Blood of the Lamb (5 page)

He’d been an exemplary seminarian, drawn to the cerebral, scholarly life. After ordination he’d headed along an academic route, happily exploring obscure byways of Church history. His powerful intuitive gift for research had drawn the attention of other scholars, of journals and publishers. Doctoral, postdoctoral, and teaching positions had sought him out, for which he was thankful. Whatever intellectual talents he possessed were matched—no, actually, overshadowed—by a pronounced clumsiness as a pastoral counselor. His efforts to comfort the occasional undergraduate or old friend who came to him at times of crisis only left Thomas feeling intrusive, cliché-ridden. He greatly admired priests who ministered directly to people’s spiritual needs, but he accepted that his own contribution to his Church would be less immediate, more ethereal. That his work was unlikely to rock anybody’s world, however, did not lessen his joy or confidence in his vocation and the direction he’d chosen within it.

It had therefore been a shock to him when, the fourth winter after ordination, he’d found himself plunged into a terrifying abyss by a single word.

In the midst of consoling the young widow of a high school classmate who’d died unexpectedly (one of those times when Thomas felt it his duty to attempt the solace a priest should be able to offer), a previously unheard voice came whispering inside his own mind. “The Lord has a plan for each of us,” he’d said to the distraught woman. “It’s not ours to know, but you must never doubt it exists. To everything, there is a season, and a time—” He’d stopped, dumbfounded, hearing a silent question:
Really?

The widow, mistaking his stillness for pastoral manner, smiled sadly and completed the phrase. “—to every purpose under heaven. Yes, Father, of course.” She had, he recalled, taken strength from whatever he’d gone on to say and left with renewed hope. He, on the other hand, sat motionless in his study for the rest of the day. The afternoon faded and the streetlights spread an anemic glow across the slushy sidewalks. The voice that had asked the question didn’t stop, asking others, all different but with only one meaning.
Are you sure? How can you be? Isn’t it convenient that God has for each of us what we most desperately want—a purpose, a reason to exist—but keeps it secret? Thomas,
the voice whispered,
you’re a smart man. Isn’t it just as likely we invented all this, a huge absurd theological security blanket, because we’re scared? That nothing has purpose, nothing has meaning, and God is just a lullaby we sing ourselves? Thomas—really?

•   •   •

“Thomas, the only men of God who’ve never felt what you’re feeling now are sheep. Hah! Lambs of God. Followers. Not thinkers.” In his austere, book-crammed study Lorenzo Cossa flicked the Red Sox lighter Thomas had brought as a gift and grunted in satisfaction at the steadiness of the flame. He pulled in air until his cigar glowed, and settled his long, gaunt frame in an armchair. “It’s a crisis of faith. Everyone goes through it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Doesn’t help at all, does it? Knowing that?”

Thomas shook his head. Three weeks after his counseling session with the widow, he was still spiritually dazed and unable to find footing. He’d requested a leave and flown off to Chicago, hoping his mentor could help him make sense of this onslaught of uncertainty.

When Thomas was in graduate school at Boston College, Monsignor Lorenzo Cossa’s history seminars were legendary for their rigorous intellectual demands and equally for the priest’s galvanizing oratory. Monsignor Cossa maintained the Church had long ago strayed from the spiritual high road and, far from being a path to salvation in the debased world, was itself in danger of being devoured by it. This wasn’t a belief Thomas shared—where was the Church, and where was it needed, if not in the world?—but such was the flair of Lorenzo Cossa’s rhetoric that Thomas would have studied algebra with him for the pleasure of hearing him talk. That his courses fit Thomas’s interests was a bonus. That Lorenzo Cossa seized on Thomas Kelly as the most promising student he’d had in years was a mixed blessing. He leaned harder on Thomas than on other students; but even alone in the library at three a.m. Thomas understood he was being forced to his cerebral best, and, though exhausted, was grateful. The year after Thomas got his doctorate, Monsignor Cossa had been elevated and given charge of Church educational programs in the Midwest. They’d remained in touch, but such was the power of this earthquake that Thomas knew the telephone and computer screen would be powerless against it.

