6
“We’re doing better, you know,” Father Dick Kramer said. He balanced the phone receiver between his right shoulder and right ear while he lit a fresh cigarette from one that was down to its last millimeter. As he did so, he observed, but was barely aware of, his hand trembling.
“I’m sure you are, Father,” replied Mrs. Ginny Quinn, associate director of planning for the parochial school system. “But you must remember, I’m dealing with figures. And figures don’t lie.”
“But you haven’t got all the facts,” Kramer asserted. “Figures are not all the facts. Spirit goes into this too. You can’t measure the spirit of this parish. And I can tell you without any reservation, Mother of Sorrows wants its school to stay open. Even now our parish is enlisting several fund-raisers to bail the school out. But how can we do that if you insist the school has to close down? How can I motivate my people to work to keep it open if you, in effect, tell them it’s a lost cause?”
Ginny Quinn sighed. She had been through all this too often with too many pastors and parish councils. It takes tons of money to run a school. More money, in fact, each year. There just was not that kind of money to be had in the poorer sections of Detroit. But all that so many of the pastors could see was the long history of their schools, which, realistically now, had no future.
“Father,” she said, “I’m not closing your school; the archdiocese is not closing your school. The budget simply states that the parish can no longer afford to keep it open. Do you know what your deficit was in the past fiscal year?”
“I . . . I don’t have the figures right here.” He stubbed out the cigarette, forgetting to light another from the butt. He shook out another unfiltered Camel and lit it.
“It was $82,104, Father.”
He was impressed. Not only at the extravagant sum, but that she had it down to the dollar. She undoubtedly had the cents too, but didn’t care to grandstand.
“Well,” he remarked after a moment, “that’s considerable.”
“I should say.”
“But we can cover it. Even now the parish council is making plans—”
“Father,” Mrs. Quinn interrupted, “that’s just this fiscal year. I don’t doubt that with a maximum effort the parish might be able to cover the debt this year.” Actually, she doubted the hell out of it. “But,” she pressed, “what about next year? And the year after that? The money just isn’t there, Father. Once it was and now it isn’t. It would be a mercy for everyone, Father, to face facts and pull the plug.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, Father; this is my considered opinion. Of course, if you want to take it up with my superiors in the school office . . . or with the archbishop . . .”
“That won’t be necessary,” Kramer said hastily. “Maybe I could talk it over with you again . . . I mean, after we’ve both had a chance to think it over.”
“Certainly, Father. I’ll always be happy to talk to you.” Another small lie. She devoutly wished he would dry up and blow away.
He hung up, leaving his hand on the receiver as if about to make another call. He took a double drag of the Camel, then crushed it in the ashtray. Even to his seasoned mouth, the smoke was excessively hot.
“No luck, eh?” Sister Mary Therese asked. Although, since she had been party to at least his end of the conversation, she knew.
He smiled grimly. “She said I could appeal to the archbishop”
“Are you going to?”
“Are you kidding? I think that’s why Boyle insulated himself behind all these layers of bureaucracy: Underneath it all, he’s too much a priest. Oh, I think I could reach him . . . but he’d only tell me he had to follow the informed suggestions of the experts.”
“Like Mrs. Quinn.”
“Exactly.” Kramer lit another Camel.
Both hands were trembling, but only slightly. One would have to be extremely observant to notice. Sister Mary Therese noticed.
Mary Therese Hercher’s position was relatively new and, so far, quite rare in the structure of the Catholic Church. For many years she had been a teaching nun. Then, in the wake of renewal and change that swept the Church in the sixties and seventies, she and so many other nuns reevaluated their vocational direction.
After much prayer and consultation, she had felt called to an inner city parochial apostolate. With Father Kramer’s affirmation, she assumed the title of pastoral assistant at Mother of Sorrows parish, which was on Grand River Avenue near the boundary of the corporate limits of the city of Detroit. In effect, she became a quasi copastor with Kramer.
While his was the ultimate responsibility, and while he was very definitely the canonical pastor, she was given the care of many parish ministries. She could not offer Mass, absolve or, in fact, administer sacraments. But she could—and did—administer many programs for youth, for families, for the unemployed, for the elderly. And, in her own quiet way, she infiltrated some sacramental spheres. She listened patiently to the woes and sins of troubled souls. Then she forgave their sins. And the people felt forgiven.
Asked how she managed to give absolution without any ecclesial power to do so, she would answer, “I give them a little hug.”
Her trim little figure, lively sparkling eyes, and ready smile brightened the homes of Mother of Sorrows parishioners and, in no small measure, made the rectory a much more livable place, even though she spent only some of her working hours there.
Of all the parishes that would have welcomed her, Mary Therese had chosen Mother of Sorrows for the sole reason that Father Richard Kramer was pastor. For several years she had been aware of his work around and for the people of this parish. Indeed, by almost any measure, Kramer was one of the hardest working pastors in the archdiocese. However, some would claim his work was largely unproductive, particularly in relation to the time and effort he invested. He seemed driven and in a constant manic state.
Mary Therese’s feelings toward Kramer were mixed. She admired and respected his total dedication. Yet she feared—was almost certain—he was pushing himself too hard.
Then there was his smoking! She had no way of counting—and he would not admit to any definite number—but she was sure he was going through three to four packs a day. And unfiltered to boot! The rectory, his car, even his typewriter, reeked of nicotine. But she had long since ceased badgering him about a habit that had been condemned by just about everyone save the tobacco industry.
“Dick,” she said, after waiting in vain for the slight tremor to leave his hands, “don’t you think it’s time to circle the wagons a little closer?”
“What? What are you getting at?”
“Maybe it’s time to let things take their course. Maybe it’s time to let the school close.”
“What? Do you know how many years Mother of Sorrows School has been operating?”
“Sure I do. But what lasts forever? Most of the city’s other parochial schools have closed.”
Kramer ran a hand through his blond hair. Though in his mid-fifties, he was wrinkle-free, thus he looked much younger. “Have you seen them, Therese? They’re ugly! They’re shells! The windows are broken. They look like they’re haunted. And they are! By their own past. Kids—thousands of kids—grew up in those schools. Now the buildings just stand there idle, mocking the church, the rectory, the whole damn neighborhood. No, I won’t have it!”
“Not all of them are idle, Dick. Some of them—most of them—have been converted into other kinds of service. And God knows that—”
“But they’re not schools. And they’re only partially used. And they’re not schools!” Kramer was growing somewhat incoherent. “Mary Therese, you just don’t know. You’ve never been attached to a parish that doesn’t have a school. You were a teaching nun. So naturally, any parish you were associated with had to have a functioning school—or you wouldn’t have been there. So all you know is the kind of spirit you find in a parish with a school.