Billy had meant exactly what he said.
At the next chapter meeting, which was preceded by an inspection tour of the property, the Clementines voted to accept Billy’s rather medieval terms. He was to receive three cords of oak firewood annually from the Clementines and to share, as many lay people did, in the spiritual fruits of their work.
It was to be expected that Father Boniface, the Provincial, would want everything in writing, but he harped on this point until he spoiled an otherwise happy occasion for Father Urban.
Not long after they’d left their old quarters in the Loop, Billy showed Father Urban around an apartment on the top floor of the new location. That apartment, with its easy access to the roof and its wonderful view, was now occupied by the Clementines — by the office staff during the week, by men in town for the day, or between trains. Unfortunately for Father Urban, he was usually out of town on weekends, when the apartment was empty, and, when it wasn’t, when he was there with the office staff, well — even at the Novitiate, where there were several kindred souls, he had found in recent years that a little bit of community life went a long way with him. And still the apartment was fulfilling its purpose. It wasn’t the apartment that had disappointed Father Urban at the new location.
He had wanted the handsome room facing the street to be a showplace — mellow prints, illuminated manuscripts, old maps, calf-bound volumes, Persian carpets, easy chairs, and so on — everything in keeping with the oak-paneled walls, the bow window, and the fireplace. He had wanted the room to be a rendezvous where passers-by would always be welcome to drop in and chat, to peruse the latest in worth-while books and periodicals. Famous visitors to Chicago might be induced to show themselves there, and talks might be given too, not all on religious subjects and none on narrow, controversial lines. A surprising amount of good might be accomplished in that way, indirectly. Of course, it would always be possible for anyone so desiring to sit down with one of the fathers. If converts were made in such surroundings, they would probably be of a type badly needed and generally neglected — the higher type.
But Father Boniface had said no to all this — the idea of such a nook was associated in his mind with Christian Science — and the room was furnished with junk trucked in from the Novitiate: claw-footed tables and chairs, inhumanly high and hard, and large, pious oils (copies of Renaissance masterpieces, executed by a now departed Clementine) in which everybody seemed to be going blind. The room could have been a nuns’ parlor at the turn of the century. And lying about in the noble bow window were poisonous pamphlets (“Who, Me? A Heretic?”), issues of the Clementine (that wholesome monthly devoted to the entire family and therefore of interest to nobody in particular), and a number of unpopular popular histories and biographies from the Millstone Press (a millstone having been the means of St Clement’s death at the hands of Huguenots).
In Father Urban’s opinion, these products had only a limited appeal in the vestibules of churches, and none at all in that neighborhood. Doubtless Divine Providence played a big part in what success they had, and the same might be said of the radio program (“God Is Our Sponsor”), but there, on the near North Side, more would depend on the Clementines themselves, Father Urban felt. Failure would be noticeable there. Not only should the window and the room be made attractive but men assigned to this location should be attractive too — picked men, men able to get through to the kind of people residing or working in the district: worldly executives who liked it for its atmosphere, neurotics engaged in the lively arts, retired crooks and politicians, and the womenfolk belonging to all these — not exactly a family audience. Perhaps it was a job for the Jesuits, as Father Boniface said, but the Clementines were there on the spot, weren’t they? Why should it always be left to the Jesuits to be all things to all men? So Father Urban had argued, but he had got nowhere.
It seemed to him that the Order of St Clement labored under the curse of mediocrity, and had done so almost from the beginning. In Europe, the Clementines hadn’t (it was always said) recovered from the French Revolution. It was certain that they hadn’t ever really got going in the New World. Their history revealed little to brag about — one saint (the Holy Founder) and a few bishops of missionary sees, no theologians worthy of the name, no original thinkers, not even a scientist. The Clementines were unique in that they were noted for nothing at all. They were in bad shape all over the world. The Chicago province was probably better off than the others, but that wasn’t saying much. Their college was failing, their high schools were a break-even proposition at best, and their parishes, except for a few, were in unsettled parts of Texas and New Mexico where no order in its right mind would go. The latest white elephant was an abandoned sanitarium in rural Minnesota! But that was typical of Father Boniface and the rest of them. They just didn’t know a bad thing when they saw it — or a good one.
Father Urban was annoyed that so few of the men seemed to appreciate the new location, except for its nearness to the lake. They went out for their interminable walks just as if they were at the Novitiate. Among themselves they jeered at the neighborhood’s smart shops, at its restaurants with foreign names, at the little galleries where, of course, there were pictures of the sort one had to expect to see nowadays. Father Urban was annoyed and hurt, yes, but not surprised. The Order did little scouting, being content with the material that came its way — mostly graduates of its high schools and readers of its advertisements (“Be a Priest!”) in the Clementine and similar magazines. Men like Father Boniface talked of “beefing up” the Order, but Father Urban had another idea — to raise the tone by packing the Novitiate with exceptional men. He had overshot the mark on occasion — two of his recruits had proved to be homosexual and one homicidal — and most of them, of course, simply came and went. But there were three or four lads out at the Novitiate, superior lads hanging on for dear life in difficult surroundings. What hope Father Urban had for the Order was in them, and in a few others younger than himself but safely ordained, and in himself.
Father Urban knew (none better) that the Order wasn’t up to the job of being an effective influence for good on the near North Side, or anywhere else in the fast-changing world of today, and it never would be, he knew, with men of Father Boniface’s stamp calling the shots. There had to be a new approach. Ideally, it should be their own, recognizably theirs. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before the Order died on its feet. Possibly the end would be sudden, by decree — a coup de grâce from Rome — for it was rumored that there might be a re-evaluation of religious orders, a culling out of the herd. If this ever happened, it was Father Urban’s fear that the Clementines would be among the first to go.