The Cosmic Ray Heresy

  "Huh. What's your handicap?"

  "Six. I practically grew up on a golf course. My father was a club pro in Florida. I spent my free time in high school either caddying or playing golf."

  "Remind me not to play golf with you."

  "I'd spot you your handicap. What is it?"

  I pretended not to have heard her and took out my cell phone. I tapped the screen and brought up the results of my earlier research.

  "Listen to this. The manufacturer claims that the muzzle velocity of its point two-two-three Remington is 3240 feet per second and drops to 1300 feet per second at 500 yards. A bullet shot from that building would clearly be above the 1100 feet per second velocity of sound when it arrived at the statue. That's consistent with the sharp crack, the sonic boom, heard on the video. No doubt about it, the bullet came from that distant building. I hope the shooter was a pretty good shot and the statue was the target and not me."

  "You're assuming that the target was you or the statue," she said. "What if it was both?"

  "Meaning?"

  "The bullet was intended for the statue, but the message, a warning, was intended for you. Also, if you were actually the target, why didn't the shooter try again when he saw he missed? You were a sitting duck lying there on the pavement."

  "Makes sense, Angela, but what's the message?"

  "Maybe the same vague message that was in your emails; leave the priesthood because you're not a true priest. You were married, have a child, and now you have a girlfriend."

  "Fianc?e."

  "Worse. But even more important than the message is who is the messenger?"

  CHAPTER 23-ALONG THE KELLY DRIVE

  Eight-thirty Saturday morning I passed joggers and bicyclists on the wide pavement beside the river as I drove down the East River Drive headed for the archbishop's center city office. Officially it's the Kelly Drive, named for Jack Kelly an Olympic rower and former Philadelphia city councilman. The Chamber of Commerce does not object if tourists wish to believe it was named for his sister, Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco. To native Philadelphians the Drive will always be known as the East River Drive and decades after the name change some of the road signs still read "East River Drive", as if the streets department is also reluctant to part with the name. By any name it's a beautiful winding road running from PaCom's neighborhood in East Falls along the Schuylkill River to the Art Museum and the Ben Franklin Parkway.

 

  "I'm freeeeezing! I'm freeeeezing!"

  Olivia was strapped into her car seat with a baggie of Cheerios, a sippy cup of orange juice, and Scooby Doo on the DVD player strapped to the back of the front passenger head rest. I closed the sun roof and settled for just a crack in my window.

  "How's that? Better?"

  Her mind had already moved on. "Look at the boats, Daddy."

  Small sail boats and racing shells were already on the water. I spotted the red hull of a PaCom eight gliding in midstream, the low morning sun flashing rhythmically from the wet oars. Passing Boat House Row I made a hard left onto Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled into a parking space in front of the huge apartment complex across from the Art Museum. When dad died mom sold the house in Chestnut Hill and bought her small condo.

  The burly African American retired policeman at the security desk gave Olivia his usual greeting.

  "Hey, stuffed olive, how you doin' today?"

  "I am not a stuffed olive, Mr. Johnson. I'm an Oliv-eee-ah."

  "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Oliv-eee-ah."

  "Is my granny home?"

  "Well, I don't know. Let me conduct an investigation." He dialed a number and mumbled a few words into the phone. "Looks like she is. You can go up now. Do you know her number?"

  "Nine-three-two."

  "That's right. Now, do you know what button to push in the elevator?"

  "You push nine, silly," she said giggling and holding up her thumb. "My granny lives on the ninth floor so if you push a nine you get there. It's easy."

  "Thanks Henry," I said.

  "No problem, Reverend."

  Mom made sure that everyone knew I was a priest. She was still a member of the congregation at the Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill so people assumed she meant Episcopal priest. I tried to get her interested in going to St. Elizabeth's, and she would go once in a while when I said Mass, but she preferred St. Michael's, said it was more "catholic" than a Catholic church.

