Bob Koesler was not to see Ridley Groendal again for almost thirty-five years. Koesler would follow Ridley’s career as would almost every other literate American. But the two would not talk again until, a little more than a year before his premature death, Groendal would move back to the Detroit area and into St. Anselm’s parish. There the two would meet again. They would have periodic conversations lasting well into the night.
And always, inevitably, Ridley Groendal would expound on his peculiar philosophy. A righteous morality that had earned him many, many enemies. A theology that Groendal equated with Christianity but which, in reality, was a stark mockery of the values that Christ taught.
It was only gradually that Father Koesler realized that this bizarre lifestyle of which Groendal boasted had begun on a day in June 1950. Not only had Koesler been present at the beginning, he had assisted in the birth. Even presented with all the evidence, he could scarcely believe it.
Part Five
The Canon
15
The gifts of bread and wine had been prepared. The altar, the Paschal Candle and the casket had been incensed. Clouds of incense had dissipated and spread throughout the church. Hours later, members of the congregation would still be able to detect its distinctive odor on their clothing.
The Funeral Mass, now called the Mass of Resurrection, proceeded into its most solemn stage. During the Canon—so-called because it contained the standard, never-varying words of consecration—the same words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper are spoken by the priest over the bread and wine. According to Catholic faith, at the consecration Jesus Christ becomes present under the appearance of bread and wine.
With more than one priest present at Mass, It became a common post-Vatican II custom for all the priests present to concelebrate. All the priests would, as one, speak aloud the words of consecration. Several of the priests standing at the altar with the principal concelebrant—in this case Father Koesler—would take turns reading the various other prayers of the Canon.
With that sort of activity, Koesler could have predicted that his mind would wander again while others were reading. And he was correct.
His first distraction centered on Charlie Hogan. Koesler wondered whether Charlie would join in the concelebration. Even though, in the words of Church law, he had been “reduced to the lay state,” doctrine held that “once a priest, always a priest.” Technically, Koesler thought, Charlie had the power to consecrate, though formally he was forbidden, under ordinary circumstances, to exercise that power. So if Charlie concelebrated quietly from his pew, Koesler guessed it would be valid but illicit. He also guessed that Charlie wouldn’t give much of a damn about liceity.
Charlie Hogan had plowed ahead a steady four years behind Koesler in the seminary. So that when Koesler was ordained a priest in 1954, Hogan was graduating from Sacred Heart Seminary College. Just where Koesler and Groendal had been when “the incident” had occurred.
In time, almost everyone forgot what had happened between Groendal and Hogan. As far as other seminarians were concerned, punishment had been administered and the matter was finished. Hogan had been grounded from Easter until summer vacation began. And Groendal had been expelled. Officially, he had resigned. But everyone knew.
At least three people never forgot: Groendal, Hogan, and Koesler.
For Groendal, the incident was one of the straws that had broken his emotional back and helped beget his new philosophy and lifestyle.
It had had an intense effect on Hogan. The most significant manifestation was his withdrawal. He continued to participate in intramural sports, but only for exercise. Athletics no longer seemed to attract him. And winning was no longer either the most important or the only thing. Most of all, he distanced himself from the other students. He seemed to fear that any friendship could or would be construed as a “particular friendship.” And he was determined that would never again happen.
Koesler remained part of this living memory simply because he was a friend of both principals. He had been a confidant of Ridley Groendal. He was to become a confidant of Charlie Hogan.
Hogan was ordained in June of 1958. He invited Koesler to preach at his first Mass the day after his ordination. The invitation was intended and taken as a great honor. Those invited to play a part in a first solemn Mass were among the priest’s closest friends.
Thereafter, while they were by no means inseparable or even the closest of friends, Hogan and Koesler would be partners in an occasional round of golf or join the same group of clerical diners at the close of an invigorating day off.
What happened to Charlie Hogan and so many other priests of his vintage and younger was, as much as anything else, an accident of chronology. At least that was Bob Koesler’s opinion.
Six months after Charlie’s ordination Pope John XXIII ordered that two things be done. He called for a worldwide council of the Church. It would be known as the Second Vatican Council, or simply, Vatican II. He also ordered a reform of Canon Law, which had been codified for the first and, to that date, only time in 1917. In 1983, twenty-five years after Pope John’s mandate, Church law was finally recodified, though basically unaltered from its former content.
A phenomenon called “The Spirit of Vatican II” emerged just before the first session of the Council was convened. It swelled during the duration of the Council and continued well after the Council was concluded. The “spirit” was not necessarily identical with the Council itself.
At the Council’s close, the conclusions of the bishop-participants were spelled out in sixteen officially promulgated texts. In them the liturgy was dramatically changed. Ancillary documents contained heady language, such as defining the Church as “the people of God”—creating the impression that there was an element of democracy at the root of the Church.
But, as time passed, practice proved that the functioning Church was still that same old triangle with the Pope on top, the bishops well below him, the priests making up the next inferior level, and the good old “people of God” constituting the ground floor.
Of somewhat greater impact and of greater interest was the elusive “spirit” of the council. It was an emotion. It was an attitude. It was self-startingly motivational. It paralleled the “spirit of change” that marked relevant youth and adults in America in the sixties and seventies. It swept up, among others, Charlie Hogan. Charlie became a statistic, one of the thousands to leave the priesthood.
Neither Pope John, who convened the Council, nor Pope Paul VI, who concluded it, nor the bishops, who wrote the conciliar documents, could have foreseen this unique worldwide exodus—so many priests and nuns leaving their religious vocations.
They could not foresee it because it was not a logical conclusion of the Council, but of the “spirit” of the Council, which came to expect of the Council much more than it delivered. No sooner was the Council concluded than did the official Church begin digging in its heels trying to resist the changes promised by the “spirit” of the Council.
This official demand for obedience and retention of the status quo flew in the face of a spirit of adventure, experimentation, and freedom. This dilemma was the main contributing factor that helped propel thousands of priests and nuns into the lay job market.
Shortly after Hogan made his decision to leave, he phoned Koesler and made an appointment to meet him for dinner. The priest was more than a little surprised when Hogan arrived with a female companion. Koesler and Hogan had dined together often, especially in the six years Charlie had been a priest. Sometimes they had dined alone, sometimes with others. But never with anyone other than priests and almost always all had worn clerical garb. Koesler felt a little awkward seeing Charlie in civvies and with a woman in tow.