Bishop as Pawn (3 page)

“That
is
a good idea.” Koesler switched on the kitchen lights. Then, as an afterthought, in keeping with what had just been said, he went to turn on more lights in nearby rooms.

He returned to the kitchen. “How about a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

Koesler went to the stove and turned the heat on under a pot containing a dark liquid. “I’ll just heat this up.”

“Okay.”

Koesler was mildly surprised. Usually, visitors complained when he served coffee that had been made much earlier.

In quick order, the pot was steaming. Koesler poured two cups and set one before his guest. Carleson blew over the hot brew, tasted it, then smiled. So did Koesler. This was the first time in his memory that anyone had given even the appearance of actually liking his coffee, even when it was made from scratch.

Carleson had hung his hat on a peg near the door. But he hadn’t removed his coat.

“May I take your coat?” Koesler asked.

“Thanks, no. I’m comfortable. Actually, it’s kind of cold in here.”

Koesler immediately felt apologetic. “I turned up the thermostat. It should warm up soon. I usually let it go down to about sixty when I’m out. Otherwise, I keep it at about sixty-eight.”

Carleson hunched his shoulders. “It’s probably just me. I can’t seem to stay warm.”

“Actually, this is a fairly mild January. It can get bone-chillingly cold these next couple of months, especially for us. Both my parish and yours are very near the river. That and the windchill can keep one in the cabin.”

“It may be mild weather to you and everybody else who’s used to it, but it wasn’t all that long ago that I was sweating it out in Honduras. I’ve been back only a couple of months.”

“That’s right. I read where you were there—what?—about five years.”

“Uh-huh.” Carleson smiled at the memory. “I was part of an experiment at Maryknoll.”

“How’s that?”

“Usually a missioner is pretty well grounded in the local language before he’s sent anywhere. I was supposed to pick it up on the scene. On the whole, I think it worked out fairly well … except for when I arrived in a little village where I had to take a bus to an even smaller village where my parish was.

“See, I had everything I was bringing with me in a humongous duffel bag. By the time I got to the bus the luggage compartment was filled. The bus itself was packed with people, right up to the door. And there was I trying to squeeze myself on board with this huge bag.

“Everybody seemed to be yelling at me and pointing to the opposite side of the bus, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I only had a few Spanish words and phrases.

“Finally, in all this pandemonium, I noticed a man sitting halfway back in the bus. He was motioning to me to pass my bag back to him. Well, he was like a port in a storm. I sent the bag back, and it was enthusiastically passed from hand to hand until it reached him.

“When he got it, he threw it out the window. I thought—my God!—he just threw away everything I own! But what all these people were trying to tell me was that there was another luggage compartment on the other side of the bus.”

They laughed.

During the story, Koesler had been studying his guest. Carleson was of average height, perhaps five-feet-eight or -nine. A bit on the heavyset side, which would help keep him warm during the winter once he got used to it. His eyes were attractive and trusting in an open face. His full head of hair was white—perhaps a bit prematurely. Koesler guessed Carleson to be about ten or fifteen years younger than his own sixty-six years. “You liked it there?”

“I loved it.”

“Then why …?”

“Why did I leave the missions? Why am I becoming a diocesan priest?”

Koesler opened his hands on the table palms up, inviting a response. “If it’s not too personal. Earlier you said something about the bishops …”

“The bishops …” Carleson’s expression hardened. “Yes, the bishops. See, the Church in the Third World is not all that different from the Church anywhere else—here. Bishops, by their very position, tend toward being somewhat aristocratic. The highest rank a bishop can reach, short of the papacy, is the Cardinalate. And Cardinals are referred to commonly as ‘Princes of the Church.’ The Polish word for priest is
ksi
ą
dz—
which is almost exactly the word for ‘prince.’ And that’s only a priest.

“Bishops—Catholic bishops—are treated pretty much like royalty, if not by everyone at least by Catholics. And that’s as true in this country as it is almost everywhere else.”

“I can’t disagree,” Koesler said. “Anytime a bishop presides at the altar, all of the liturgy revolves around him. It’s as if he were a king. He even sits on a throne.

“But, as you said, it’s a situation common everywhere—in this country as well as Honduras. So, why …? I mean as long as you’re functioning as a priest, you’re going to have to deal with bishops. And you’re still functioning as a priest.…”

“It’s a good point … by the way, could I have a bit more coffee?”

Koesler could have kissed him. Never in his life had anyone come back for seconds of Koesler’s brew. Most people never finished the first cup. Gladly did he refill both their cups. And, mercifully, that did it for the leftover coffee.

“Let me try to clarify my point.” Carleson blew across the surface of his cup. “Since bishops are treated like royalty, I suppose it’s only natural that most of them seem to identify with the movers and shakers of society, with the Establishment, with those in power.

“But, see, in the Third World there are only two classes: those who have everything and those who have nothing. Nothing connects the classes. Nothing exists between them. You must be for one side or the other. No matter with which side the local bishop relates, his priests have to choose. If the bishop joins the aristocracy, the priest does also. Or else the priest finds himself in opposition not only to the rich but also to his bishop.”

Carleson smiled grimly. “The priests get together periodically, much like the meeting we attended this evening. And down there we divided ourselves about the way you do.

“This evening, I paid very close attention to what was being said by whom. Everybody kept the conversation confined to noncontroversial subjects like the services the city doesn’t provide or the mayor or the council. I watched the departure of the guys who pretty much sided with the Church bureaucracies. I could tell because as they left, the conversation drifted to subjects not so safe.

“And then they wanted to find out which side I was on. But their investigation was short-circuited by—who was it … Ernie Bell?—and his problems with Bishop Diego.

