The Good Shepherd (11 page)

The faces swayed with the rhythm, and the voices rose and fell in a melody that seemed both mournful and joyful. Matthew Mahan began to feel better, more in command of himself, more certain of his feelings. When the song ended with a final flourish of the guitars, he said, “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will always remember this day. I’d like to give you my blessing now.”

Two girls in the front of the crowd knelt, but most of them did not even bow their heads as he raised his hand and lowered it swiftly, then moved it horizontally to form an invisible cross, saying, “May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you forever.”

He turned to Sister Agnes Marie and said, “That was very nice of you, Mother Agnes - I mean, Sister Agnes.”

Why couldn’t he just call her Agnes? he mused for a moment. When they sat side by side in St. Patrick’s School, he had called her Aggie. Sometimes, when in the company of those who hated her for her astronomical marks, he had called her Baggy Aggie. He decided it made him feel better - or safer? - to use a title, even if her refusal to accept the traditional “Mother” which went with her position confused him.

She turned aside his thanks with a meek nod. “It was the girls’ idea. We announced the news at breakfast, and they decided that you deserved a royal welcome.”

“It was royal. Most definitely royal. I’d like you to meet Father Dennis McLaughlin. My new secretary.”

Sister Agnes Marie nodded and shook hands with Father McLaughlin. They moved past the rapidly dispersing faculty into the lofty domed rotunda, with a faded mosaic of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove on the marble floor. Casually, Sister Agnes Marie caught the arm of a young woman who wore her dark hair in an interesting sort of knot at the nape of her neck. She was also wearing a suit, but her skirt was several inches shorter than Sister Agnes Marie’s. There was no doubt that she had very shapely legs, and equally little doubt that Dennis McLaughlin was noticing them.

“Sister Helen,” said Sister Agnes Marie, “would you join us in my office, please? We need someone to do some note taking.” As they walked, she introduced Sister Helen, whose last name was Reed.

“Reed,” said Matthew Mahan. “Is this Dr. Bill Reed’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“My goodness. I haven’t seen you since you entered the novitiate -”

“Five years ago.”

“I thought between us we’d have your father converted by now.”

Matthew Mahan’s tone was humorous. Sister Helen’s reply was at the opposite emotional extreme. “You can’t convert a stone.”

Matthew Mahan recalled an angry discourse from Bill Reed when he had visited him for his annual checkup last year. Bill had been vastly exercised about the way “left-wing” Catholics were turning his daughter into a radical.

As they entered the office, the pain grew so intense that, for a moment, Matthew Mahan wondered if he could conceal it much longer. He forced himself to think about how totally the appearance of this office had changed. During the long reign of the foundress of Mount St. Monica, Mother Mary Catherine, heavy maroon drapes had cut off the light that was now streaming through the bay windows behind the desk. The furniture had all been fake medieval, with hand-carved devils and angels dueling on the backs of the massive chairs. Sister Agnes Marie had transformed the room from a gloomy European cavern to a light-filled model of modern American decor. The desk had a free-form top resembling a figure eight, with one end slightly smaller than the other end. The floor was rugless. The walls abounded with explosive prints of modern paintings by Henri Matisse, Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, and several others that Matthew Mahan did not recognize. Along one wall was a beige couch, its cushions thin as communion wafers. On the other side were several chairs in the same spare design, the ribs and armrests so delicate that they seemed to be one-dimensional, drawn on some invisible screen.

It made Matthew Mahan think about getting rid of the collection of European antiques with which he lived. Up in Boston, Cushing had sold off Cardinal O’Connell’s splendid treasures when he took over. But Matthew Mahan found a certain satisfaction in sitting on old Hogan’s
ancien régime
couches and chairs. Besides, the stuff impressed antique fanciers such as the mayor’s very rich wife, Paula Stapleton O’Connor.

