Just outside Koesler’s room in the seminary was a phone, used exclusively for intercom calls. However, once, in a unique exception, the phone rang-loudly-at about 3 A.M.
Finally, after about ten rings, it was answered by the student assigned to that task. Groggy, he was understandably confused.
Student: St. Thomas Hall.
Woman: This Mr. Moon’s bar?
Student: St. Thomas Hall.
Woman (after a pause): What?
Student: St. Thomas Hall.
Woman: I got a wrong number?
Student: St. Thomas Hall.
Woman: Well, you’d think the least I would get was the right number.
Later they found that the student on switchboard duty, when closing down for the night, had mistakenly programmed all incoming calls to the phone in St. Thomas Hall.
It was the next day’s conversation piece. No switchboard operator ever made that mistake again.
However, the compulsion to answer a phone was implanted. In Koesler’s case, the compulsion was intensified during his assignment to St. William’s, where the three assistant priests took turns being “on” the door and “on” the phone. Callers left to cool their heels at the door or callers on a phone that went unanswered were evidence of sins that cried to heaven for vengeance.
Well, Koesler reminded himself, mundane decisions such as how the congregation would be served were no longer in his bailiwick. Father Tully was in charge … or would be, if the two of them could devise a way to treat the double requirement of making the Profession of Faith and taking the Oath of Fidelity.
The phone stopped ringing. Koesler noted that while the light on the dial had ceased flashing, it remained lit: Someone else in the rectory had picked up. Undoubtedly Mary O’Connor.
Sure enough, Mary peeked around the half-opened door. Out of long-standing habit, she looked to Koesler. She quickly corrected herself and addressed Father Tully. “It’s Inspector Koznicki on line one-”
Before she was able to go on, Tully was getting to his feet.
“You don’t have to take the call, Father,” she said. “He just has a question. I can give him your answer.”
Tully stopped in mid-rise, then dropped back into the chair, looking up at her expectantly.
“The inspector and Lieutenant Tully are tied up in a meeting. They and their wives can still make the dinner, but they’ll be late …”
“How late?”
“Nine, he said-maybe a little earlier, but no later. If nine is too late, they’ll have to cancel-or postpone the dinner.”
Father Tully considered for a brief moment. “How do you and the caterers feel about it?”
Mary smiled broadly. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Let’s go with nine then. And, thanks, Mary.”
As Mary left for the kitchen, Tully turned back to Koesler. “What about the bishop? Should we tell him dinner’s going to be late?”
“Let’s not,” Koesler replied without hesitation. “I have a hunch we may want to talk to Vince before the others arrive.”
Tully sipped his tea. “That was some story!” he said after a few moments. “Nothing anyplace close to that’s ever happened to me.”
“It was a one-time event for me.”
“How did you feel? I mean, I can see how you’d want to console Martha and Delvecchio and his mother. But you … you must’ve had some deep reaction yourself.”
“I’ll say I did. And it happened just as you suggested. I was operating on adrenaline from the first moment I heard what happened. But after I talked with Vince, I had to face up to my part in this … a classic time for second-guessing oneself.”
“That’s happened to all of us,” Tully offered.
“Yeah, I suppose it’s kind of normal. But this situation with Frank and Martha was well out of the ordinary.”
“Are you over it now?” Tully inquired. “I mean, I know it’s been a lot of years. But did you ever fully recover?”
Koesler grimaced. “No. Of course, I’ve come to terms with responsibility. I wasn’t even the initiator in that process. And I did everything I could. I was young and inexperienced. But I checked all along the way with older priests. Everybody I talked to was practiced in the Privilege of the Faith cases-including my Canon Law professor.
“I know in my conscience that I’m not responsible in any way for what happened. And yet … from time to time I can still see Frank Morris. A good man. A better husband than many comfortable Catholics I’ve known. Even now, I can hardly think of him as a suicide.”
“Do you think you could have provided Christian burial if his widow had wanted it?”
Koesler thought for a few moments. “I don’t know. I’ll never know. Even back then, when the Church was comparatively strict about granting Christian burial, it might have been possible.
“I can recall one incident involving an Italian family. The family was extremely faithful-pillars of the Church. Uncle Louie died. One of those cases where Uncle Louie had said bye-bye to the Church after confirmation … when he was just a kid.
“Mostly for the sake of that faithful family and their desire to bury Louie from the Church, we tried like crazy to find some evidence that Louie might have-even mistakenly-could have wandered into a church at some recent time.
“Finally, the family turned up somebody who remembered Louie tipping his hat as he walked past a Catholic church. The witness wasn’t positive that it had been a conscious, voluntary act of devotion on Louie’s part. But, in the end, it was-mercifully-judged sufficient: Louie was buried from the Church. They even wound rosary beads in his hands.” He smiled. “I’ll bet that felt strange to Louie.”
They both chuckled. Father Tully had never had that much trouble burying anyone. There’d never been any hostile forces or big brothers peering over his shoulder.
“But”-Koesler grew serious again-”there was that suicide note. It was well thought out and carefully written.” Again he reflected for a moment. “I would have tried … but I wouldn’t have expected much success.”
“You think you’d have that much trouble now?” Tully asked.
“That law is on the books. And the note would be hard to deal with. And there surely would be some ‘keepers of the faith’ who would cause a lot of trouble if they got wind of what I was doing.”
Tully shook his head. “It all started with a canonical problem with a marriage. I was going to suggest that you might have gone the route of a ‘pastoral solution.’ But there couldn’t have been many-if any-priests who knew about that relatively painless procedure in those days.”
“You mean,” Koesler clarified, “when confronted with an impossible marriage case, you let the couple’s conscience settle the matter …
“Well, for one, as you say, the time had not yet come for that solution … though, in recent years, I have used it quite a few times. It’s a simple enough concept. Ask a Catholic couple, who’ve been forced by Church law into a civil wedding, if they honestly before God consider themselves to be truly married … or a little married … or not married at all.
“It’s a loaded question. Of course, nine times out of ten, they consider themselves married. But they also feel that the Church is uncomfortable at their arrangement. So, the priest makes them feel at ease with their conscience and prepares them and advises them to live sacramental lives.”
“Actually,” Tully observed, “when we were growing up Catholic, we were told we had an obligation to form a correct conscience-and then to follow it.”
“Yes. And it’s perfectly possible that in forming that conscience, still it may disagree with Church law-in which case a person must be extra cautious about the matter.
“But if, after due deliberation, the disagreement continues, conscience must be supreme.
“I love the story about the First Vatican Council, when the bishops were rather bulldozed into passing part of the doctrine on infallibility. In England, a Catholic college faculty was gathered for drinks before dinner. And Cardinal John Henry Newman raised his glass in a toast. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I drink to infallibility-but first, I drink to conscience.’”