Authors: Ralph McInerny

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective

Prodigal Father (2 page)

BOOK: Prodigal Father

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“It makes sense,” Richard had said. “Look at what has happened to Fox River.”

When the orderâthe American branch, as it was thenâsettled in Illinois, Fox River was a sleepy little town that had lost its importance long ago when rivers ceased to be the principal avenues of commerce. By the end of the second millennium, it had become one of the burgeoning suburbs that accommodated the fleeing population of Chicago. Marygrove, the headquarters of the Athanasians, was located on hundreds of acres that had proved a buffer against this, though there was no way to stop the proliferation of new highways that enabled the new population of Fox River to travel back and forth to the Loop. Of course they had obligations beyond the Order itself.

“Andrew George's father was head of the maintenance crew, and his son will take over eventually. We have more to think of than ourselves, Richard.”

“Did the Georges ever become Catholics?”

“No.”

“You could pension them off and still save money.”

“I am not interested in saving money!” said Boniface.

He should not have made it so personal. Richard's reaction told him that.

“You're against change.”

“There have been too many changes.”

“I wonder what the others think.”

It had seemed a threat, almost. Richard had already won over Bartholomew.

“We're like the dog in the manger,” Joachim said.

“Our Lord was laid in a manger.”

“Because he was so poor.”

He could of course have told the cardinal that he was unwilling for Richard to be reinstated. How easy it was to imagine the reasons he might give. Richard had returned because the world had disappointed him. The Order was the last port in the stormy life he had led since leaving. And he could imagine as well the cardinal's response. When a man takes final vows an order, too, takes on responsibilities. Did Richard's long absence dissolve those responsibilities? And then Richard won his heart.

“Why isn't saying the office a community devotion?”

“With so few â¦”

“Two would be enough. You and I could form a choir.”

Richard had begun saying the office again, as part of the plan Boniface had devised for his rehabilitation. It turned out that he still had the breviaries he had once used.

“We can say it in Latin.”

And so once more the hours were recited in the stalls of the church sanctuary, as they had been from time immemorial. Boniface accused himself for letting communal prayer fall into desuetude. The Liturgy of the Hours was in English now, but there was a revised Latin version.

“Can't we use the old office?”

Privately, yes. But in community? The cardinal was more than amenable.

“It may earn you the graces that will enable you to flourish again.”

Others joined them, as if they had been waiting for this to happen. They became almost a monastic community, gathering in the church at the appointed hours. Richard, it appeared, was a musician and when there was a quorum in the choir he took his place at the organ. And such a voice he had. When he intoned the Nunc Dimittis at Compline, tears formed in Boniface's eyes. Was it possible that the worst was over and a new day was dawning? And then Richard asked him to speak with Mr. Anderson.

“Anderson?”

“He is responsible for most of the growth in this part of the state, Father.”

“If it is about our property â¦”

“Just listen to him. That's all I ask.”

This was on a Sunday evening. The opening psalm of Vespers still clung to the corners of Boniface's mind.
Dixit Dominus ad Dominum meum â¦ “The Lord said to my lord, âI will make your enemies a footstool to thy feet.'
” Boniface agreed to listen to Mr. Anderson.

And now on this June morning, he stood halfway down the drive, looking back at the main building, hearing the church bell toll the half hour. But it was the evening prayer that filled his mind.
Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to Your word in peace.

In the shadow of your wings I take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by.

â
Psalm 57

There had been a time in his priestly life, too long a time, when Roger Dowling had almost begrudged making his annual retreat, so full had his mind been of his work on the archdiocesan marriage tribunal. At first the tribunal had been a welcome assignment where he could make use of his training in canon law, but gradually he had been weighed down with the burden of all those couples looking for a legal loophole that would enable them to claim that they had not really entered into a marriage after all. Their general view seemed to be that a decision that had produced such unwelcome results could not have been truly made. There were those who had anticipated an annulment by getting a civil divorce and regarded the tribunal as simply another court that could undo the past. Whatever credence one gave to their tale of a loveless marriage, however willing the couple to collude with one another in the testimony given, each as eager as the other to get the Church's sanction on their intention to marry again in the hope that they would be luckier a second time, there was nothing the tribunal could do for them. Friends and relatives might add
their testimony, but the fact remained that a valid marriage had been entered into and no tribunal could put asunder what God had joined together.

During his first years as defender of the bond, Roger Dowling had known only one case where it was possible to believe that no true marriage had taken place, the husband fully intending, as he pledged fidelity at the nuptial altar, to be unfaithful with the mistress he had no intention of giving up. How could such a man have made an authentic promise to plight his troth to the unsuspecting woman in her bridal gown, stars in her eyes, her imagination full of the life of bliss that lay before her? When eventually she learned of her husband's perfidy, when he and his friends acknowledged that he had not sincerely entered into a marriage, there was indeed the possibility that the case could be successfully sent to the Roman rota and a verdict of nullity eventually reached. Eventually. That had been the rub. But most cases were hopeless and brought before him men and women who expected the tribunal to do what not even God could doâmake what had been not to have been.

