Clerical Error Read online

  James frowned. If these multiple schools in different locations were the consolidation of five parishes… “Who pays the deficit?”

  Father Sadowski nodded approvingly. “That’s always the key question, isn’t it? Don’t talk about team ministries which have no pastorate; find out which is econome, which one signs the checks. In this case, you have the perfect example of authority without responsibility. The sisters – in this case, Mary Jane – spend and the five parishes in the district incur the debt.”

  “That’s senseless,” snorted James, losing his neutrality. “You told me that you were on subsidy. Are you going to pay the Bishop back with his own money? It’s crazy.”

  “Crazy like an accountant,” Gus explained. “The diocese is a corporation sole under the laws of this state: that makes the bishop president of the corporation. All of the pastors are legally assistant treasurers. How do you think I wound up with a parish with the three names of Sts. Gabriel, Columcille, and Rocco? St Gabriel Perboyre was a parish set up by the Vincentian fathers in order to serve the French immigrants after the revolution of 1789. Gabriel Perboyre closed in 1929, so its records were transferred to the nearest parish, St Columcille.

  “When the Italians came here in the late 1800s, the Irish hierarchy didn’t think that they would mix well with the English-speakers for at least a generation, and, like all immigrant groups except the present generation of Hispanics, they brought their own clergy with them. So they created St. Rocco’s as an Italian national church within the boundaries of St. Columcille, just as they did for the Poles, and Lithuanians, and every other language group. They eventually Americanized themselves out of existence and, in the case of this neighborhood, fell victim to ‘white flight’ twenty years ago. The Bishop kept it open for another ten years until Father Manzini died. On the whole it worked: twenty-five years ago when I got here, Pastor McGuiness was still enough of an old bigot that he would send the Italians across Cleveland Street to ‘their’ church. Anyway, this parish has inherited all three titles, just in case any old parishioner dies and leaves money in his will to any of the three churches by name.

  “It works the same way with the school debt or the subsidy. I sign an IOU every year. When, as, and if the little bastards burn me out, the diocese gets first claim on the insurance and then may decide whether or not to let the building be rebuilt.”

  James rather conspicuously looked at his wrist watch.

  “About Tim,” sighed Gus. “What do I do?”

  “You’re the one who believes in authority. You’re the guy who complains his hands are tied. So go be a good little soldier, call the vicar. and let him solve it.”

  Gus broke into a grin for the first time in the last two days. He showed large, oversized teeth of great strength and dazzling whiteness, which made his skin appear darker by contrast.

  He nearly laughed as he reached for the phone on his desk. “Why not?”

  James noted that the dial showed a number other than the parish’s.

  After some delay, Father Sadowski got through to the vicar.

  “Good afternoon, Monsignor,” Gus boomed, as if trying to yell loud enough to cover the distance. “This is Father Sadowski at St. Gabriel’s. I’ve run into a little problem here.”

  Gus outlined the need for painting, and the discovery of “sadomasochistic literature and devices” among Tim’s affects, and then… nothing. Just one “Yes, Monsignor” after another.

  Eventually, Gus slammed down the phone and turned an angry face to James.

  “‘Just box it up and lock it in a closet, Gus.’ The slimy SOB doesn’t want to know anything about it.”

  “Are you going to follow orders?”

  “Hell, no! I won’t have that garbage in the house. Between local arsonists or nosy housekeepers, it could wind up in the garbage or thrown out in the street.”

  “So dispose of it as you did the liquor bottles.”

  “The way I drive? If I got into an accident it would be all over Metro Police that ‘black priests sure are different from Irish ones’,” retorted Sadowski in a broad, self-mocking brogue. “Growing up in an Irish church, I’m probably more O’Irish than any of them… I’d rather have you dump it.”