  "With all those guitars and tambourines at St. Elizabeth's I don't know if I'm at Mass or a hootenanny," she had said. "And all those-what do they call them-extraordinary ministers giving out communion. Ordinary, I'd say. Why I had to take communion from a young man wearing an Eagles' sweatshirt. A sweatshirt, mind you. It's just not dignified."

  Mom had my sister's old Fisher-Price castle out on the living room floor and Olivia was busy unloading the little people from a shoebox.

  "Frank, I thought we'd go over to the park across the street a little later-about eleven- it's such a nice day. Eat our lunch there. If we're not here when you return come over. I'll pack an extra peanut butter and jelly for you. Just call my cell if you can't find us."

  Rounding the Eakins Circle in front of the Art Museum, I headed down the Ben Franklin Parkway. I opened all the windows and the sun roof. A few drops of a cool wind-blown mist touched my cheek as I passed the Swann fountain. I circled it three times, said a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost parking spaces, and found a metered spot a half block from the Chancery. I have adopted the position of Danish physicist Niels Bohr who kept a horseshoe nailed above his door; it may be superstitious but so what if it works.

  CHAPTER 24-THE ARCHBISHOP

  "Frank, maybe you can explain why a priest in my diocese is standing on a beach with his arm around a very pretty woman in a bikini."

  "That's my sister, sir. The picture was taken by my mother last summer on the beach in Ocean City."

  We all laughed. Good start. I suspected Archbishop Reilly already knew Colleen was my sister. I knew Tom did.

  "That's zero for the CDF and one for us," Archbishop Reilly said giving a thumbs-up. "We're making progress already."

  He put aside the playground photo. "Make it two up." He passed me a third photo. "How many sisters do you have?"

  In the photo I was dressed in my clerical suit and collar and wearing a straw hat. Vicki, in a long dress and floppy hat, was standing beside me at a long table in the schoolyard. We were making hoagies along with some of the eighth-grade girls.

  "That was a fundraiser last May at St. Elizabeth's, sir. We called it 'An Old Time Picnic'. Raised nine hundred dollars for the parish school."

  "We're three up. By the way, Catholic Charities could use a little help."

  I shouldn't have mentioned the money. Still trim at 62 it was easy to believe that the Archbishop spent over twenty years as a naval officer and chaplain. His only concession to age seemed to be his wire-framed glasses and the gray in his close-cropped hair. The Archbishop and Tom and I sat in three leather easy chairs surrounding a small table in front of a stone fireplace in his office. A large crucifix hung above the mantle and below it the gas log in the fireplace battled the morning chill. I estimated the large room to be about fifteen by thirty feet. Windows overlooking the street lined the long side opposite a wall of built-in bookcases. A long rectangular conference table sat in front of the windows. Dark wood paneling covered the walls not lined with books. A large mahogany desk was in a corner of the room between the windows and the door. Its polished top contained a large blotter, and a ball point pen stuck in a base which looked like a battleship. Empty wooden "in" and "out" trays flanked the battleship.

  The wall next to the desk held a few pictures. There was a photo of a fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier, one of a younger Reilly in a naval uniform shaking hands with Bill Clinton, and an even younger Reilly crashing through the line in a long ago Army-Navy game; a game that would have been played just a few miles down Broad Street. On t
he wall on the other side of the door was a large photo of the Pope.

  Despite my shaky relationship with Reilly, I admired him. When installed as Archbishop of Philadelphia two years ago one of the first things he did was to sell the palatial residence that was the traditional home of Philadelphia Archbishops and move into an apartment in the diocesan seminary where he could occasionally be observed playing touch football or shooting hoops with the seminarians. He also sold his predecessor's limo and found the driver a job in the administrative offices. Reilly preferred to drive his black Buick himself. Before he came into the office there was a file folder centered on the green blotter on his desk. The file was now open on the table in front of me. He passed me the zoo picture, the original version with cupcakes, no bomb.

  "Same woman, no hoagies?"

  "Yes sir, Victoria Meyers. That's her son, Joey. Olivia and he have become pals."