Sister Agnes Marie’s furniture was clearly unsuited to a six-foot-two-inch Archbishop, who weighed 195 pounds, Matthew Mahan thought. Even Dennis McLaughlin seemed to have the same feeling as he carefully sat down. Sister Helen Reed, as petite as Matthew Mahan was bulky, was perfectly at ease in her chair, crossing her legs and paying no attention to the way her almost-miniskirt rode up her thigh. Sister Agnes Marie sat down behind the inner loop of her desk.

“I wish we had some sunshine,” she said. “It usually pours through these windows at this hour of the day. Would anyone like some coffee?”

The decision was unanimous in favor of coffee, and Sister Agnes Marie pushed a buzzer. It produced a tall brunette wearing a miniskirt that almost raised Matthew Mahan’s eyebrows off his forehead. He could only hope she was a student.

“Now,” Sister Agnes Marie said, as the coffee was served within seconds from a hot plate in the rear of the room, “what have you heard from our esteemed apostolic delegate?”

The pain prowled deep into Matthew Mahan’s body. He hastily swallowed almost a third of his coffee. The question was typical of Sister Agnes Marie. It was asked in the mildest tone. She was no longer the know-it-all of their grammar school days. Diffidence was her style now. But her words, in spite of their aura of humility and submission, so often suggested the very opposite of those virtues.

“Mother - I mean, Sister Agnes,” he said, “I have no desire to decide this matter purely on the basis of authority. I would hope to reach a consensus with you and the other sisters. A consensus that would preserve the peace of this archdiocese, and yet permit the discretionary freedom you want, to some extent at least.”

Did the semi-smile on Sister Agnes’s face mean that she knew exactly why he had avoided answering her question about the apostolic delegate? If so, she was being unfair to him. He agreed with the A.D. The last thing he wanted was a donnybrook such as the one Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles had created between himself and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“Perhaps you might begin by giving us some idea of what this discretionary freedom entails,” Sister Agnes Marie said.

More mockery? “I approved, without a word of criticism, your decision to alter, and finally to abandon, your habits. I have gone out of my way to find you a chaplain that
you
approve. I have never tried to stop you from participating in civil rights protests, antiwar rallies.”

The expression on Sister Agnes’s face seemed to imply that these were hardly gestures of liberality. His temper flickering, Matthew Mahan abandoned the positive approach and said: “But I would prefer to begin by telling you what I will
not
tolerate. What I will not tolerate for another day, in fact. I will not tolerate sisters moving into a parish, unannounced, uninvited, and with no warning starting a guerrilla war against the pastor. That is the only possible description of what is going on in St. Thomas’s parish.”

“We wrote a letter to the pastor telling him that we intended to open a community clinic in the parish. We never heard a word from him,” Sister Agnes Marie said.

“Of course, you didn’t,” Matthew Mahan said. “He forwarded the letter to me and I asked the vicar-general of the diocese to investigate it.”

“He wrote us a very intemperate letter,” Sister Agnes Marie said. “So intemperate, in fact, that we did not feel we could receive it in the spirit of holy freedom, so we - or to be more exact, I - decided to ignore it.”

“And that is why 250 people showed up in front of St. Thomas’s rectory last week, demanding free access to the parish bowling alleys, social hall, and gymnasium?”

“I suppose, to some extent, you could assign it as a reason. But only by a very strange, inverse logic. The real reason for the protest was the situation in St. Thomas’s parish. How long must people wait for pastors like Monsignor Farrelley to die?”

Matthew Mahan’s temper began to flame. Part of the reason was Sister Agnes Marie’s bluntness. Part was the knowledge that he was about to defend the indefensible. Jack Farrelley was one of those cool Irishmen who run their parishes to suit their own convenience, which in his case included spending a month in Europe each summer and a month in Florida each winter. There were a half-dozen aging pastors like him in the downtown parishes. They were all inclined to the sumptuous lifestyle of the former Archbishop. “Monsignor Farrelley has been pastor of St. Thomas’s for thirty-five years.”

