The Good Shepherd (12 page)

Matthew Mahan found he enjoyed rolling these Italian names off his tongue. Maybe this red hat will serve a purpose after all, he thought grimly.

Sister Agnes Marie nodded. “I’m afraid we have no hope of winning an argument with you, Your Eminence, but we feel conscience-bound to try.”

Matthew Mahan saw all too clearly that Sister Agnes Marie was spiritually one-upping him. But there wasn’t time to play psychological warfare. They had to get to the next item on the agenda. “Let us take up the matter of St. Clare’s Hospital.”

A moldering pile in the depths of the First Ward, St Clare’s was over 100 years old. Its clientele was almost totally black and non-Catholic. After much soul-searching, Matthew Mahan had decided to close it. Minimum repairs were costing $300,000 a year. The over-all deficit this year would exceed a million.

“You know how much money we are losing in that place. Yet you let your nuns join that demonstration last week, demanding in the name of the community - whatever that means - that the hospital stay open.”

“Your Eminence - I led that demonstration,” said Sister Helen without a trace of apology in her voice. “Those people have no place else to go. As you may recall, I’m a nurse by profession - before I went into inner-city work. I’ve seen what comes into that outpatient clinic.”

“I know, I know, I’ve read the studies,” Matthew Mahan said testily. “But where are we going to get the money, Sister? The age of miracles is over. Can you raise the money? Show me you can do it, and the hospital can stay open.”

“If
you
can’t raise the money, how can we hope to do it Your Eminence?” said Sister Agnes Marie.

Another spiritual left jab? Wasn’t she saying that was all Mahan stood for - Cardinal Moneybags?

“I send a plan to Catholic Charities - a stopgap plan to convert the whole operation into a clinic. I never heard a word from them,” Sister Helen said.

“I’m sure it was impractical,” Matthew Mahan said crisply. “Or else I’d have heard of it.”

“Are you sure that you didn’t hear of it because Monsignor O’Callahan down at Catholic Charities disapproved of our counseling women to use the pill?”

“I haven’t heard a word about that,” Matthew Mahan snapped, There was nothing in this world he disliked more than being caught off guard. “But let me say this. If you are doing that - and I heard about it - I would have supported Monsignor O’Callahan 1,000 percent. What else could I do? Really, Sister, don’t you see that I have no alternative?”

“As women, I’m afraid we have no alternative, Your Eminence,” said Sister Helen. “We find the Pope’s position intolerable.”

For a moment, Matthew Mahan wanted to say:
So do I.
But he could never say that to anyone. Especially to anyone as antagonistic - that was the only word for it - as this young woman.

“I’m afraid I must issue another order. You will cease this sort of counseling forthwith. The most you are permitted to do is tell a woman - if
she
raises the question - that there are two points of view on the subject. That she must follow her own conscience.”

“Your Excellency,” Sister Agnes said. For the first time, she betrayed a trace of emotion. “These are poor people. They don’t have the background, the intelligence, the time, to read Humanae
Vitae
.”

Inwardly, Matthew Mahan struggled to control the loathing aroused by the mention of that ruinous encyclical. Why, why, why? he wondered for the three or four hundredth time.

“I agree, I agree,” he said. “I am not suggesting any such thing. I am only pointing out the complexity, the delicacy that marital counseling on this subject entails. The possibility of a scandal that could engulf the diocese in controversy - that’s what I want to avoid.”

Sister Agnes Marie said nothing. There was no trace of sympathy on her face. Sister Helen Reed’s face was patently hostile. He glanced at his watch. Time was running out, as usual.

“Sister Agnes,” he said, “with this news from Rome, my time will be devoured for the next month or two. Perhaps it would be best if you developed guidelines for marital counseling - and discussed your future plans with my secretary, Father McLaughlin here. He’s worked in those downtown parishes, so he’s familiar with the milieu. Just remember this. I don’t want to see anything happening down there that I haven’t heard of - and approved - in advance.”

Sister Agnes Marie nodded. Did that mean she was saying yes, or merely signifying that she had heard him?

“I’m afraid my time is going to be terribly limited, too,” she said. “I’m supposed to give a paper at a conference of Catholic college presidents next month, and I haven’t even started to think about it. I’m sure Sister Helen here would be glad to serve as my deputy. She’s serving as my vicar for our inner-city missionaries.”