  It was James’s turn to laugh. “I knew that’s where you were heading. Of course I’ll do it. No big deal. We’ll leave the bag here and I’ll dispose of the box tomorrow before I get back from class.” James drew on a sober face. “If you draw any flack, throw all of it at me. ‘Sorry, Tim. Sorry, Monsignor. I had this layman helping me out since I have no assistant’—There is no excuse to miss the chance to stick it to them about your dilemma—‘and this assistant took offense and disposed of that crap without telling me where or when.’ Please note that I am not telling you the hour or place of disposal so that you will have to tell no lies.”

  Father Sadowski sighed once more. “It doesn’t solve anything but the immediate problem, but I should be grateful for that. Did I ever tell you about the man who was grateful for everything? He ran a little jump-up church— you must have seen them on your way here. ‘The First Pentecostal Holiness Church of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Mary, and the Inspired Apostles, African Methodist Spiritualist Church, Inc.’ The congregation was almost as big as the title. One day the little man was passing his hat for the collection and it came back empty. Without pausing a second, he raised his voice to thank God for getting his hat back.”

  “You’re making that up,” chided James.

  “The first rule of parable making is to never ruin a good story by over-verification.” Gus shrugged. “In truth, though, I actually met him at an ecumenical service. I’d like to introduce him to some Franciscans who’ve forgotten what they’re all about. Isn’t that a rotten thing to say? What do the shrinks call it? Transferred aggression? Let’s go down and transfer it to getting some clerical work out of the way.”

  “Ugh! Was that painful pun premeditated?”

  “What?” Gus asked. “Clerical work? … – Oh! No, not really… get outta here.”

  They both went down to the office where James was introduced to the wonderful world of parochial paperwork.

  “We have records which go deep into the nineteenth century,” Gus explained. “But there are at least three requests generated from each person baptized.”

  “Three?”

  “We give the parents a baptismal certificate, which they put in such a safe place that most of them can’t find it when they need it for the child’s First Communion or Confirmation. Then they need a new copy, anyway, for their marriage…”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the back,” replied Gus Sadowski, flipping over a form with spaces for the date and church where Communion, Confirmation, and Matrimony or Holy Orders were first granted. “A certificate issued no earlier than six months before the wedding is necessary to avoid our collaboration in someone’s bigamy… and you do get some hard-nosed junior clergy who will not preside at a wedding unless the couple have been confirmed. Their reasoning is good: unless you are an ecclesiastical adult, how can you receive a sacrament intended for adults? Unfortunately, to a bare-minimum Catholic, it must seem more like harassment at a time when wedding plans are already too hectic.

  “Look at the entry lines in the baptismal register. Name, parents’ names, date of birth, parents’ address at the date of baptism, then the date of baptism, Godparents, and priest. The comments column at the far right gets filled with later sacraments, and, occasionally, a death notice.”

  James nodded. “I can see what you meant last night about Immigration using these to get an address but what’s the pater ignotus for?”

  “Everybody may know who fathered the little illegitimi but unless he swears it out on a piece of paper, we cannot enter his name in the book. Otherwise, the book could be subpoenaed in the mother’s paternity suit against the father.”

  James flipped some pages. “And this?”

  “That is a chancery file number. Any request
s on that entry are transshipped immediately to that file number at the Chancery and they process it.”

  “Why do it that way?”

  “Maybe it’s a priest who has applied to go civilian, or an annulment on psychiatric grounds, or something else where an extra measure of privacy is in the individual’s best interests.”

  “Rebaptism?” asked James, pointing to another entry.

  “One of my parishioners got cute. Rather than change the entry as it appears at the first parish, Our Lady of Lepanto, the mother passed off the child of her first civil marriage as the child of her second, thus changing the last name and giving the child two valid certificates in two different names.”

  “How do you catch something like that?”

  “In this case, someone told me. I checked it out and put a stop on this line.”

  With all explained, Father Gus dropped a pile of envelopes on the desk with a large smile. “I’ve been saving these for the last week. You have no idea how much I hate doing these.” At that point, Father launched into a long narrative of a pastor who dumped this chore on his curates in thirty-day increments to fill up their duty days.

