Till Death (40 page)

Koesler shook his head. “Look, I believe the Church is here to stay. I believe that as truly as you do. But the Spirit may be directing us through uncharted waters. At the bottom of it all is the shortage of priests. Now, it cannot come as a surprise to you that we’re running out of priests.”

“The Holy Spirit will save us,” Reichert declared. “It doesn’t matter how desperate the situation becomes. And the solution will not lie with taking in the leftovers of Protestantism.”

That reached Koesler. “Surely you can’t refer to a man like George Wheatley as a ‘leftover.’ He’s one of the finest Christian gentlemen I’ve ever known.”

“Well …” Reichert began.

“Besides,” Koesler broke in, “I am willing to grant you that there hasn’t been any sort of wholesale movement toward the Catholic priesthood by Episcopal priests. I’ll expand that opinion to say that most of the converts so far might have been motivated by less than noble reasons.”

“You mean,” Morgan said, “that they are protesting the practice in their own Church of admitting women into their clergy. Whereas that protest is the only good thing to emerge from this entire fiasco.”

“And,” Reichert added, “your friend Wheatley doesn’t bring even that saving grace. He supports women’s ordination. Why, his own daughter is studying for their priesthood!”

“You,” Morgan stated, “have managed to do what I’ve always thought was impossible: You and your ilk have forced a Pope to contradict himself. Or seem to. After all, he is only permitting this practice of ordaining Protestants. That’s far removed from his apostolic teaching in this matter.

“But I must thank you for one thing, Father Koesler.” There was no reason for the formal address other than sheer sarcasm. “This conversation has served to clear my mind. Before we talked this out I feared that our Holy Church was actually dead and didn’t know it. Now I see that there is hope after all. As long as we who enjoy the
vera doctrina
survive this attack. Except that we must be overwhelmingly militant. And I assure you: This militancy is already being mobilized. We shall endure!”

As Morgan finished his bellicose statement, Reichert groaned and clutched at his chest.

Both Koesler and Morgan, concerned, immediately moved toward him. But Reichert waved them off as he fumbled in his breast pocket.

“What is it, Dan?” Morgan asked urgently. “Your heart?”

Reichert retrieved a small vial containing tiny white pills. With a practiced hand he extracted one pill, popped it into his mouth, and carefully folded his tongue over it.

“It’s his nitro,” Harry Morgan explained. “He never goes anywhere without it. It’s been a lifesaver.”

Gradually, Reichert returned to normal.

“Let’s get out of here, Dan,” Morgan said. “We’ll go back to my rectory and you can take it easy … I’ll be there to watch over you.”

“No, no. I want to stay here.”

“It’s only going to get worse. They’re going to ordain the guy. It’ll drive you up the wall.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let’s stay and watch.”

Morgan shook his head. “If you insist.”

“You know, of course”—Reichert leaned heavily on Morgan’s arm—“that I would give anything to prevent this. I mean, the fact that I want to stay doesn’t mean I approve.”

“I understand, Dan. I understand completely. Why don’t the two of you go over there where there are some empty chairs.” Koesler gestured to the recessed grotto where a religious statue stood. The sight-line wouldn’t be the best. But at least they could sit down, relax—and be more comfortable than they were now.