The word “missionaries” came close to making Matthew Mahan explode again. Only another exercise of willpower got him out of the office and down the corridor to his car without a farewell exchange of insults.

“Did you hear what she said?” he asked Dennis McLaughlin as they pulled away. “Did you hear it? Missionaries. She’s sending missionaries to my diocese.”

Dennis McLaughlin nodded, desperately trying to think of a response that would not state his opinion of the idea. He glanced at his fingernails, which were gnawed to the point where raw flesh was visible, and tried to make light of it.

“Who knows? They might work.”

The Cardinal missed the humor - totally.

“Maybe you ought to put on a skirt and go back in there and join the revolution right now,” he snapped. “I hope you realize that I just gave you a very serious responsibility. If anything else goes wrong with those screwball women, it will be your fault. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

That was the last word spoken by either the Cardinal or his secretary on the ride back to the city.

This isn’t real, this isn’t happening, Father Dennis McLaughlin told himself. Standing in the center of Matthew Mahan’s office facing the white glare of the television lights, his eyelids felt as if they might peel off like grape skins at any moment. Out in the hall, he could hear the Cardinal-designate answering questions for the newspaper and radio reporters. He was saying much the same thing that he had said to the girls at Mount St. Monica’s, earlier in the day. The honor belonged not to him, but to the people.

A busty blonde in a pants suit ducked past a television camera, almost tripped over a cable, and rushed up to Dennis. “Have you got another bio?” she asked in a voice that struck him as exceptionally sultry. But on second glance, he decided it was only his perpetually lusting imagination. Besides, her legs did not come close to the sensuous perfection of Sister Helen Reed’s limbs (as the nuns probably called them, he assured himself in a burst of desperate complacency). He handed the blonde a two-page mimeographed biography of Matthew Mahan that had been produced by some previous secretary. Great writing it wasn’t, but it told the essential facts.

Older son of devout Catholic parents, father a professional baseball player and then a minor league umpire who put his modest reputation and his savings into a local restaurant, which failed to survive the sudden evaporation of prosperity in 1929, thereafter a Parks Department official. Young Matt ordained a priest at Rosewood Seminary in 1939, one of the first to volunteer for the chaplain service in 1940 when war loomed, chaplain of an infantry regiment in the state’s National Guard Division, a local hero by the time the war ended, thanks to numerous letters from the front, praising “Father Matt’s” courage and compassion. The ultimate accolade, a column by Ernie Pyle.

Home, something of a celebrity, Father Matt quickly proved that he had what it took to succeed as a civilian. Given charge of the diocese’s Catholic Youth Organization, he transformed it into a social dynamo, spewing out athletes and awards. Gymnasiums magically sprouted from one end of the diocese to the other, leaving the YMCA (and presumably the YMHA) flat-footed. Promoted to monsignor in charge of diocesan education, he proceeded to repeat the performance, building enough high schools and parish grammar schools to win a word of praise from that master apostle of bricks and mortar, Francis Cardinal Spellman. Simultaneously known as a forthright spokesman for the rights of labor and of disregarded minorities, particularly blacks. Injudicious remarks in this area sometimes placed him under a cloud with the then Archbishop. But his money-raising talents neatly balanced those black points, and his aging mentor made no protest when
mirabile dictu
Pius XII finally died and that Deus ex Italiana, Pope John XXIII, appointed his friend, Monsignor Matt (they had met in France during World War II), to be coadjutor bishop, thus making him heir to the throne which he officially ascended in 1960.

Now the man himself was standing in the doorway, calm, composed, like a veteran diver ready to do some familiar acrobatics into an equally familiar pool. To Dennis McLaughlin, on the wrong side of the lights, he was only a dark, elongated blur, booming cheerfully: “Is this television or a trip through Purgatory?” For a moment, half smiling, poised between discomfort and distrust, Dennis McLaughlin found the blur a satisfying image. That was all he really wanted to see when he looked at Matthew Mahan. He suddenly found himself wanting to see less and think more about what was happening to himself. What gave this bulky, affable (publicly) man the power to disturb him? As usual, there was no time to do more than record the intuition on the scar tissue of his cerebellum and stand there smiling (he was sure) vapidly while the Cardinal-designate disposed of a questioner or two in the doorway, and with swift, sure strides stepped through the wall of light into the center of the hothouse.