“No,” Thomas said, in Lorenzo—now Bishop—Cossa’s study. “It doesn’t help.”

The Bishop wasn’t fazed. “Of course not. It’s like going to the dentist. Knowing everyone who ever sat in that chair suffered the same agonies doesn’t reduce your pain. But remember this: they all survived.”

“I’m not sure about that. Some men leave the priesthood. Some leave the Church.”

Around the cigar, Lorenzo grinned. “I was talking about the dentist. Thomas, in all seriousness. Yours is one of the strongest vocations I’ve ever come across. But what made you think you’d never have doubts? Jesus himself had doubts. Doubt is the coin which buys our faith. That this never happened to you before might be lucky or unlucky. You’re farther down the road than most when the first crisis comes. But eventually everyone arrives at this chasm and has to find a way to jump it.”

“First crisis? I can expect this to happen again?”

“Forget I said that.”

“No, it’s actually hopeful. It almost gives a context.”

Lorenzo regarded Thomas in silence. Knocking ash from his cigar, he said, “I saw this coming.”

“You did? Why didn’t—why didn’t I?”

“Why didn’t I warn you, you mean. Could I have said anything you’d have believed? What’s happened to you is one of the hazards of scholarship. Knowledge is power, isn’t that what we say? But power corrupts. An institution based on knowledge and learning can’t help but be a corrupt institution.”

“You’re calling the Church corrupt?”

“There’s the flaw!” With a joy Thomas remembered from the classroom, Lorenzo pounced. “The Church isn’t based on knowledge! It’s built on faith! What drew you to the priesthood, Thomas? The spiritual magnet of faith. Indefinable. Mystical, even. If you’d chosen the contemplative life and locked yourself in a monastery you’d have been fine. But you made the mistake of engaging your faith with the world. In your case, through the study of history.”

“With you as my guide.”

“Yes, all right, I made the same mistake. And had a similar crisis, if that’s what you’re fishing for. Until I realized that all the knowledge in the world can’t stand against faith. No matter what you learn, Thomas, your faith is still there behind it all. The magnet’s still pulling.” The Bishop’s cigar had gone out; he lit it, puffed on it, and resumed.

“It’s the learning that’s troubling you, isn’t it? The evidence is too heavy to ignore: that no one associated with this enterprise, by which I mean the Church, is divine, with the exception of our Lord. It’s a shining exception. But the discovery makes you wonder. Thomas, I want you to remember this: Knowledge is about facts. Faith is concerned with truth. They’re not necessarily the same. That’s what you’ve flown halfway across the country to discuss, isn’t it? Come, it’s time for dinner. I don’t think there was ever a discussion of faith not improved by a bottle of wine.”

•   •   •

That evening didn’t set Thomas back on firm ground, but it gave him a life preserver to cling to in the frightening waters of misgiving. They talked for three days; it was, finally, a practical suggestion by the Bishop that realigned the world, showed Thomas a direction to follow while he waited to see if his faith would return.

“One of your strengths as a historian,” Lorenzo said as morning sun poured through the window, “has always been your broad range of interests. Periods, places. Now I’m going to suggest another approach. Something different has happened to you, Thomas, and perhaps it calls for a response in kind.” The Bishop stretched out and crossed his legs. “The intellectual life of the nineteenth century, in America and Europe, revolved around faith. What it was, who had it, where and when it was needed. It was a powerful set of questions, sometimes created by, and sometimes creating, political and military movements. Questions of faith moving secular societies. I’m suggesting you focus your attention in that arena.”

Thomas considered. “Randomly? Or do you have something specific in mind?”

“Of course I do. You sure I can’t give you one of these?” He gestured to the humidor. As always, Thomas shook his head. He couldn’t think of half a dozen times outside of meals and the celebration of Mass that he’d seen Lorenzo without a cigar. Early on he used to take one to be polite, but he’d never enjoyed them, and their friendship hadn’t required that sort of courtesy for years.

