In God's House (36 page)

“No American president or administration would ever have the balls to attack the Church. We have sixty to seventy million Catholics in this country and a lot of them vote. Anyone who attacked their Church would be signing his death warrant as a viable politician. Our power as a Church, our ability to influence the outcomes of major elections, is well documented.”

Matt rose from his chair. “Your Excellency, I think this is the critical time for Rome and the American Church to act responsibly out of a sense of common decency, plain common sense. The decisions coming down from Cardinal Kruger that you and Archbishop Verriano are embracing are not only faithless decisions where the Church fails in its mission to heal innocents it has injured, but fateful decisions that are setting the Church on a collision course with the justice system, the press, and prosecutors. We are talking about the erosion of the moral authority of the Church – something that could bring on a never
ceasing continuum of catastrophic consequences for the institution. No one is going to push the Church off the high moral ground. The Church is going to walk off the high ground, ceding the high ground to those who will be rightfully offended by the Church’s actions.” Matt paused for a moment, then concluded his speech. “Thank you for your time. I don’t even want to be party to any more discussions that are grounded in what I see as the arrogance and ignorance of the Church, and its inability or unwillingness to do what is right.”

As we were taking our leave, Franklin said, “They made it too easy in Louisiana. That’s the only lesson of Louisiana. They threw money at them. A child who makes public allegations of this nature against any priest of mine in this diocese will have a slander suit slapped against him and his parents. These people don’t want justice. They want money. We cannot give these aggressors what they want. No child can attack us with a lawyer. We’re the Roman Catholic Church. If a child sues one of my priests, we will counter sue the child and his parents for libel and slander.”

When Des, Matt and I reached the parking lot, Matt and I leaned against Matt’s car. Matt spoke first. “Got to hand it to you, Des. I remember how excited you were that night at the Ascot Grill when you got Rome to appoint Bishop Franklin, how you told us that Franklin was a good guy—”

I finished the sentence. “A good guy who was with the program. Yeah, I thought so too.”

Des laughed at us. “So, I fucked up. Well, fuck you both. Let’s go to Matt’s place, Café Roma, and get invisible on vodka. And fellows, I can promise one thing – Bishop Garland Franklin has seen the last of us and the last of our work. He will not see the final draft of the document we prepare for Cardinal Laurence and the Conference of Bishops. That asshole is going to end up in a world of hurt one day. If Rome is listening to him, the Vatican will destroy itself.” 

It was night when I landed in Thiberville after my meeting with Bishop Franklin. From the airport, I went straight to my office to look through the piles of paper that had accumulated in my absence. Paper-clipped to an envelope in the center of my desk was a note from Mo with the words “Read this first, Ren!”

I pulled the letter from the envelope. It was written in pencil on ruled notebook paper like the Big Chief tablets children used in school. There were erasures in places where one word had replaced another, but the misspelling of names had not been corrected. I read the letter slowly.

The phone rang. It was Matt checking to see that I’d made the flight I’d dashed for in Washington earlier that evening. I read him the letter from Mrs. Weston Courville. Matt said, “You have to go there. I’ll clear my schedule as soon as I can. I want to go with you.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea to see the Courvilles. There have been death threats from down there around Amalie. We could be walking into more than we bargained for,” I said.

“The lady is begging someone to come to her home and see her little boy. Someone has to show her the respect of responding. I’ll be with you. If anything happens, it will happen to both of us.”

I took the letter to Julie that night and let her read it. When she finished, she laid it on her coffee table and said, “I’m going.”

“Where?”

“To see that kid. I know you’re going.”

“That’s what Matt just told me over the phone.”

“She’s begging. Someone has to respond.”

“Matt said that too. Exactly.”

Julie picked the letter up again. Both of her hands were trembling too much for her to hold it. Putting it back on the coffee table, she put her finger on a line and read, “‘My boy is hurt bad. You knew this priest did bad things with little boys and you sent him here anyway.’”