It was all part of it, the way he walked and the way he talked, part of that enormous self-assurance that he projected, part of the vitality, the charisma (ugh), that wove a circle of charm around everyone near him. Was it simply envy, Dennis wondered, envy from a man who had neither bulk nor charisma?

“Are we ready to go, Dennis?” Matthew Mahan said in a low voice intended only for him. “I can’t take much more of this.”

The words jolted Dennis McLaughlin out of his introspection. The Cardinal-designate was looking unusually pale. Or was it only the glare of the television lights, which would have given a pallor to a full-blooded Indian?

“They’re ready,” Dennis said, “but I’m afraid I couldn’t persuade them to shoot a single interview. Each of them insists on doing it his way.”

Matthew Mahan’s lips tightened, and his big squarish jaw jutted. “Didn’t you tell them I
want
it my way?”

“I did,” Dennis McLaughlin said, hating the plea in his voice. He could see the headlines now: MCLAUGHLIN BLOWS ANOTHER ONE: PROVES HIMSELF UNWORTHY OF THE GREAT MAN’S TRUST.

Matthew Mahan glared past him for a moment at the white wall surrounding them, then sighed and said, “Oh well. I guess another five minutes won’t kill me.”

“Hello, Your Eminence,” said a short, balding man, who appeared almost magically through the glare and made a lunge for the episcopal ring on Matthew Mahan’s right hand, while simultaneously bending his right knee about two-thirds of the way toward the floor. His foot caught on a television cable, and he had to cling to the Cardinal’s hand to keep from falling on his face. There was raucous laughter from the technicians beyond the white wall. The proles are easily amused, Dennis thought.

“Now, Jack,” said Matthew Mahan, “that isn’t necessary anymore.”

“I still like to do it,” said Jack Murphy, the anchorman of KTGM’s news team. He nervously fingered his pale brown moustache, which looked like something pasted together from random bits of an Airedale’s coat. “It gives me the feeling that everything’s kind of in place, you know?”

The moment they had returned from Mount St. Monica’s, Matthew Mahan had ordered Dennis McLaughlin to locate a folder in his personal file cabinet marked “Newsmen.” He found it with no difficulty, and while the new Cardinal rested for fifteen minutes in his Barcalounger, Dennis capsulized the already condensed biographies of the men he would be meeting at two o’clock. The more salient details were underlined in red: the man’s religion, if any; marital status; number of children; place of birth (a local boy or a cold-eyed outsider?); schooling and political inclination. Thus, the Cardinal could joshingly smooth Jack Murphy’s dented self-esteem. “How’s Jack Junior these days? Is he having a good season? I haven’t had much time to follow the sports news lately.”

“He’s averaging twenty points a game.” You would almost swear Murphy was growing perceptibly taller, Dennis McLaughlin thought, as he watched his pinched chest expand, his bony shoulders brace, and his head ride high at the mere mention of his son.

“Going to your twenty-fifth reunion down at the Prep this spring?” asked Matthew Mahan.

“Wouldn’t miss it, Your Eminence. No, sir, I wouldn’t,” said Murphy.

You had to admire the finesse, Dennis McLaughlin thought ruefully. Within Jack Murphy, there now glowed a gratitude that guaranteed that there was not the faintest possibility of Jack asking His Eminence a difficult question. Instead, he would do what he was doing right now, clear his questions in advance.

“I thought I’d ask you a couple of quick ones about Pope Paul. Nothing that will put you on the spot, don’t worry. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Well, now that you mention it, Jack,” said Matthew Mahan, “it wouldn’t hurt to mention the annual fund drive. It’ll be starting in about two weeks. You might ask me something about what we hope to do with the extra million we’re trying to raise. We want to expand the psychiatric social services, to set up mental health clinics in local neighborhoods. The federal government will match us dollar for dollar. And then there’s the old-age center that I’m hoping to build. Without a single step in the whole building. Inclines, elevators, everywhere. A specially equipped movie theater to help the hard of hearing enjoy films again. Marital counseling services. Old people have marital problems, too. In the basement, a modern machine shop and hobby craft center.”

