The vigil light’s red heat seemed to flood his face. He wanted to censor the thought, then resisted. Too much had been censored. Self-censored and confessed. What he had felt and done had been natural, honest. That part of himself was as worthy of embracing as the urge for commitment and service that had brought him to the priesthood.
Father Rafe spotted him, started a bit theatrically, and then came striding forward.
“Matt. Nice to see you here. I’ve missed you at a few masses.”
Matt rose, shook the thin hand. “I like to visit other parishes. Different decor, different music.”
“I wasn’t implying you had missed a Sunday —”
“I know. I wasn’t implying that your sermons were anything but inspirational. I did that even when I was…a priest. Visited other congregations.”
Father Rafe sighed. “I’m so involved with my little world here. That’s what got me into trouble.” He frowned and looked hard at Matt. “Are you troubled?”
Matt nodded, relieved.
“You need the sacrament of reconciliation?”
“Not…yet, Father. Just to talk. To discuss ethics. Right and wrong.”
“If it’s something involving the female sex, I admit I’m not your man.”
“Nothing like that. At least not directly. It’s about the nature of evil.”
“Evil?” Father Rafe frowned again. “You mean that literally.”
“Yes.”
“Sit down.” He gestured to the polished oak pew as if it were an easy chair.
Matt knew that there were no easy chairs in church. He sat, though, jamming his feet under the descended kneeler.
“I know a homicide lieutenant,” Matt began.
Father Rafe nodded, understanding that this was prologue.
“She deals with the results of evil, day in, day out. I honestly don’t know how she does it, faces so many dead souls, knowing they were killed by malice. I admire her.”
“It is a debilitating job. I have such a one in my congregation.”
Matt didn’t acknowledge the relationship. OLG was Carmen Molina’s parish, this was a story. No names would be given, to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.
“Like you, Father,” Matt went on, “I’ve heard confessions…administered the sacrament of reconciliation as we say now. I like the old, plain title better. Confession. I liked absolving people of their sins, which they themselves had named. You and I know that as we priests became aware of the true wrongs in society we had to read between the formulas to find the violent spouses, the child abusers, and persuade them to seek help beyond mere forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness is never ‘mere.’ It is the greatest of the divine gifts.”
“Yes, I know that. Especially since I’ve been led to forgive beyond reason, beyond right myself.”
“Forgiveness heals the wronged as much as the one who wrongs.”
“I know that too. I’ve seen evil in human form, and have seen that the origin of that evil is all too human. But.”
The priest’s dark, peaked eyebrows lifted and held the position.
“What if, Father, you encountered truly irredeemable evil? Someone who would slaughter innocents, persecute children, spit in the face of God only because it was there?”
He thought about it, the implications. “You are discussing demonic evil.”
Matt nodded.
“Inhuman evil.”
“It would seem so.”
Father Rafe considered it. He had a face that could have sat judge for Torquemada. Of all the priests in Las Vegas, he was the only one that Matt could imagine conducting an exorcism.
“I believe in pure evil,” the older man said, speaking slowly. “I believe in the Devil. I believe the Devil can make use of humans who let him.” He tented his fingers, considering every implication of Matt’s question. “I believe in you, Matthias, named after the disciple who replaced Judas. But I do not believe that any human being is so unremittingly evil that he would be on an equal footing with the Unholy One.”
Matt absorbed this. “Then anything once human keeps some lost core of humanity, no matter how debased?”
“I believe so.” Father Rafe grimaced. “It is an act of faith, my belief in ultimate good. It is an act of reason to admit the existence of pure evil.”
“Is it a sin to do what is necessary to save someone else from pure evil?”
Again the eyebrows raised. “I’m just a parish priest, not a theologian.”
“That’s why I’m asking you. You see people at their best and worst every day. Theologians do so only on Sunday.”
Father Rafe chuckled. “Theologians are theorists. Very necessary, but sometimes annoying. So are parish priests. We don’t say what you want to hear.”
Matt shrugged. “As long as you tell us what we say we want to hear.”
“I’m sorry you’ve encountered such evil. Your stepfather —?”
“Was a piker. I’ve learned to…forget him.”
“Forgive him?”
“I suppose so.”
“And this other evil?”
“I’ve truly never encountered anyone so devoted to destruction for its own sake. My conundrum is how to stop it.”
“No.”
“No? Innocent lives may be lost, ruined.”
“No. Your conundrum is how to heal it.”
“Heal evil? This evil demands my soul.”
Father Hernandez was silent, then crossed himself, his lips moving in prayer. “I don’t doubt that you are tried. Remember Our Lord, taken by the Devil to the top of the Temple and offered every worldly thing.”
“Mere materialism. He was not offered the chance to save the lives of his disciples, to do good by doing wrong.”
“One can never do good by doing wrong.”
“If a kidnapper holds a child with a gun to its head and won’t surrender, isn’t it right that a police sniper shoot him?”
“That’s between the police sniper and his conscience. But suppose the kidnapper’s gun is defective and can’t fire?”
“The only way to find out is to risk the child. Sacrifice the child.”
“Or to negotiate.”
“And while you negotiate, the kidnapper panics and shoots.”
“You are not a hostage negotiator, Matt.”
“Yes, I am. If you only knew how much I am.”
“And the item under negotiation? It can’t be a child.”
“It’s my soul.”
“Your soul. You and I know what that means. Your soul is immortal, as you are not. You must not sacrifice it.”
“But what is sacrifice, and what is self-defense?”
“I don’t know enough about the specific situation to say. Surely the Devil has not appeared before you to tempt you.”
“He has,” Matt said gravely.
Father crossed himself again.
Seeing the ancient gesture invoked was strangely comforting.
“I’ll pray for you,” Father Raphael said. “Every day at mass.”
Some would have said that was no solution. Matt respected the power of prayer, even if prayer might not solve his problem.
“Thank you, Father.”
The man’s hand leaned on his wrist as he pushed himself to his feet. It was a gesture acknowledging Matt’s comparative youth and strength. “I can’t tell you how to defeat this devil of yours. I was not very good at defeating my own devil.”
“But you did.”
The older man smiled, an expression that turned his stark, ascetic face handsome. “Yes, I did. With your help. I am sure that you will find a way to outsmart your own devil, which is not of your making, is it?”
Matt shook his head.
“You are fortunate to share with Our Lord the role of an innocent tried. I hope you find an easier path to redemption.”
Matt did too. Perhaps the answer was to renounce all hope of his own salvation.
He let his knees sink into the padded kneeler, remembering the oak-hard kneelers of his childhood. Even here things had become easier, less deliberately harsh. It made for less agonizing decisions.