“The priests’ meetings in Honduras—and the other countries where I’ve served—are about the same. Except that the stakes are higher. Probably because there are no neutral areas. It’s either poor or rich … the haves or the have-nots.

“Do you get the picture, Bob? Who the bishop happens to be and what his social ethic is are of tremendous importance. And, in the final analysis, the diocesan priests down there have a bit more mobility than the priests who come in as missionaries. They can move to a different jurisdiction, especially before they’re ordained. And while that’s not an awful lot of consolation, it’s better than the missionary who’s sent to a particular locale by his superior. There isn’t much of anything he can do about it.”

Koesler had been concentrating so much on what was being explained that his coffee had gotten cold. He pushed the cup aside. “You make it sound so … so dismal. As if the bishops in mission territories have abandoned the poor to mingle with the rich. It can’t be that bleak.”

“It isn’t. But it comes close. Sure, you’ve got your Helder Camara in Brazil or Romero in El Salvador. But you’ve also had the all-but-complete opposition to Aristide by the bishops of Haiti.

“If I’m painting with too broad a brush, I’m sorry. There’s no doubt it’s tough to be a bishop in the Third World and champion the poor. That choice would put you in opposition to not only the wealthy but the rulers as well as the military. Is it any wonder that a significant percentage of those bishops have sided with the wealthy class?”

“I guess it makes sense,” Koesler said after some hesitation. “But if that’s the case with the bishops, what about the priests? I mean the ones like yourself who choose to work with the poor? See, here in Detroit once you get an assignment to the inner city, bureaucracy pretty much forgets about you. Now that means different things to different people. But the interpretation of Church law for the inner-city priests is, to put it mildly, neither rigid nor strict. Didn’t you find it like that in the barrios? I don’t think the Vatican’s Church would make much sense in the barrio.”

Carleson laughed. “Hardly. We undoubtedly went a lot further than you do up here. If a couple showed up and wanted to be married in the Church, I was so surprised and happy I never thought of asking questions like had either of them been married before. It was no place for the nonactivist. The ethical judgments we had to make were not found in any approved theology textbook.”

Koesler appeared skeptical. “I don’t know that we play it
that
loose up here.”

“I’m counting on it,” Carleson said firmly.

Koesler paused thoughtfully, then looked up brightly. “Would you like more coffee? I could make some fresh in a minute.”

“Thanks, no. But it was very good.”

Koesler could make coffee for this gentleman forever.

Carleson glanced at his watch. “Hey, I’d better get going. It’s almost midnight.”

“I’ll drive you home. But … one more thing: If you made your choice and decided to work among the poor and you could feel free to provide them with what they needed—freer, I assure you, than you will be here—why leave?”

Carleson shook his head. “I didn’t leave of my own accord.”

“You didn’t—”

“In effect, the bishop threw me out. More politely, he requested my superiors to change my assignment and get me the hell out of Honduras.”

“But why?”

“Because I committed the unforgiveable sin. I began talking about how unfair it was. Jesus did not keep still when he encountered a priestly caste that imposed gratuitous burdens on people. I thought He would not be silent when a few kept everything to themselves while leaving the majority with nothing.”

Koesler nodded. “Liberation theology?”

“If you will. It seemed the essence of the Christian message. It seemed inescapable if you read the Gospels. I didn’t even say it loudly I just said it. And some of the bishop’s men heard about it. They told him. And he told me. It wasn’t a long interview. He asked me if I had ‘got the people all disturbed.’ A few words later I was packing my duffel bag.

“That’s when I decided to start choosing my bishops. Mark Boyle and Detroit seemed about the best choice in the States. I knew he must be surrounded by a self-fulfilling bureaucracy. It seemed inevitable. But one could be relatively free here.”

“And if Cardinal Boyle were to pass on?”

“I would take a careful look at his successor. I might apply for another excardination. I might get a somewhat unsteady reputation. On the other hand, the bishop I’d select to work for might feel that I’d given him an unsolicited testimonial.”

“And Bishop Ramon Diego?”

Carleson froze.

Koesler was startled. But he had encountered similar reactions. People under great emotional stress—illness, family tragedy, or the like—enjoy some time of relief, a happy distraction. Sometimes they forget their troubles. They lose themselves in the joy of the moment. Then, inevitably, they are forced to return to reality. The change in their emotions, in their very appearance, can be profound.

So it was with Don Carleson. It had been a pleasant evening, with an entertaining chat between two like-minded priests. But now it was time to return to the real world. From his expression, it was clear that Carleson dreaded what must be. It was inescapable.

“It’s after midnight,” Carleson said softly. “I guess we’d better go.”

During the brief drive to Ste. Anne’s, nothing more was said. Koesler let Carleson out at the front door to the rectory. Koesler glanced at the showy string of lights that garlanded the Ambassador Bridge. Then he started his return drive.

Cinderella did not want to go home from the dance. Carleson didn’t want to go home from his evening out. And he didn’t have a fairy godmother.

CHAPTER

THREE

Father Koesler shuffled into the kitchen of St. Joseph’s rectory. He wore his pajamas, a robe, slippers, his glasses, and his ever-present watch.

He was grateful St. Joe’s scheduled no early-morning Mass. Much of his priesthood had been marked by parish Masses programmed for 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. A 7:00 or 8:00
A.M.
Mass was an invitation to sleep in.

Now, with the daily Mass offered at noon he had the leisure to wake up gradually and prepare a more thoughtful homily. Habit, however, kept him waking and rising at 7:00.

Neither the housekeeper nor the secretary, Mrs. Mary O’Connor, would be in for another couple of hours, thus the informal attire.