“I want you to head straight for the lion’s den,” Lorenzo said, drawing on his cigar to get it going. “In the nineteenth century, before there was an Italy, rebellions up and down the peninsula raised questions about the secular power of the papacy. The Church in the world, Thomas.”

“Your favorite subject.”

Lorenzo rolled his eyes in mock despair. “
In
the world,
of
the world—completely different states! Have you learned nothing, Father Kelly?”

If he’d learned nothing else, Thomas had learned that particular distinction well and truly in his years with Lorenzo Cossa. He couldn’t help grinning.

Lorenzo grunted. “You’re having me on, aren’t you? I suppose that’s a good sign, that your sense of humor, such as it is, is returning. May I get back to the nineteenth century?”

“Please.”

“The questions about the Church’s secular power became questions about spiritual power. Do you see what I’m saying? These men followed their doubts to their logical end. Don’t run from that: study it. If your faith is strong—as I know it is—you’ll survive this encounter and be the better for it.”

“And if not?”

Lorenzo held Thomas’s eyes. “I’m offering no promises. But at the least, you’ll have added to the store of human knowledge. Is that, in itself, such a poor goal?”

It had not been, and Thomas had worked toward it, at first mechanically, then with growing animation. Lorenzo’s prescription had proven to be precisely the cure for Thomas’s spiritual ailment. Close study of the words and actions of men whose sworn enemy was the Church gave Thomas the tools, the time, and in some way the courage, to sort out the roots of his own faith and the roots of his doubts. The doubts, he’d begun to understand, flowed from received wisdom, unexamined assumptions.
Thomas—really?
The faith sprang from someplace simpler, deeper: the peace he’d always felt in the presence of God. The questions the new voice was asking were only that: questions. Not sly statements of fact, just uncertainties. Legitimate; but standing against them was that undeniable, palpable sense of being home.

Thomas was rock-certain that without Lorenzo’s help then, and in the late-night calls in the weeks and months that followed, he’d have made the huge and heavy mistake of valuing the new voice over the old peace. He’d have left his vocation, he’d have left the Church. Now, eight years later, with Thomas secure in his decision and the direction of his life, Lorenzo was asking Thomas for help.

How could he say no?

4

Lorenzo Cardinal Cossa replaced the ornate receiver and stared sourly at the telephone on his desk. How much had been spent to rewire these ridiculous porcelain antiques to modern standards? He relit his cigar, sighing. That they’d go to that trouble proved, yet again, the soundness of his argument: the Church, Lorenzo Cossa’s home, his chosen and very nearly his sole family, had lost its bearings. Was wandering in the wilderness. The useful elements of the modern world—functioning electronics, for example, and comfortable clothing—it eschewed in favor of gilt and ermine. But suggest a Latin Mass, or offer the once-obvious idea that the contemplation of a saint’s relics could be of spiritual use, and you were derided as pathetically old-fashioned.

All right, then, he was. And from now on, he’d use his cell phone.

As he puffed the cigar, the Cardinal’s mood improved. Thomas was coming, would be here in two days. Unlike Lorenzo, Thomas didn’t grow short-tempered at the Church’s frivolities; he either shrugged them off, or actually didn’t notice them, so focused was he on the high-altitude joys of recondite research. Not only a born churchman, a born Jesuit. Born and, once Lorenzo had found him, led, directed, and guided. Thomas Kelly had been that once-in-a-lifetime gifted student, and Lorenzo Cossa had uttered daily prayers of thanks for him. The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he sent Thomas to Lorenzo. In fact Lorenzo saw it as a sign: his time was coming.

And now, had come.

Many of those around Lorenzo assumed that, having achieved his current exalted positions (both at once!), he’d fulfilled his ambitions and would now happily putter among the manuscripts and books for the rest of his days. A valued and important cardinal, a senior official, and a trusted adviser, yes of course—but sidelined, as the Librarians always were.