  "A little birdie told me that Olivia has also become attached to Victoria Meyers," he said. "I assume that this is the woman you spoke to me about?"

  "Yes sir. Victoria and I wish to get married."

  "You know if I had half the priests in this diocese that left to get married in the last twenty years I wouldn't be closing parishes for lack of priests. St. Elizabeth's needs you, Frank."

  "Twenty thousand, sir," Tom injected. "About twenty thousand left in the past twenty years-nationwide that is."

  "Too many," the Archbishop said.

  "That's why I hope to get permission to marry without leaving the priesthood. I was married before so it doesn't seem much different to me. Ordained while married, married while ordained-isn't the end result the same?"

  "Perhaps, but they won't see it that way. Let me tell you a little story. Once I was saying Mass on the flight deck of a carrier. I noticed one of the sailors light a cigarette, right in the middle of the consecration. So after Mass I got hold of the smoker and chewed him out: gross disrespect, for me, for those around him, for the dignity of prayer, etcetera. He took my dress-down with multiple yes sirs, sorry sirs, I'll-never-do-it-again sirs. When I finished he asked permission to ask a question. He said that before hitting the sack every night he prayed the rosary while smoking a cigarette. Was that wrong too? Was praying while smoking just as bad as smoking while praying? He said this with a straight face but I burst out laughing. The little twerp had me. It was the same thing."

  "What did you tell him, Sir?" Tom asked.

  "What anyone in authority would do in a situation like that. I ignored logic and told him to have his smoke while praying the rosary but keep the cigarettes in his pocket at any Mass I was saying. And that," he said, holding up the letter, "is is just what the CDF is doing with this, Frank. The Church hasn't permitted an ordained priest to marry in eight hundred years. That tells you something about your chance of success."

  CHAPTER 25-AN OFFER

  We were interrupted by a knock on the door and Mary Cleary, secretary to the Archbishop and to three of his predecessors, came in with a coffee carafe on a small tray with mugs, cream, and sugar.

  "Better warn them about this, Archbishop. It's strong-the way you like it. Caffeinated mud if you ask me."

  She placed everything on a small table near the desk. When Mary left we went over and fixed our coffees. I dumped a few tiny packets of sugar and some cream into my chipped stone mug- battle ship gray with a drawing of an aircraft carrier on one side-a big change from the fine china used by the late Cardinal. The archbishop left his black. He took a tentative sip and winced.

  "At ten in the morning Mary just lets me have the coffee. After four there's always some good Irish whiskey in it."

  After a few sips both Tom and I lied about how great it was to get a real cup of coffee. We all went back to our seats and Reilly took a small envelope about the size of a thank-you note from his CDF package.

  "Frank, this is a personal note to me from Cardinal Tossi with a message that he asked me to pass on to you; a message that he calls an offer. Before I read it to you I want you to know that I will support your decision on this either way."

  I swallowed hard and put my mug on the table. "All right, sir."

  Reilly adjusted his glasses and read. "If Father Donnelly should wish to petition for voluntary laicization we would be willing to approve the petition immediately and relax some of the usual accompanying restrictions."

  "Is that all?" I asked.

  "That's it."

  "They're suggesting that I willingly resign from the priesthood? With due respect, sir, what kind of an offer is that?"

  "It's an offer of an honorable discharge, Frank, and in their minds they are making concessions. The process usually takes years, especially for younger priests. You would be able to marry immediately. They seem to be willing to offer other concessions but the Cardinal doesn't specify what."

  "Sir, if I wanted to resign to get married that's what I would have asked for in the first place."

  "I take it you reject the offer," the Archbishop said.

  "Yes sir, I do."

  "Good. No retreat. There is still hope for a victory. The fact that they are willing to make any concessions at all is a clue that you have them worried. Perhaps a little pressure of our own is called for, a bargaining chip so to speak. I spent twenty-four years of my life negotiating the 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' bureaucracy of the military. The Vatican isn't much different."

  "I have no bargaining chips, sir."

