Georgie thought a few moments. “If the staff is divided and you can’t read the Cardinal, this thing really is up in the air.” She now understood in more depth what was troubling him.
“If my figures are accurate, it won’t be up in the air forever. The schools will close-if not now, eventually. I can see the argument that it is somewhat less painful if they go slowly, one by one. But at the same time, they’re depleting chunks of money just struggling to survive.
“Some of the public schools are in almost as much trouble as we are. But they can turn to the taxpayers, and if they make a good case for their need they may get a millage increase. We have no chance there. We depend on tuition, fundraising, and parish subsidies.
“Our utility bills are high and we’ve got oil burners in our older buildings that have to be replaced. We’ve got leaky roofs and problems with asbestos.” He seemed to be mentally tabulating an unending series of expenses while being too tired to continue enumerating them audibly.
After a few minutes of silence, Georgie spoke again. “Dear, I think your problem is that you’re second- guessing yourself. And that’s not like you.”
He reflected a moment. “You may be right. But there really is another side to this coin. We’re talking about an institution-Catholic education-that began in this country in 1606. Almost four hundred years ago! And I’m recommending ending that institution.” He smiled in spite of his depressed state. “Sort of like killing off the last dinosaur.”
Georgie searched her mind to find facts that would support her husband’s basic belief in himself and his oft- proven financial acumen. “Remember, dear, we talked just last week about the one incontrovertible reality that sealed the fate of our schools?”
“The nuns.”
“Yes, the nuns. Or rather the absence of them. Whereas once nuns and teaching brothers accounted for almost a hundred percent of the staff of the parochial schools, now the figure is down to just above ten percent. And on top of that, according to what you told me last week, our lay teachers are getting about nine thousand dollars a year less than their counterparts in public schools. How can anyone hope to continue attracting quality teachers with that kind of inequity? The lay teachers we’ve got now are practically donating their services compared with what they could be earning in public schools. Pretty soon we won’t have even the lay men and women teaching in our schools. I think it’s been said best: Without the teaching Sisters no one would have given a serious thought to starting parochial schools. And without them now, there’s no way for the system to survive.”
His was a wry smile. “You’re giving me back the figures and reasoning I gave you.”
She returned his smile. “You convinced me of the rightness of your position. I diought if you heard your reasoning coming from someone else, that you’d be convinced all over again. Like I said, the trouble is you’re second-guessing yourself.”
He nodded. “You’re right, of course. But I didn’t realize it until just now. And there’s something else, something that wasn’t clear to me until just now.”
“What’s that, dear?”
“The reason why I’ve been second-guessing myself. I don’t know if! can put it into words.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “This is it. I think. I’m an economist-”
“And one of the best,” she interjected.
“Thanks. I can put me dollars and cents together and come up with answers, answers I’m sure of. I can rely on the bottom line. Always have. But there’s something different here. I caught it this morning at the meeting. I wasn’t sure what it was. Just an added ingredient that emerged from some of the staff …” He drifted off in thought.
After a few seconds, she asked, “What is it? What possibly could make you doubt yourself?”
He smiled. “Faim-ironically, faith.”
“Faith!”
“Yeah. The deacon, Quent Jeffrey, voiced the idea that money tends to stretch. It’s an adman or PR approach. In reality, money doesn’t stretch. If you’re a bum and you’ve got sixty cents, you can get a cup of coffee. But no matter how much you want a steak dinner, you aren’t going to get it with sixty cents. Jeffrey had to be talking about priorities.
“Suppose you and I wanted to add on to this house. Suppose we figured that we couldn’t afford it-that we didn’t have enough money to do it. But then we keep thinking and talking about it until … we do it. Seemingly, we’ve stretched our budget, we’ve stretched our money. In reality, the money was there, somewhere, all the while. You can’t spend what you haven’t got. We didn’t stretch money; we changed our priorities.
“Jeffrey’s suggestion might work if it were properly implemented-which, by the way, I don’t think our communications office could do. But it wouldn’t work forever. Sooner or later, everyone would discover we were pouring money down a bottomless pit.”
“I don’t understand,” Georgie said. “What does this have to dowith faith?”
“Just that I considered Deacon Jeffrey’s solution iffy, ‘If this happens’ and ‘
“That got me thinking about what some of the staff were saying during the argument that followed my suggestion to start thinking seriously about shutting the system down altogether.
“They were talking about how this was not a business or an office or a company or any other secular enterprise we were considering. These were
“It got me thinking about when I was a kid in parochial school. There were tortuous moments. But then most kids can expect that as part of any schooling-part of growing up. And we learned a lot of things that had to be unlearned. But the formation, the discipline, the good habits, the respect for authority, the early exposure to prayer-well, I don’t think I could have gotten that whole range anywhere expect in my parochial school.”
“That’s right, honey,” Georgie said. “I can relate to that same experience in my own parochial training. But what about the money necessary to run the system?”
“That’s just it, Georgie. As I listened to some of the staff-that sweet old man, Archbishop Foley-they seemed to be pleading with us to wait for … a miracle.”
“A miracle!”
“Yes, a miracle. A miracle! This was God’s work. Catholic education is God’s work.”
“‘God will provide’?”
“Exactly! If we can just hold on, not close any schools or parishes, subsidize them until … until God solves our little problem. Georgie, I’m out of my element. I deal with currency. You can count it, bank it, know when it’s turning a profit or when it’s running out. I’ve worked at this all my life.
“But what if they’re right? Money is my field. Miracles are their specialty. What if there’s a miracle coming around and it doesn’t get here until after I succeed in having the schools closed. I can’t tell if they’re right or not. What if they’re right?”
Georgie could tell that he was agonizing over the problem. She was unsure of how to help him. She sent up a quick prayer for guidance. “Wasn’t it someone in the Bible-was it Saint Paul in one of the Epistles? — who said something about each of us having special gifts, special talents that are complementary? Yes, I think it was Saint Paul: something about those who spoke in tongues and those who interpreted the strange words.”
“So?”
“It’s just as you said, dear: Miracles aren’t your sphere of expertise. You’re a financial whiz. And that’s all your responsebility is: You give your boss, the Cardinal, your best effort to aid him in understanding what the financial situation is in the diocese. In this case, you tell him what’s going on with his schools. Based on all you know-and that’s why he hired you: to get the benefit of your financial advice-based on all you know, the parochial school system is in so much trouble it may well not survive. The Cardinal selected you and trusts you to give him this information.
“If someone else thinks there’s reason to expect a miracle, that’s their business. If you want to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for the Cardinal. His is the ultimate decision. He has to take all these facts, opinions, and hopes and decide what to do. Your job is to do your job.” She sat back with a self-satisfied grin.
He considered what she’d said. “Sounds pretty good to me, Georgie, But … I don’t know. I’m going to have to think it over.”
Her worried expression returned.