She started to cry, holding her head in her hands. “She’s right. I… I… I…”

Julie let me hold her. In a hoarse voice, she tried again, “I… I… I…”

Her whole body shivered and she pulled away from me. “I was here. I was here. Everyone knew. I knew. We all knew Francis Dubois raped boys. Everybody knew. I probably signed the assignment transfer documents, his personnel authorization for the assignment. I was personnel director. We all knew. We sent him there anyway.”

I pulled her close and heard her whisper, “She’s right. People are going to hell.”

Once she was quiet, she stayed in my arms. Her breathing was all I heard and gradually it returned to a normal rhythm. At times I would feel her hands clutching my arms. I kissed her forehead. She smiled through her tears.

She stood and took my hand and pulled me off of the sofa. “Tonight I’m going to cook for you. Let’s go in the kitchen. I’ve been planning this.”

I laughed. “I kissed a nun who’s a tease too. A sassy nun.”

She nodded. “I was just about to start cooking pasta when you came in. I really can cook. It’s not always pizza.”

“But it’s always Italian. You Italian?”

“Both sides. We were what they called ‘art Italians’ as opposed to ‘food Italians’. We were in love with art. When other kids’ moms were reading fairy tales or primer books, my mom was putting me to sleep every night with books that had no words, just pictures. She would explain the paintings, telling me about the artists who created them and the time period in which they were painted, putting the pictures in a historical context.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It was good and bad. When I started school, I couldn’t read
Run, Spot, Run
!, but I could discuss sculpture and paintings made five hundred years earlier. On my trips to Europe, I saw a lot of the paintings I had seen only in books. I was stunned by how big some of them were and how different the colors were. My house was filled with the best art my folks could afford. I am sure my mom’s dream was that one of her kids would be a painter, but she got a lawyer, a college professor, and a nun.”

I thought about what she must have been like as a kid, a cute kid.

Jon Bendel got the Diocese of Thiberville to kick in a million dollars of its own funds to add to the five million Blassingame’s
insurance group contributed, and the convoluted negotiations ended. The ten Ponce settlements were sealed away in the same vault of the Clerk of Courts Office in Bayou Saint John that held the Halloween settlement. The total paid out to victims to date in the Thiberville diocese for the criminal actions of one priest was now nearly ten million dollars. The Rachou trial was still pending, and a slew of new lawsuits had been filed.

It was the longest Mass of the year, the one where they blessed the oils and washed the feet of twelve men. What Joe Rossi referred to as “smells and bells”. I walked behind Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, into the Saint Augustine Cemetery, and found a
cast-iron
gazebo covering some graves. There was a park bench inside and I sat there, waiting for my appointment with Monsignor Moroux.

When Mass finished, priests started filing out. All of them were in their standard black attire. They carried garment bags. The lack of collegiality among them was curious. There was no small talk, in fact, no talk at all. Moroux saw me and came sauntering down the walk.

“You’ve found the best grave in the whole bone-yard.”

“I see the names. These must be relatives of mine.” He nodded.

I wanted to finish fast and visit with my father at The Palms. I stood up. “Monsignor, the date for the criminal trial of Father Dubois has been set for October 28, which I think is about four weeks after the setting for the Chaisson civil trial.”

“May I have a cigarette?” he said.

I handed him one and lit it for him. He looked hard at the end of the cigarette as if he did not trust that he had enough fire there to draw smoke. “Renon, sometimes it seems nothing gets
communicated in this Church. Other times it seems too much is communicated. There have been some things said about you and some of it was said by me.”

“I have no interest in what anyone in this Church may have said about me.”

“Oh, I think you might. I’ve had some phone calls from people in dioceses around the country, seeking my opinion of you. You know my hands are tied in that regard. I cannot say something different from what your legal colleagues Jon Bendel and Tom Quinlan might say. Soooo, if you should hear I’ve said something about you that does not ring like an endorsement, I want you to understand the pinch I’m in. I do what I have to do, Renon.”

