Father Sebastian clasped his hands together in front of him on the table and talked about Jesus Mary Joseph Catholic Church.
“It’s about three thousand square feet and almost primitive. I sat through the Mass, and Aubrey is charismatic in the modern sense of the word. He could have done well in politics. He’s freewheeling. He does a credible job, but he makes off-handed comments. He answers questions during the service. He reads messages about headlights being left on in the parking lot.
“What he lacks in gravitas, he makes up in sociability. I think he can move people. Well, that’s self-evident.”
Cooney said, “Thank you, Peter. I guess Jesus had some of these traits, which is why I boil Aubrey’s influence down to one word. ‘Dangerous.’
“Right now, we have the upper hand,” Cooney said to the group. “What’s our best move? Can we sue him for abuse of the word ‘Catholic’ when he defies the legitimate doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church?”
The lawyers were prepared.
They told Cooney that the word “Catholic” couldn’t be branded or protected, that Greeks and members of other Orthodox churches used the term “Catholic,” but that it was possible to cast doubt on Aubrey’s authenticity and credibility.
Said Flanagan, “Make him out to be a cult leader, not a priest. There’s a reasonable basis for it. And he should be defrocked.”
“Already done,” said Cooney. “He’s off the payroll.”
“And excommunication?” asked Salerno.
“It’s in the works,” said Cooney.
Sebastian added, “I agree, Cardinal, when you say that Aubrey is dangerous, but he’s not invincible. He was accused of sexual predation. Even though his accuser recanted, we could say publicly and loudly that Brent recanted not because Aubrey was innocent but because he couldn’t take the pressure of what the trial was doing to his family.”
“What else can we use?” Salerno asked Sebastian. Salerno was a big man who spoke sparingly unless he was in court. Cooney thought him to be a great litigator, one of the best.
Sebastian said, “He’s in love with his wife and child. He won’t let anything touch them. An attack on them could shut him down.”
Cooney turned to his P.R. consultant. “Fiona, what have you dug up on the wife?”
Fiona Horsfall held up a thick file on Brigid Fitzgerald. “She’s very well regarded. Has a huge reputation for her medical work in South Sudan. She was considered heroic. Saved many lives. Assisted our military in bringing down a paramilitary terrorist-or, as some say, our military assisted her.”
Cooney was pacing now, touching the backs of chairs as he walked around the table. “Go on,” he said.
“She exhibited heroism again in a bombing a few years ago in Jerusalem. She has done a lot of work with the poor and disadvantaged. She’s seen as pious but accessible and down-to-earth. She’s working in a clinic now.”
“Forget about her, then,” said Cooney. “Concentrate on Aubrey. Full-court press. It will be easier and much more effective to cut Aubrey down-”
Horsfall interrupted.
“Your Eminence. I think Fitzgerald is a big influence on Aubrey. She has been and is currently instrumental in the expansion of this JMJ movement.”
“Fiona. You’ve just said she’s unassailable. Focus on Aubrey. He’s the public face of his church. He’s the pervert who is challenging Rome and canon law, defying two thousand years of Catholic doctrine.
“Bloody him. Put him out of business. I want his ratty little JMJ movement to die.”
Chapter 97
JAMES WAS patching the roof when a slick, blue late-model sedan pulled up to our doorway.
He jogged downstairs and asked, “Are we expecting someone?”
I had Gilly in my arms when we opened the door to Father Sebastian of the Boston Archdiocese.
Why was he here?
The last time I’d seen him, he had crashed our wedding, given us the stink eye, and wished us a bad life.
The priest said, “I’m sorry to drop in like this, Dr. Fitzgerald, but I have an urgent message for James from the cardinal.”
“Have a seat,” I said, sitting down next to James.
“Cardinal Cooney wants you to know that your excommunication is in process, James. You will be severed from the Church, and you know what that means. You won’t be able to conduct rites of any kind-not Mass, not marriages, not confession, none of it.”
James said, “I get it. I won’t be a priest under the auspices of Rome, but I will be a priest under the auspices of God. Which is all that matters. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. It doesn’t have to go this way, James.”
Sebastian wasn’t speaking to me or even looking at me. I could have been a dust bunny under the sofa. That was fine with me, because it gave me a chance to observe the cardinal’s emissary at close range. He was well dressed, crisply pressed, presenting himself as a messenger, but he was more than that. Sebastian was Cooney’s chief of staff, with a degree in law from Harvard.
“You’ve lost me,” James said.
James’s expression was even, but I knew that this threat from the archdiocese felt like being kneecapped with a ball bat. James loved God and he loved the Church.
Gilly felt the tension in the room. She reached around my neck and held on to me fiercely, and I shushed her as she started to whimper.
“Let me clarify,” said Sebastian. “Cardinal Cooney asks that you stop this destructive rebellion, James. Don’t call this a Catholic church. It’s not. Stop proselytizing. Stop undercutting the Church, and the cardinal will drop our public-relations offensive. Do you understand?”
“I’m sorry you had to come all this way, Peter,” James said, getting up, displacing the cat. “Be careful when you back out that you don’t hit the oak tree. It’s been here for a hundred years.”
Sebastian stayed seated.
“James, I must know if you understand me. The full force of the Boston Archdiocese is poised to launch a campaign against you. You will be painted as a pervert, as a tool of the devil, as a cult leader, and your followers will be tarred with the same brush…”
I had heard way too much of this crap, and I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
I jumped to my feet and said to the outrageous Father Sebastian, “Please understand us. James is a good man and a good priest, and there’s nothing you can say that will stop the JMJ movement. The Roman Catholic Church’s threats, rigidity, and exclusion are exactly why people are coming to JMJ. We will fight anyone who gets between people and their love of God, and we will win.”
Now Sebastian was on his feet, too, and Gilly let loose with her signature, glass-breaking wail.
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Sebastian said to me over the din.
James said, “Brigid and I are of the same mind. I’ve got work to do upstairs. Rain is in the forecast.”
The priest made a gesture, as though brushing dirt off his hands. When he had cleared the threshold, James closed the door hard behind him.
Baby and I went into my husband’s arms.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I expected to be excommunicated. But I am worried that Cooney will intimidate people and that they’ll be frightened away.”
“Some will. Many won’t,” I said.
I took Gilly upstairs to her room and soothed her as I looked out her window. I watched Father Sebastian get into his car, and I stayed at the window until that black cloud of a man drove away.
Chapter 98
AT FOUR in the afternoon, I was stitching a nasty head wound at the clinic when a patient called the front desk and I was called to the phone, stat.
“Doctor, it’s Chloe.” Chloe’s voice trailed off, and I called her name several times until she came back, saying in a weak voice, “I’ve killed myself.”