A week's retreat was not long enough to cleanse the mind of all those sad stories. He felt almost self-indulgent, spending long, silent days in prayer and meditation, and in the evening listening to clerical gossip but not able to join in. His head was full of things he must not divulge any more than he could have chatted about what he heard in the confessional. It would not do to speak of Mr. A and Mrs. A since one of his classmates might know the couple, however algebraically he referred to them. With time the pressure grew too great, even his annual retreat did not relieve it, and be began to seek solace in drink. The habit had stolen upon him, an evening libation becoming two, then more, until increasingly it became his only solace in what he had come to think of
as Bleak House. Finally his condition became known. All his prospects of promotion went aglimmering. Bishops were chosen from those with degrees in canon law as often as not, and Roger Dowling had been widely regarded as on track to be named an auxiliary of Chicago and eventually to have a diocese of his own. When all that came crashing down upon him, something like despair gave way to relief.

After rehabilitation he was told he was to be pastor of St. Hilary's in Fox River. Before taking up the post, he made a retreat at Marygrove which was near his future parish. His retreat master had been Father Boniface. It was the first genuine retreat in years and ever since, after he had settled in at St. Hilary's and come to see that what was universally regarded as his personal tragedy was a gift from God, he had returned each summer to that seminary and to Father Boniface.

“You saved my life,” he often told the wise and gentle priest.

“Hardly that, Father.”

In the evening, they would stroll the lovely grounds of Marygrove and Boniface would liken his own life to Father Dowling's.

“Without the happy ending, of course.”

“I don't think I have ever known a man as contented with his lot as you are, Father Boniface.”

“I dreamed of being a missionary when I was a boy here.”

“How old were you when you first came here?”

“Just out of grade school.”

“That came to be thought a mistake, taking a boy from his family at so early an age.”

“In some cases that may have been true.”

As Father Boniface recounted what had happened to his Order, the peace of the place seemed an illusion. Why had Father Dowling
never realized the significance of the quiet that awaited him on such occasions? Perhaps he had thought that summer was merely a lull in the busy life of the place, that the handful of priests in evidence meant only that the rest were engaged in other work during the vacation months. Boniface had told him of the decline of the Order of St. Athanasius in a tone of wondering resignation.

“Life is a book in which we set out to write one story and end by writing another.”

“Who said that?”

Boniface stopped and tried to frown the author from his memory but without success. It didn't matter. They resumed their walk.

“And now you bring consolation to me, Father Dowling.”

Perhaps he did. Priests need priests, too, after all. Father Dowling had lived through some version of Boniface's story, watched men flee the priesthood and nuns doff their veils and head into anotherâand they hopedâmore satisfying life.

“I have been told that some come back,” Boniface said. “As many as twenty percent.”

“One out of five?”

“Perhaps more want to but cannot.”

“Married?”

“Yes.”

For a time it had seemed far easier for a priest to be returned to the lay estate than for a couple to receive an annulment. The new code of canon law had altered the practice of many marriage tribunals. Judgments could now be made at the local level and, imitating the divorce courts, tribunals allowed psychological impediments to contracting a valid marriage supplement and then replace the older more stringent requirements. The results had often been scandalous, but a brake had been put on such abuses.

“Have any of your own men returned?”

“One.”

“Not twenty percent?”

Boniface laughed ruefully. “I suppose it's not really a matter of numbers.”

“Tell me about him.”

And so Father Dowling had heard the story of Richard Krause. He had not realized that the distinguished bearded man in the choir when office was said was on probation. Nothing in his appearance suggested that he had spent his life differently than the other fathers trading verses of the psalms as they recited the hours in chapel. Father Dowling felt a kind of kinship with the man, another lost sheep returned. But it was by accident that he met the bearded prodigal one evening when the two of them happened to be making the outdoor stations of the cross together. After the fourteenth station, Father Dowling introduced himself.

“St. Hilary's? I said Mass there from time to time years ago. You're a Franciscan?”

“No. They had the parish for a time.”

“We had parishes, too.”

“Yes.” Father Dowling had been filling his pipe and when he lit it Richard watched with amusement.

“We all smoked here. Almost all.”

“And you quit.”

“I never really acquired the habit. It was something we did during recreation. I was glad to give it up.”

“When did you do that?”

The other man combed his beard with his fingers. “Has Father Boniface told you about me?”

Father Dowling nodded. “I was surprised at your name. Richard.”

“My religious name is Nathaniel.”

“And will you adopt it again?”

“First I have to be adopted.”

“And has Father Boniface told you about me?”

“What would there be to tell?”

“Nothing dramatic.”

“Like my own story?”

“No, nothing like that.”

For some reason he had not wanted to confide in Richard. And he did not think of what had happened to himself as dramatic. Even so, like Richard's, his story had a happy ending.

“Some day I would like to say Mass at St. Hilary's once again.”

“I think we could arrange that.”

“Boniface tells me you sometimes rely on him.”

“Not as often as I would like. St. Hilary's is not a demanding assignment.”

That was all. Was he just imagining that Richard avoided him after that?

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