“About thirty years too long,” Sister Agnes Marie said.

“Thirty-five years,” Matthew Mahan continued, “and there has never been a single criticism leveled against him, in spite of the fact that the parish became heavily Italian during those years.”

“It is now heavily Puerto Rican,” Sister Agnes Marie said.

“We know that, we know that. We have demographic maps for the whole archdiocese down at the chancery.”

“A pity you don’t send some of them to your pastors, Your Eminence,” Sister Agnes Marie said, pouring herself a glass of water and taking a tiny sip of it. “Please don’t regard what I am saying as impertinence, or worse, disobedience. We are only responding to the summons of the Gospel, seeking out, in our Lord’s image, the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”

“Truly, truly, I say to you,” said Dennis McLaughlin, “he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.”

There was a moment of astonished silence. Sister Helen Reed, her pencil poised above her pad, was glaring at Father McLaughlin in a most un-Christian way. Sister Agnes Marie smiled and said, “I didn’t know we had a scripture scholar among us.”

“I learned that line in fourth grade,” Dennis said.

“That was well put, Father McLaughlin,” Matthew Mahan said. “Let me go on to another point - in fact, two points that disturb me. At least one of these community clinics is soliciting funds from people in the parish and from well-to-do people outside it. Monsignor Mulcahey, at St. Rose’s, says that this has resulted in a 30 percent drop in his weekly collections. Now, you may think that this sounds unsavory. You may see me as a walking cliché, the cold-blooded bishop as banker - I don’t care what I am called when I am fighting for the good order and spiritual health of this diocese. Money is a very important part of good order, and, for your information, of spiritual health as well. The average man soon becomes disenchanted with a church that bombards him 365 days a year with pleas for help. When I became coadjutor bishop nine years ago, there were dozens of Catholic organizations, some local and some national, competing for funds. I brought order out of this chaos by insisting that every fundraising appeal had to be authorized by the chancery office. We soon found that we could include most of the local appeals in our annual Archbishop’s Fund Drive.”

“We asked for a grant from Catholic Charities,” Sister Agnes Marie said. “Monsignor O’Callahan turned us down with a three-line letter.”

“I saw that letter. I also saw your grant application. It was poorly done. Your program was vague, and your goals were undefined. It didn’t meet the tests of professionalism, in Monsignor O’Callahan’s opinion.”

“Professional what?” Sister Agnes Marie asked.

“Professional social work.”

“But we have no intention of doing social work,” Sister Agnes Marie said. “We see ourselves as translators - translating the words of the Gospel into acts, making it flesh once more.”

“Isn’t that what the Church is doing and has been doing since the Resurrection?” Matthew Mahan snapped.

Sister Agnes Marie shook her head wearily and leaned back in her chair for a moment. The gray March daylight made her face look old - although she was only fifty-five, the same age as Matthew Mahan. According to rumor, well propagated by her followers, Sister Agnes Marie was a saint. She lived in a bare unheated room with planks for a bed. She frequently fasted for days. If it was true, Matthew Mahan could only wonder why the Holy Spirit declined to send her a little common sense.

“Could we take up another point?” Sister Agnes asked. “I fear we are poles apart on this matter of money.”

Cardinal Mahan lowered his head and shook it back and forth. Dennis McLaughlin braced himself for the explosion. “Sister Agnes,” the Cardinal said, “I have not come out here to be told we are poles apart. On this matter, I am giving you an
order.
You will not raise another cent in another parish in this archdiocese without my permission. Do you understand me?”

Sister Agnes Marie’s mild expression did not betray an iota of emotion. “Yes, Your Eminence. I understand you. But I reserve the right to appeal that decision to Rome.”

“You have a perfect right to do that. I intend to have a long talk about this situation with Cardinal Confalonieri of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and Cardinal Antoniutti of the Congregation for the Religious.”