Requiem for Moses

seemed inclined to forgive or offer any hope of reconciliation.

But of course Green himself gave no sign whatever of being sorry for what he’d done as well as what he had threatened to do.

Not much chance of a reconciliation there-on either side.

When he’d first heard the bill of particulars against Green, reconciliation was not the first word that popped into Koesler’s mind. Vengeance was what the aggrieved parties wanted.

Things now seemed to be status quo ante. Everything was as it was before the incident in St. Joseph’s Church. Green was alive, and five wronged people still had strong reasons to wish him dead.

Come to think of it-Koesler was experiencing one of his more lingering distractions-there was a change in circumstances. Green had inadvertently bought himself some time. Before his death-or apparent death-he was a shadowy figure known personally to relatively few people. But access to him was not all that difficult. If one had wanted to do him harm, it would have been comparatively easy to find him alone, approachable, vulnerable.

But now that he was being hailed as “Saint Moses,” he had become highly visible. Even though he had made no appearance outside his apartment, his life was under constant scrutiny. What with one thing and another, he had become a highly visible, albeit remote, self-made prisoner.

What was Green going to do with this newfound life?

Koesler’s guess was that it would be business as usual. Unless Green had experienced a change of heart due to his extremely close brush with death, what would be sufficient to cause this man to reform his life?

Indeed, from his present position as one whom God had specially touched, Green would be better able to wheel and deal.

But Green could not operate indefinitely from the comfortable and remote confines of his apartment. He must emerge sometime. And when he did, it would be an exciting event. There would be a series of unpredictable twists and turns-events that no one could dependably foresee.

Koesler could hardly wait for the near future to unfold.

The progression of the Mass had reached Communion time before Koesler shook away the cobweb of distractions. He was ashamed that he had paid so little attention to a liturgy that he prized and loved. But, in his defense, he had to acknowledge his deep involvement in this continually surprising drama.

Communion this day in this St. Joseph’s Church was a throwback to the past. Only a small number in this oversize congregation stepped up to receive the host.

Koesler remembered how it had been when he was ordained in 1954. A combination of two elements held down the number of communicants. There was the Communion “fast.” In Koesler’s early years in parochial school and the seminary, those intending to receive communion were obliged to have nothing to eat or drink from the midnight before. Later, that rule was relaxed, allowing water anytime before Communion. Finally, and to this date, communicants could eat or drink anything but alcohol up to an hour before receiving.

The other problem was “sin.” Somehow-the heresy of Jansenism probably was the culprit-Communion had became intertwined with confession. And the belief and practice grew that Communion could be received only after confession. Thus, many people who confessed once a month received Communion once a month.

The combination of these two practices, neither of which could find a home in authentic theology, led to packed churches late Sunday morning-say eleven o’clock or noon-with yet only a handful of communicants.

Koesler, until today, hadn’t seen in ages a Mass in which only a small percentage of the congregation received.

Perhaps, he thought, this report of miracles had attracted extremely conservative Catholics who continued to think themselves and just about all others unworthy to approach the altar with any frequency.

Perhaps, too, many here today were not Catholic-maybe just sightseers and the curious.

When he concluded the Mass, only a few people left the church.

Well, he asked himself, if you were in hopeful anticipation of a miraculous event, would you leave? Aware of Murphy’s Law, you’d be certain sure that no sooner did you leave than someone would be cured.

Before heading to the rectory, he entrusted to Saint Joseph, whose name this church bore, the job of clearing up this miracle business with all due dispatch so that everybody’s life might return to a more simple routine.

He found a small pile of phone messages as well as a sandwich and a pot of coffee-all a gift from Mary O’Connor. Mary’s cheerful and efficient management of parochial affairs was helping immeasurably in getting Koesler through these packed days.

He riffled through the messages. Almost nothing that couldn’t wait until the sandwich was dispatched. The one exception: a request from Pat Lennon for a return call.

Koesler knew Lennon was working on the Green story. He also knew she was not one to make frivolous requests. He left the table, entered his office, and dialed.

“Lennon.” Her voice sounded scratchy. One inevitable price of using a cellular phone.

“Just as a matter of curiosity, where are you?”

“The Lodge going north. This Father Koesler?”

He grimaced. It was out of character for him not to identify himself when calling someone. For one, identification was polite. For another, he did not think he had a distinctive voice. In that, he was wrong.

“Yes, sorry. It’s Father Koesler. May I help you?”

“I hope so. I need an educated guess. And on Church matters, you’re about as educated as I know. This committee that’s been set up to investigate the Green matter-you know, the Cardinal’s committee-they’re calling a meeting for this afternoon that I can’t attend. They’re supposed to make public their first statement on the miracles. What do you think they’re going to say?”

“Whatever I tell you has got to be a guess. But a pretty good one, I think. I was at the Green apartment this morning-”

“You were?!” She sounded impressed.

“Mrs. Green asked me to come. I didn’t learn much. She just wanted to settle on a stipend for the wake service that wasn’t.”

“Lemme guess: no charge.”

He actually felt embarrassed for no good reason except that he’d turned down money.

“Did you get to see Green?”

“No. He is seeing no one but his wife and his doctor. And he refuses to let the doctor examine him.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes,” Koesler agreed, “and it leads me to my first guess: The Cardinal’s committee is not going to get to see him either … at least not yet.”

“So what’ll they say?”

“That’s my second guess. They will report that they have not yet been able to interview him. And the following is the most important statement they will make: They will strongly advise everyone not to presume or assume that there is a genuine miracle here until the investigation can proceed.”

“Cool the miracle,” Lennon synthesized.

“That’s about it. But I don’t think the people who want the miracle to be real are going to pay much attention.”

Silence. A problem on the freeway? Or perhaps she was formulating another question. That was it. “The people who believe in miracles,” she said after some moments, “don’t they tend to be a bit conservative?”

“Generally.”

“Then, don’t conservatives also believe in their bishop? I mean, they’d like to believe in the two-so far-big miracles at St. Joe’s, but they also believe in the bishop. And if the bishop tells them to cool it …?”

“Not as much today as in the recent past,” Koesler said. “A good example is right here in Detroit. Cardinal Boyle has a reputation as a liberal-erroneously, I think, but the reputation nonetheless. The dyed-in-the-wool Catholic conservative will tend to take the Cardinal’s direction with a grain of salt when there’s a disagreement with the archbishop.”

“Right,” she said. “There was that French archbishop … Lefebvre, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, a crashing conservative. He ended up defying the pope-Paul VI. And all of it over the old Latin Mass.” Koesler was shaking his head in disbelief even now.