  By three in the afternoon, James was into the swing of things, when the bell rang. Father jumped up and James elected to stay and finish off the last form.

  “Dr. James, I’d like you to meet Cynthia Vasquez. Cynthia, this is my new assistant.”

  James kept a straight face by effort as he looked at this healthily complected young lady whose excessive mammaries must have frequently distracted men from seeing her light brown hair and hazel eyes. After the conventional introductory phrases, Father filled her holy water container from the sacristy and was grinning when he returned.

  Gus had a seat, and worked on relighting his cigar. “So, how old is she?” asked Gus with a grin.

  James rolled his eyes. “OK, a trick question I presume. She mustn’t be 18 or older, or you wouldn’t ask, so I’ll say 16.”

  “Nope. Twelve.”

  Gus’s full display of smiling teeth showed James’s stupefaction better than any mirror. “I wanted you to meet her because I want you to know why I don’t like dealing with parishioners between baptism and marriage. What these children and teenagers accept as a normal part of existence, like pregnant preteens or child addicts, is so far from my own experiences that I have to let my junior associate handle all those clubs and societies.”

  “You do realize that you are wearing the same smile you had when you dropped the certificate chores on me. Score two for the pastor.”

  The phone rang. Gus jumped. He grabbed the phone. After a moment, he boomed, “YES, SPEAKING... THAT’S WONDERFUL, PAT… Earthquake survivor… Castile… Managua… that’s only down the road four miles… sister and brother-in-law… tomorrow morning would be perfect… I owe you more than I can hope to repay… Thanks again, Pat.”

  Gus turned to James and grinned. “That was—”

  “Pat Clancy,” James finished.

  ”About a—”

  “Spanish priest,” James concluded.

  Gus nodded. “This guy comes from—”

  James nodded. “Castile.”

  “Was ordained for—”

  “Nicaragua.”

  “But was wiped out by—”

  “The earthquake, and is now a semi-invalid living with his family not too far from here,” concluded James smugly, having bested his host at his favorite game, verbal ping-pong.

  “Do you mind my—”

  “Interviewing him while I’m out at the college? Of course not. I’m only temporary. This guy could be permanent. I hope it pans out.”

  “You do take the fun out of things,” grumbled the priest. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s rude to interrupt?”

  “Sorry. I can’t think where I picked up that deplorable habit,” he drawled. The verbal shot across the bows went straight over Gus’s head.

  Classical respect for the clergy is going to take a beating as long as I’m in this house, concluded James.

  Meanwhile, Gus had gone on to yet another track. “And if we hurry, we can be there before three-thirty.” He took an envelope from the safe and headed for the door.

  James followed at a trot. Graduate studies, teaching, and long commuter drives were no preparation for this. I’ve had more physical activity today than in the last two months.

  Once in the car, James figured out that they were getting $1000 out of the bank for the Thursday night bingo money. Gus Sadowski chattered on relentlessly about the rules of the State Bingo Commission but James knew that Gus couldn’t delegate anything. He had positively hovered over James’ shoulder checking out every baptismal certificate. Therefore, James deduced that he’d be expected to mind the house on Thursday night.

  “So you’ll take the house, right?” Gus said.

  James blinked. “When?”

  “While I go out to dinner,” said Gus in a you-weren’t-listening voice.

  “I thought you were proud of Luraleen’s cooking,” he teased.

  “Yes, but it’s an hour or two away from the house and the phone… and I still need some time alone. I never did get that walk.”

  The reference to Tim – who the walk was supposed to be about – forced James’s quick assent.

  Business at the bank went uneventfully even though James blanched at carrying a moneybag out to the car.

  “Forget planned robberies,” insisted James on the way home, “so long as you tote a moneybag you are the target of opportunity. I’ll use my briefcase next week, if you don’t mind.”

  “My cousin on the force could lend you his handcuffs so you could ‘courier’ the case.”