“Similarly, Monsignor, should you hear that I’ve ever said I believe your negligence in supervising Father Dubois was so gross, willful and wanton as to constitute a serious crime on your part for which you should be imprisoned, and that you were absolutely uncaring about the welfare of the youngest Catholics in this diocese, innocent children, I want you to understand the pinch I’m in. I say what I have to say.”

“Touché,” he said. He wasn’t even offended. “Are these other bishops following your advice?”

“Do you think they would fare better if they were following your example?”

I started walking. Moroux moved quickly to my side. “Whose side are you on?”

I stopped walking and faced Moroux. “In the beginning, I saw a lot of sides. It’s narrowed down now, I think. Seems simple to me now.”

“And?”

“It’s children against criminals. There are just two sides. It’s innocent children versus perverted priests, criminal bishops, and criminal vicars such as yourself. Whose side do you think I’m on?”

My father was finishing lunch when I walked in. In an irritable tone, he said, “I waited, Ren. I waited for you. You said you’d be here for lunch.”

The older he got the more crotchety he became, but I had learned to ignore it as the mood always passed in a moment.

“Sorry. But I believe I said I didn’t think I would make lunch. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does matter. I have the fish and everything laid out for you in the kitchen and I’m going to cook it. I doubt you’re eating anything but crap since you and Kate split up.”

My father went into the kitchen, cooked me lunch and set it before me. “You want some tea, a wine, beer, soda, what?”

“Beer’s good.”

“That’s good, ’cause I don’t have any beer. I just said it. Pick another one.” He smiled, chuckling at his humor.

“Why don’t ya just tell me what you really have?”

“Nope. Gotta guess again, son.”

“Root beer.”

“Coke. Close enough.”

I had seen a lot of the old man the past six months, especially around the time Kate and I separated. We had talked about many things, but he never mentioned the case of Father Dubois. Once when I was visiting with him on his back porch at The Palms, the
Thiberville Register
was lying on the bench next to him with
front-page
headlines about the case. From the condition of the paper, it was obvious he had read the article, yet he said nothing. I wanted to talk to him about it now.

When he sat at the table, I sipped the Coke and asked, “Can you explain to me how the Catholic Church can lie about important things, why their lies are believed?”

“They’re lying about all this stuff with kids, huh? I figured they were. You want to know why they do it, how they can get away with it? Count the steeples, son.”

“Is this some kind of riddle? I’m not good at riddles.”

“Count the steeples. Out in the country around here every community of any size has a church. There used to be more churches than gas stations in this part of the country. When the towns around here were surveyed, laid out and plotted, they always dedicated land for a town hall, a park for the people, a cemetery to bury the dead and the best plot of land was reserved for a Catholic church, the real seat of power.”

I mumbled, “The steeples…”

“When I was growing up here it was just like in Europe in the old days. The priest was not only the agent of God – you could only get to heaven through his good graces. He also knew everyone’s secrets from the confessional. What kind of power is that? I think… I don’t know, but I think the most important thing was that the priest was the only person in the community with an education. My father and his friends had hardly any education. They had a lot of land they farmed and they were plenty smart, but they had hardly any formal education. The power of the priest has always been absolute here and you know what absolute power breeds.”

“But it’s still your Church, right?”

“My faith has nothing to do with a priest, bishop or pope. Some of the worst men I’ve known were priests. When our construction company built the seminary for the old bishop, that bishop forced us to buy all the lumber from a good Catholic friend of his at a markup of almost twice the price I could have gotten from an honest lumber broker. I could tell stories like that for days, and worse stories too. A lot of the priests I’ve known were nasty characters.”

“But you still support the Church.”

“Not with money. My money goes to a non-denominational foreign-student mission at the college to help kids from poor countries. I do go to Mass every day. I like the rituals, and the time… taking that time every day to pray in a quiet, pretty place. But all this stuff about the priest and the kids – it makes you sick to think about it. I knew they’d been lying. I didn’t know what
their lies were, but I knew they were lying. They have never had to tell the truth.”