"And yet church doctrine remains unswerving."
"For the most part."
"Do you never doubt?" Matt asked suddenly.
Father Hernandez's Spanish-olive eyes turned to him, all brine and bewilderment. "Doubt? Only myself, as you saw all too well. What should I doubt?"
"The boundaries of sin, I suppose. They seem . . . fuzzier out-side the priesthood."
"Ah, well, my sins are of the self, an exclusive circle, you will admit. A social man must confront sin in plural situations. A priest is set aside from society, and therefore from some sins."
"Some priests have managed to sin grievously against society."
"And more grievously than ever for being priests," Father Hernandez added tartly. "Why do you meditate on sin, Matthias? It is nothing new."
"Some of it is, to me. Think about Peter Burns. If the church had not encouraged thinking of an unwed mother as an outcast, her son would not have been isolated and alienated."
"The church no longer shames unwed mothers."
"Not as much, and not if we want to oppose abortion; then we can't approve of situations that drive women to that extreme. But our new moderation seems self-serving, almost politically correct. Deep in our hearts, do we really accept the sinner? Or do we prefer that she not commit a graver sin that offends us more?"
"You are speaking of sexual sin and whether it is grave, or merely sensational."
Matt nodded, enjoying this theological debate. He missed these "wrestling with angels" sessions, in which nothing was answered but much was asked.
"We consider the slaying of the body the gravest sin," he began.
"Murder," Father Hernandez agreed. "Cain versus Abel."
"Slaying of the soul is harder to single out." Matt found him-self speaking before he thought. "Father, I think I ... need . .. would like to celebrate an old-fashioned sacrament called Confession."
"In there?" Father Hernandez eyed the facade of doors with their tightly decorative grills that let in air, if little light.
"Why not?"
"Why not indeed. I'll get my stole."
Matt watched him walk away, each footstep sharply echoing on the unforgiving stone floor. It was impossible to be furtive in a church.
Matt didn't wait for his return, but slipped into the confessional on the right. As a child, how many anxious moments had he stood in line, dreading and requiring this moment? When he could sink in the dark onto the kneeler and rest his folded hands on the small wooden shelf.
His world had shrunk to the thin line of light under the closed door--which always swung shut behind him without a sound, as if sealed by the Holy Ghost. Before him was the pale window of white linen, barely luminescent in what little light squeezed through the grill in the door.
How many anguished minutes had he shifted his weight from one hard-pressed knee to the other, as some old Polish babushka recited her endlessly trivial list of sins. They always took so long, the old.
Were they confessing the sins of an entire lifetime while he waited, needing to go to the bathroom?
Ah, another fault to confess. Impatience, Father, with the elderly. Add it to the venial shopping list carried in the head from week to week. Like disrespect, or the vaguely thrilling "bad thoughts," or, even better, the delightfully mysterious "concupiscence." Six "Hail Marys" and ten "Our Fathers" and he would be off lightly.
He heard the approaching footsteps, pictured the purple stole of Penance around Father Hernandez's neck, wondered why he was doing this. Then his heart began to quicken and his bladder began to burn, like Pavlov's priest as a boy. Was he omitting any fault? Hiding anything? From Father or himself?
Hell, yes! the adult Matt admitted with an appropriately apt exclamation. He had hidden everything under a camouflaging cloak of petty misdemeanors, as he had hidden behind a collar for so long.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been forever since my last, true confession. I have been disrespectful to my mother six times and to Sister Esperanza two times. I have been thoughtless of others four times, and I have wanted to kill my stepfather twelve times.
Matt shut his eyes as he heard the wooden window slide open. No more light entered the booth.
Oops, wrong side, Father Hernandez. Perhaps priests weren't as prescient as the young Matt thought.
The sliding sound came closer, like a nightmare monster's sucking footsteps. A glow illuminated the linen curtain, but let no shadow of a man fall on the neat, pleated folds.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been"--already he wanted to evade the truth--"eight months since my last confession." Eight months since he had visited a church, except for Our Lady of Guadalupe. He sounded like a fallen away priest; perhaps he was.
Father Hernandez made no comment. Confession was far more voluntary, and thus far less frequent these days. It was not like the weekly doom visited on impressionable children many decades before. He was here of his own free will. How many times had they debated free will in seminary?
Free will wasn't theoretical outside the seminary or the collar's discipline, he had discovered. Every act, every minute could require an ethical decision. His entanglement with Temple had raised dubious desires, ghosts and guilt. And now he had tapped a new source of anger against another powerful male figure, Max Kinsella, supermagician. Concupiscence was no longer Greek to him, nor was envy and rivalry. .. .
He spoke in generalities to a whispering voice beyond the milky veil, to the spiritual tradition and power beyond the unseen priest. He questioned himself, the past, the church. He didn't get answers, but he got more specific questions. And he found understanding, as a seasoned priest reduced Matt's feared mortal sins to venial offenses.
Then Father Hernandez cleared his throat before beginning the absolution. For a panicky, self-defeating moment Matt wondered if he would be told that he was beyond forgiveness, anyway.
The priest's hoarse whisper finally came again. "Bless you, my son, for your trust and courage. By revealing yourself to me, you have healed me of my shame and wounded pride for my failings that you witnessed through no fault of your own. By this sacrament, we are both absolved."
And he began the ritual words of absolution, in Latin. Matt finally felt a sense of closure with one father, at least.
Chapter 38
Checkmate
I wish that I could say that my lovelife works as well as a romance novel. You know the routine: boy meets girl, boy gets girl in the sack (and for my species, sacks are a real attraction), boy goes hunting and girl . . . does whatever girls do when they are with kits.
However, these are modern times, as I am soon reminded. While romance convention attendees are congratulating each other in the upstairs ballroom, I have padded (and I am one of the few dudes who can authentically "pad," since I have pads and not toes on my feet) downstairs to peruse the vicinity of the Divine Yvette.
A good thing, too.
Who do you suppose I find slinking around the Divine Yvette's door? You will assume the upstart Maurice.
No. It is an upstart of my own relationship, Midnight Louise.
"Well, Daddio," she hisses when I approach the Divine One's door, since I well know that Miss Savannah Ashleigh is detained above as long as her mispronunciation holds. "I suppose you are here to take advantage of a poor, ignorant, unsuspecting female."
That is not how I would describe it, and I am not about to describe things of an intimate nature between consenting kitties to my wayward daughter, who has renounced all such activity.
"I had no such plans toward you," I reply.
She hisses again. "I know you are besotted with that platinum airhead in the dressing room. And I know that your precious Yvette is now in no condition to reject your designs. Sssshe is in ssssteam heat."