  “It’s Koesler. You’re darn right you know him. Remember that—”

  “Okay, Koesler; yeah, you’re right. But what’s so noteworthy about a priest’s being in church?”

  At that, a middle-aged, babushkaed woman standing directly in front of Cox spun around. “Shh!” she spat, as she pulled a fountain pen-like instrument from her purse and shot a spray of something liquid at Cox.

  It hit him full in the face. He recoiled as if he’d been struck with acid. His sudden motion almost caused Lennon to lose her balance on the duct. She clutched him to steady herself. Then she began to snicker quietly.

  “Joe,” Lennon stage-whispered, “it was holy water. It was just water.”

  Cox blotted the liquid with his handkerchief and examined the wet spot. It seemed to be water. He was embarrassed at having reacted so defensively to a holy water attack. “There oughtta be a law,” he growled.

  “Whisper,” she admonished, “unless you want to get drowned.”

  “Okay,” Cox whispered, “but one more blast from her and Ziggy Zablonski is going to be a widower.” He reset himself as Pat’s sole means of balance. “So, what’s so odd about a priest being in church?”

  “Nothing, except, I wonder ... I wonder if this could be the beginning of the Church investigation I predicted.”

  “They’d send one priest!”

  “I don’t know. I never covered one of these; I don’t know how they work. But, maybe. And, you know, Koesler’s been involved in investigations before.”

  “Police. Police investigations. Into murder, not miracles.”

  “How many priests, do you suppose, Detroit’s got that have any training in running an investigation like this?”

  Cox shrugged.

  “Besides, from what I know of Father Koesler, he’s not the type who’d come here as a sightseer, out of curiosity. No, there’s got to be another reason. I think he may just be the designated Torquemada.”

  Cox shrugged again, nearly dislodging her from her perch. “Well,” he said, “suppose he’s what you think he is: What do you want to do about it?”

  “Get me over there.”

  “Huh?”

  “When Mass is over, there’ll be a crush to get near the altar where the blessings are given. We’ve got to get over to Koesler so I can talk to him.” She looked down at Cox and noted the furrows in his brow. “Think you can do it, lover?”

  “Sure,” he said, too readily. Actually, he’d never envied the salmon’s penchant for swimming against the current. But he was committed to staying at her side and doing all he could to protect her. So, he’d give it a go.

  The present Pope would like this guy, thought Koesler, as he listened to Father Robert’s sermon. The preacher’s theology seemed to date from the early fifties at the very latest, and was extremely conservative for even that era.

  From time to time, Protestants get the mistaken notion that Catholics worship Mary, the mother of Jesus, and make of her a deity. And it was confused theologies such as Father Robert’s that contributed to groundless disputes between Protestants and Catholics.

  Robert’s theme was a contorted version of a montage of alleged Marian messages, communicated at a host of reported apparitions. The general idea was that the world was going to hell in a hand-basket. The major villain of the piece was Russia. Not with its overkill of missiles but with its exported atheistic doctrine.

  In addition to the “Threat from Abroad,” there was
the internal disease of secular humanism and worse. Youth were turning a blind side to Marianlike virtues, and instead, indulging in immodest attire, premarital sex and, for that matter, a good measure of post-marital sex, and anatomically correct dolls.

  In any case, there was a blend of atheism and sex in almost all of its forms, and that meant trouble. Unlike Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man, Father Robert managed to make his warnings about “terrible, terrible trouble” dull.

  Well, another item for his report, Koesler concluded; prehistoric theology but neither heretical nor unique.

  Yet none of this was getting Koesler any closer to the heart of the matter. The Cardinal and the Tribunal were looking for some sort of statement or judgment on the miracles—no, what was the preferred terminology?—the “unusual events.” No chance of coming up with anything on that until the blessings after Mass or, perhaps, the conversation he was dreading with the monks. Koesler intensely disliked talking with anyone who didn’t wish to talk to him. And he was quite sure the monks would not be crazy about defending themselves to a stranger. Koesler promised himself that he would try to make it as painless as possible for all concerned. And speaking of pain, the sermon, mercifully, was ended.

  The Mass proceeded.

  During the Offertory and as the Eucharistic prayer began, Brother Paul stayed as close as possible to Father Robert. But, while the priest continued to give evidence of some weakness, he was managing to hold his own.

  Relaxing ever so slightly, Brother Paul raised his head a bit and surveyed the crowd. Packed. Good. These contributions, along with the flood of mail donations, were making it possible for him to bring his plan to a conclusion much sooner than he had hoped or anticipated.

  Peering out from within the cowl was like looking through a tunnel. One could see only straight on. And looking straight on, Brother Paul did a second take. A priest! Standing back against the wall. A priest, Roman collar and all. What the hell was he doing here?