  "Don't be so sure, Frank. At the least you pose a threat of unfavorable publicity. Here's another chip. On the Sunday after Christmas we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; mother, father, and child. Where's the Holy Family without Mary? Where is any family without a 'Mary'? What a wonderful thing it would be to unite two fractured families. I'm going to suggest to the CDF that it is the right thing to do and, coincidently, a marvelous public relations opportunity at a time when the church is being rocked by sexual abuse scandals. I'll also remind them of the Pope's message last year on Holy Family Sunday when he said, and I quote, 'Every child deserves both a mother and a father.' He did not add, 'unless that child is the daughter of a priest'. "

  I was stunned. Had a four-year-old triggered all this?

  "Sir," Tom said. "It's, it's?."

  Reilly smiled and peered over his glasses at Tom. "Machiavellian, Monsignor, Machiavellian; a concept well understood in the Vatican. Let's move on."

  He took a paper from the file, adjusted his glasses and said, "Now, this other matter about advocating the ordination of women. What have you written besides this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer?"

  "Nothing, sir. and I did not say I favored ordination in the editorial. I was just responding to Auxiliary Bishop Schmidt's letter the week before in which he stated that the Church would never ordain women because the apostles were all men."

  "You said that some biblical scholars thought that Mary Magdalen might have been an apostle. That implies that the Church's argument that it can only ordain men might be flawed. Am I right?"

  "I was more interested in suggesting that Bishop Schmidt's reasoning was flawed," I said.

  "You also wrote, 'The apostles were also married, Jewish, uneducated, and mostly fishermen. If we want to strictly follow the Bible we should only ordain male Jewish high school drop-outs who are married and have a passion for fly fishing'."

  Tom laughed. "Sort of limits the pool, doesn't it?"

  I think the Archbishop smiled.

  "You're not only advocating the ordination of women but are also strongly hinting that we should allow priests to marry. You've touched on two of the major flash points in the Vatican."

  "The Episcopal Church has been ordaining women for years and I know some of them personally. They are fine priests."

  "Okay, but that's the business of the Episcopal Church and not us. Let me tell you another story. In my Navy days I frequently rode the back seat of fighters. There were a number of women pilots that I was m
ore comfortable flying with than some of the male hot dogs we had. Arrogance can be even more deadly in the cockpit than it is in the pulpit. I say this to make the point that I believe women can be just as competent as men in a traditional male role and I have backed up that belief by literally trusting them with my life. This women's ordination though is different. The Church claims the ban has biblical origins. Don't give the CDF any more ammunition with public pronouncements on the subject, Frank. Agreed?"

  "Yes, of course sir."

  Tom glanced at the pictures on the far wall and changed the subject. "What's it like to land on a carrier in one of those jets, sir?"

  "Never had a problem. Closed my eyes, said a Hail Mary, and prayed the pilot wasn't doing the same."

  With that the archbishop rose and walked over to the windows and looked out without speaking. He turned back towards me and looked at his watch.

  "I have Confirmations in a parish up in the Northeast and we better end this. Oh, and give Mary the date for Olivia's birthday. She invited me to her party you know."

  Tom walked me down to my car. "Well, what do you think of our Archbishop now?"

  "I couldn't believe it. I expected to be chewed out."

  "Reilly loves the battle. He considers the CDF to be the ecclesiastical equivalent of a congressional oversight committee."

  "I need all the help I can get. I definitely do not want to resign from the priesthood."

  "Get yourself some more bargaining chips, Frank. Make them an offer they can't refuse. By the way, do you have any idea who might be supplying information on you to the CDF?"

  "I wish I did. Someone is watching me closely and that's more worrisome than the letter from the CDF."

  "Do you think it could be Schmidt?" Tom asked.

  "He did everything to get rid of me before Reilly was appointed but I can't see him hiding behind a bush in Fairmount Park snapping pictures of a picnic, or shooting holes in a statue of the virgin."

  Tom laughed. "I just had an image of him and those yes men he surrounded himself with all dressed in Cardinal's red leaping out of the bushes shouting 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!' - Monty Python style."