“Fantastic, Your Eminence, fantastic,” Jack Murphy said, scribbling notes on an index card in his hand.

“It’d be nice if you gave me a chance to talk a little about what we’ve been doing in the spirit of Pope John’s
aggiorruimento -
you know, updating the church here in the archdiocese. About 75 percent of our parishes now have parish councils. We’ve got a functioning priests’ senate, and we’re doing wonderful things liturgically. Particularly at the cathedral, where we’ve got some of the finest young liturgists in the country. It isn’t just a case of saying the mass in English, Jack, as you well know. It’s getting the people to participate in the act of worship. In fact, that sums up what we’re trying to do with all levels, get the people involved with the government of the church. They’re helping to run their local parishes. We’ve got five laymen and five laywomen on our diocesan board of education. Participation, Jack, that’s what the life of the spirit is all about, a sense of being part of a genuinely loving community. We’re working at it. We’re making progress on all levels. We might even mention the catechism. We’ve changed that completely. No more rote memorizing of answers kids can’t understand. No, now we try to encourage reverence, awe, a sense of the mystery of God, a questioning, searching spirit.”

Listening, Dennis had to admit with his usual bitter reluctance that His Eminence was a magnificent salesman. He was even forced to admit that some of these things were actually happening. They were producing creative liturgical experiments at the cathedral; the new catechism was an enormous advance over the old catechism. On the other hand, too many of the parish councils were handpicked by the pastors, the priests’ senate was totally controlled by Mahan loyalists. But Jack Murphy had no interest in discovering the dark shadows in the sunny story of local reform that the Cardinal was telling him. Nor would Jack ask any difficult questions about the war in Vietnam or why the city’s construction unions, which were about 90 percent Catholic, did not have a single black member.

“Another thing, Your Eminence. Would you like to say a few words about General Eisenhower? What you thought of him, that sort of thing?”

“I’d like to do that very much, Jack. I was hoping you’d give me a chance.”

A technician thrust a microphone into Jack Murphy s hand. “Quiet, everybody,” somebody yelled through the door, where the newspaper reporters were still milling around. The red light on the TV camera announced that its omnipotent eye was now open.

“First of all, Your Eminence, let me say that this is the best news this city has heard in a long time. . . .”

A hand seized Dennis McLaughlin’s arm. He turned and stared into a face that distinctly resembled his own. It had the same freckled skin and bony contours and was topped by an even more unruly mass of reddish-brown hair. The one difference was the angle of vision. There was another eight or nine inches of torso between the chin and the floor.

“Hello, Big Brother,” the newcomer said, the grin on his lips making it clear that he enjoyed the phrase.

“Where’ve you been?” snapped Dennis. “The press conference is over. TV now -”

“Goddammit, I could have sworn -”

Leo McLaughlin looked at his wristwatch and groaned. “Oh hell, it’s stopped again.”

Three years younger than Dennis, Leo was the managing editor of the diocesan newspaper, the
Beacon.
How much longer he would retain that title was questionable. To hear him tell it, he was locked in ideological combat with the editor in chief, Monsignor Joseph Cohane, day and night. In the early sixties the
Beacon
had won numerous awards from the Catholic Press Association for its crisp writing, professional layouts, and often daring objectivity in covering issues that too many Catholic papers carefully avoided - integration, North and South, the need for more public housing, for a public defender system in the courts. But according to Leo, those halcyon days of high courage were over. All his attempts to report on liturgical experiments by young priests, the ferment of revolutionary thoughts and feelings in the archdiocese’s Catholic colleges, or resistance to the draft or criticism of the Vietnam War had gone into ex-liberal Cohane’s wastebasket.

Monsignor C. had also politely refused to raise Leo McLaughlin’s salary from $125 a week, in spite of the fact that his wife had given birth to their second child in two years. It had been painful watching Leo and his wife, Grace, struggling to live decently within their financial straitjacket. More than once, Dennis had heard Grace suggest rather strongly that it was time for Leo to abandon his crusade to move the Catholic press out of the nineteenth century. But his effervescent idealism, plus Chianti and a joint or two, usually persuaded her to postpone an ultimatum.

“Christ,” said Leo, “how am I going to explain this one to Jerky Joe? It’s like missing God’s birthday.”