  James laughed. “And lose my hand to some escapee from the cracker-factory who carries a machete? No, thank you! Did I ever tell you about my first job? I’d dated this girl in high school whose father was a lawyer. He got a large depositor to lean on this bank to offer me a summer job. I was seventeen, so I was too young to be bonded as a teller and wound up clerking.

  “We had this one VP who thought he was Mister Entertainment. He was the banker to a film company, a couple of record corps, and thought he was real hot stuff. He looked like Victor Buono and dressed in some of the loudest plaids I’ve ever seen.

  “One day he was going to the track with some clients and wanted ‘something different’ to impress them. So I got sent to one end of town to pick up five hundred two-dollar bills and then to the other end where the bindery was to turn them into five ‘check pads’ of $200 each. If I hadn’t been taking night classes and carrying a briefcase, I’d have never made it. Be ordinary. Blend in. It’s much safer that way.”

  “I think you might be right, Doctor,” said Gus in mild surprise. “Over at St. Nicholas, where the collection is easily ten times mine, a little man from Wells Fargo makes his pickup every Tuesday in two suitcases.”

  “And if someone robs him?”

  “He hands over both suitcases, lets the robber picks them up, then draws his gun, handcuffs them to a parking meter and calls the cops.”

  “Cute,” acknowledged James.

  “I’ll just drop you off at the backdoor, OK? Be sure to put the prize money in the safe behind the baptismal records from St. Rocco.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  STORIES

  TUESDAY EVENING

  The peace and quiet was enviable. In the first hour, James had finished the thriller he was reading. During the second, he set up for Mass, and then ran up to his room for a copy of an Edmund Crispin detective story. He liked them because of the English-professor sidekick to a police detective who had professorial ideas about English literature.

  A quarter of the way through the book, the doorbell rang. James found a short, tubby, round-faced Oriental smiling on his doorstep.

  James smiled, slightly surprised. That face did not fit into that neighborhood. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here for evening Mass.”

&nbs
p; “The Church is open,” James said politely

  The Asiatic’s smile grew wider. He stepped into the vestibule, saying, “Yes, I know, but it would help if I dressed before I said it.”

  James blinked, surprised. “Oops. Sorry, Father.”

  He shrugged. “No offense. Just don’t tell me that I don’t look like a priest.”

  “Well,” James replied, “I’m still not used to blue corduroy lumberjack shirts with leather jackets as clerical attire.”

  The Asian priest laughed, and nodded. “OK, I can accept that. I assume you’re this professor that Clancy told me about.”

  James nodded, then sighed. “Where is my common sense? Come on inside and we’ll find a place to put your coat. Some coffee?”

  He shook his head. “Too close to Mass. Anyway, dinner will be waiting for me when I get back to the residence.”

  James then introduced himself.

  The other priest gave a little bow. “Father Francis Xavier Yamamoto, Diocesan Tribunal. Please call me Frank.”

  James nodded slowly, filing away the name. “Forgive the curiosity, but I didn’t realize that this diocese had a sizable Japanese community.”

  “It doesn’t. I was born in Hiroshima.”

  James’ brows shot up. “Before or after—?”

  Yamamoto shrugged. “During. I cried and the city fell down. My parents told me that Father Arrupe, the current head of the Jesuits, was a missionary there and was very helpful to my family and to many others in the aftermath.”

  “Isn’t that what Cicero might have called ‘being born under an auspicious sign’?”

  Father Yamamoto laughed. “Droll. Quite droll. What do you teach?”

  “Philosophy.”

  “What’s your AOS?”

  “Hunh?”

  Father Yamamoto raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have an area of specialization?”

  He tried not to laugh. “Father,” began James in that patient and apologizing voice he always fell into when discussing Cambridge College, “I teach at a suburban Catholic women’s college across the river, in darkest Jersey. The enrollment is 600. For the campus. My three faculty teach eighteen courses on a two-year rotation. If it isn’t a new course each semester in order to carry out some nunny administratrix’s idea of ‘relevance,’ then it’s some two courses you have to re-prep because you haven’t taught them in two years and you’ve got two years of reading to catch up on.”