Shadow of Death

him; His baby died abornin’.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you: Archbishop Boyle wants to keep our parishes and schools open. And he’s even tried to keep them open with programs like the IPSP, but his hands are tied. The whites who built these churches and schools have moved away. And,” Powers emphasized, “they have made it very clear they are not going to continue to support them.”

“Precisely why the Archbishop should not have made the sharing voluntary.”

“Not voluntary!?”

“Not voluntary!” Brown converted Powers’ shocked tone into one of triumph. “It does not require an MBA to know that all temporalities in this archdiocese are held in the name of the Catholic Archbishop of Detroit, whoever he may be.”

“You mean . . .” Powers seemed unable to complete the thought.

“Take it! Take the money from the savings of the rich parishes and distribute it to the poor. If the ‘have’ parishes will not be Christian to the ‘have-not’ parishes, then impose Christianity on them.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Why not?” someone finally asked, rhetorically.

“It makes sense,” someone else commented.

“It makes damn good sense,” another added.

Silence. They were awaiting Powers’ response.

“Ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. One move like that and he wouldn’t have a diocese anymore. You may recall, in 1968, the year after the riots, when the Archbishop allocated a healthy chunk of the Archdiocesan Development Fund collection to the needs of the inner city. There was plenty of very audible griping from white Catholics about how all their money was going to be used by ‘those niggers.’ And the following year, the ADF collection plummeted.

“If he were to simply take money, even surplus money, from suburban parish savings and apply it to the inner city, why, in no time he would have a hundred percent of nuthin’! And, eventually, the aid the Archbishop is able to give us now would dry up. And we’d be left sharing with him a hundred percent of nuthin’!”

In the pause that followed, some mumbled agreement with Powers, others with Brown.

“Boyle would not be the first Irish martyr,” Brown suggested.

“You’re not talking martyrdom, Perry. You’re talking fiscal insanity!”

“Christianity ought to have a little bit of insanity mixed in with it, the way I look at it,” Brown responded. “Didn’t St. Francis of Assisi call himself ‘a fool for God’? Besides, now that our Archbishop is going to become a Cardinal, this would be heeded by just about everyone in the world.

“You’re part of his official family, Tyrone; you’re part of the bureaucracy . . . why don’t you test the water? Why don’t you propose the idea? You never know till you try. Maybe the new Cardinal Boyle would be willing to consider martyrdom.”

“Let me put the shoe on the other foot, Doctor.” Powers smiled. “You’re going to Rome with the Detroit contingent. You’ll be with us when the Archbishop becomes a Cardinal. Why don’t you take it upon yourself to propose this ‘martyrdom’ to the Archbishop?”

Brown appeared lost in thought. Finally, he said, “You have a point, Tyrone. Perhaps it’s time for me to make an unmistakable statement on this matter.”

Brown once more retreated into his contemplation. He seemed troubled by what he found there.

3.

In a separate wing of the building that housed the Office of Black Catholic Services, Mrs. Irene Casey, editor of the Detroit Catholic, was seated at her desk in her private office. She was talking on the phone.

“What’s so different about your backyard shrine to the Blessed Mother?”

“What’s so different?” the caller echoed.

“Yes, different—unusual, out-of-the-ordinary. You know, a lot of Catholic homes have backyard shrines. And as we enter spring, most of them get their shrines ready for summer. You must realize that it’s simply impossible for us to run pictures of all these shrines. We just don’t have the space.”

“So?”

“So what is special or different about your shrine?”

“Well,” the woman hesitated. Obviously, she had not anticipated any resistance to having a photo of her shrine placed in the archdiocesan newspaper.

“Well . . . if you drive up Lahser between, say Eleven and Thirteen Mile Roads, you’ll see lots of statues of the Blessed Mother in the yards. But,” her voice rose, “they’re all Immaculate Conception statues.”

Irene could not suppress a smile. She was grateful videophones were not yet in general use.

“Now, my shrine,” the woman continued triumphantly, “has the Pilgrim Statue of Fatima as the main attraction!” She paused to allow this revelation to have its effect.

Shifting papers on her desk, Irene said nothing.

“Well?” the woman snapped at length.

“Well, what?”

“Well, what do you say to that?”

“I can think of any number of backyard shrines that have the Pilgrim Statue of Fatima,” Irene exaggerated. She wondered if anyone had ever wasted time on a study of the subject.

“Now you listen here, Mrs. Casey: I’m a parishioner of St. Ives, and our pastor subscribes to the Detroit Catholic for all his parishioners. This is a parish the Detroit Catholic can ill afford to lose!”

“I understand. And I agree. But you must understand what precious little space we have in the paper. If we ran a photo of one private shrine, I wouldn’t be able to refuse anyone else who has a shrine. And very soon the paper would be filled with nothing but shrines. So you see, there just would have to be something unique before we could consider yours.”

“Well,” Irene could tell from her altered tone that the woman was taking another tack, “my husband and I occasionally see a vision over the shrine . . . at least,” in a slightly smaller voice, “it looks like a vision.”

“Fine,” Irene spotted light at the end of the tunnel, “you get a photo of the vision and we’re in business.”

“Oh, what is it with you people!” Obviously, the party was over. “Last year you refused to run a photo of my daughter twirling her baton!”

“You’re the mother of the cheerleader!”

No way could Irene have forgotten: the woman, within the confines of the Detroit Catholic, was notorious.

“Yes, I am! And you haven’t heard the last of me!”

The woman slammed down the receiver. Irene gently massaged her ear and prayed that her caller was mistaken and that this would indeed be their terminal connection.

The phone rang again. It was going to be one of those days.

“Mrs. Casey?” The familiar deep voice resonated with barely curbed fury. “This is Father Cavanaugh at Divine Child. I am just going to make a statement. I do not expect a response from you. It’s about a story that appeared in the latest issue of the Detroit Catholic . . . about two former priests who are now employed by Wayne County as marriage counselors.

“Your story quoted them as saying that they were happy in their new work and that they felt completely fulfilled. One of them even compared what he was doing to what he did as a priest, stating that counseling was now his full-time ministry.

“I just want to say, Mrs. Casey, that this is not the sort of story one should find in a Catholic newspaper. When you have ex-priests who are out of work or who have found only distasteful employment, that is the sort of story you should print.

“That is all, Mrs. Casey. I just want you to know how I, and many others, feel.”

He broke the connection.

This type of call, though rare, was among the things Irene found most unpleasant about her position as editor