“Bomb shelter?”
“You saw the elevator?”
Father Urban nodded.
“Takes her down to it.”
Father Urban felt that Monsignor Renton was probably right about Mrs Thwaites — up to a point. After that, there was no knowing, and, in any case… “Who are we to judge her?” he said. “What if she is only motivated by old age and fear of the Lord? That’s enough, thank God. It takes all kinds to make the Church.”
“God is not mocked.”
“The woman’s a daily communicant. That should count for something.”
“God is not mocked.”
“No, but…”
No, but and Yes, but and On the other hand and Much as I agree with you, and Apart from that and Far be it from me—Father Urban, it seemed, was always trying to present the other side, the balanced view. This kept him busy, for Monsignor Renton talked like a drunken curate. One moment it was “God is not mocked” or “Christ, and Christ crucified,” and the next moment it was “Your ass is out.”
Nevertheless, they were kindred souls, at one on fundamentals, and sharing many preferences and prejudices — until the conversation moved into a certain area. This was a very large area, easily arrived at, and here they were like the blind men in the fable who, touching the elephant’s body here and there, could not agree about it. The elephant, in the case of the blind men in the upper room, was their vocation. Much of the secondary activity sponsored, and sometimes even participated in, by the clergy left Father Urban cold, and Monsignor Renton said some things about the various “movements” within the Church that badly needed saying. “Yes, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” said Father Urban, when he felt the cold current in Monsignor Renton’s thought. Father Urban’s good work over the years, as a preacher and as a person but always as a priest, would count for little if, as Monsignor Renton said, any time not spent at the altar, or in administering the sacraments, was just time wasted for a priest. (“That’s why I took up golf.”)
Father Urban had encountered others who held this limited view of the priesthood, but with Monsignor Renton it was a cause. He carried it into the confessional where, of course, he had Father Urban at an unfair advantage. “Ah, yes. We’re here today, and gone tomorrow, and while we’re here we more or less run on divine momentum — more, if we happen to be priests. We’d do well to keep that in mind at all times, and perform those few sacred offices for which we’ve been chosen by God, and forget the rest. Oh, of course, we’re entitled to a little harmless relaxation. And, whatever else we do, let’s not put ourselves between God and the people — or let them put us between them and Him as too often happens nowadays. Ah, yes. Now, for your penance, pray for the Carmelites. Meditate on the life of those poor men and women. Let’s say a half hour a day for the next week, and you might pray for the Trappists, too, if you get a chance. Now make a good act of contrition, and pray for my intention.”
Father Urban had had trouble with confessors in the past. For some reason, men he’d select for their mature outlook, men who’d appear to be well aware of their spiritual and intellectual limitations before and after, wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to show off while they had Father Urban in the confessional. The case of Monsignor Renton was somewhat different. He, too, had changed, but only once. He was now the same in and out of the box. He just wasn’t the man Father Urban had asked to be his confessor on the night they’d met — a man chosen not only for his mature outlook but for his availability and status in the diocese. Monsignor Renton had talked less and listened more on that night. He hadn’t been the same since.
Father Urban listened in long-suffering silence the next time he went to confession, while the man ground his ax and made points he wouldn’t have been able to get away with in the upper room, but when he cited the case of the young pastor—“a fine young fella”—who had driven himself into a mental institution “as a result of overindulgence in spurious activity,” and now, during meals, walked around the dining hall saying “hello” to the other patients because life had become a never-ending parish supper to him, Father Urban cut in: “Why are you telling me this?” “Pray for him, Father. That will be your penance this time. Forty years ago, we weren’t expected to do so much selling, nagging, and hand-holding. Ah, well. Now make a good act of contrition, and pray for my intention.”
Father Urban knew where he was with himself, and Monsignor Renton’s effect on him, in or out of the confessional, would be small. For himself, he wasn’t worried. But what of the man’s effect on Phil? Even before Father Urban discovered what was almost certainly behind Monsignor Renton’s opposition to a new church — the old church — Father Urban had regarded the man as a bad influence on Phil, and since then had been trying to counteract that influence. Uphill work. Phil was weak, Monsignor Renton was strong, and Father Urban, though strong, had no desire to come between old friends. Hence his sometimes halting speech, his turning of the other cheek. “Your ass is out, Father”—“And yet, Monsignor…”
That was how it had gone again, in the upper room, on New Year’s Eve, and was still going, much later.
Monsignor Renton, who had an edge on, said: “Frankly, if I had to put up a new church — one of these hatcheries, with silo attached — I think I’d rather cut my throat.”
“Fortunately, you don’t have to do either,” Father Urban said, taking a harder line with the man, and keeping the issue before Phil.
“If I had my way, there’d be a church down in Orchard Park.”
“If,” said Father Urban.
Phil, sunk in his chair, said, “Has there been any more talk of that, Red?”
All such talk began and ended with Monsignor Renton, Father Urban knew. Phil must have known it, too, but he was hoping. Wasn’t it cruel of Monsignor Renton to hold out this hope to Phil?
Monsignor Renton said he wasn’t getting anywhere with the other consultors. “They’re years behind me in their thinking.”
“And drinking,” said Father Urban.
“Oh, I don’t say the present population warrants it, but give ’em time.” Monsignor Renton cited the case of the pastor (“No, not in this diocese”) who had enlarged his plant, both school and church, to accommodate a housing development, and then had been left holding the bag when a new bishop came in and built right in the development. “I wouldn’t like to see that happen to Phil.”
“What would you like to see happen to Phil?”
Monsignor Renton, not answering the question, got up and went to the window facing the street. It was time for one of his curates to come for him and Phil. It was ninety miles to the North Coast Limited’s nearest stop. “Those two jokers of mine! Never know where they are! And they want me to pay for the gas! That’s one problem you don’t have, Phil.”
“No,” said Father Urban. Phil always knew where Johnny Chumley was — in church or in bed.
“Should be two kinds of men in every busy parish,” Phil said. “Priest-priests and priest-promoters. Johnny says.”
“The boy has a good mind for an ex-athlete,” said Monsignor Renton.
“I take it he wants to be one of the priest-priests?” said Father Urban.
Phil made no reply, but Father Urban didn’t regard his silence as pointed. Often, in conversation late at night in the upper room, Phil just conked out. Phil had a big ditch in his personality, and when he was down in it, as he appeared to be now, he was very quiet. “I’m neither,” he said presently.