“How are you, Nancy?” boomed Luke Catano, as he moved his way through the Stockyard to the big booth— already crowded, he could see— at the window overlooking the turnpike.
“Good to see you, Monsignor,” the waitress replied brightly, pleased to be recognized by name.
Nancy. How had he come up with that name? Catano had no idea. She wasn’t wearing a name tag. He couldn’t remember ever hearing her name. But it was Nancy. He had been sure of it, somehow. It was one of those days. The weather was beautiful, he was looking forward to time away from this work and a hearty lunch with old friends, and now he was— what?—clairvoyant? He chuckled. Fat chance of that.
Catano didn’t pause to ask himself how Nancy knew that he was a monsignor. That didn’t take any special insight. At lunchtime on Thursdays, the priests at that table were pretty much all monsignors. These were the big wheels of the Boston archdiocese: the pastors of the busiest parishes. The membership of the group changed gradually from year to year. At some point in the past, a senior cleric had remarked at a luncheon meeting that these were the heavyweights of the archdiocese. The title stuck. When Luke Catano had first been invited to the weekly meetings, he was asked to join “the heavyweights.”
More than one junior cleric, hearing the name, had observed that it was physically accurate as well. Luke unconsciously patted the front of his clerical shirt as he approached the table. He was a stocky, muscular man, and the last time he had been shopping for them, the clerical shirts in his collar size (18) had been billowy enough to contain a 60-inch waist. The shirtmakers were making assumptions, he mused, that they might not make if the shirts had been tailored for Marine uniforms. His own waist wasn’t exactly trim any more, but he didn’t billow.
Ted Kenny, the only thin man at the table, moved over to make room for Luke to sit down. “You’re looking tanned and fit,” Luke told him, drawing a gratified smile. Catano knew that the tan was from a sun lamp; the look of outdoorsy fitness was an illusion. But Ted was a nice enough guy. Why not be pleasant?
It had been Ed Kenney when he entered the seminary. Then came the 1962 elections, and he decided that he wanted to be Ted, like the young senator. Thereafter he took perverse pleasure in introducing himself at new parish assignments as “Ted Kenny, not to be confused with Ted Kennedy.” Not much of a joke, but the congregation always laughed.
No doubt the laughter was forced, motivated by nervousness or sympathy or pity. But Kenney was genuinely popular with his parishioners, as he was with everyone else. He was an affable man, as anxious to oblige as he was to impress. Now he had his own big parish in Stoneham, his name was mentioned as a likely candidate to be the next auxiliary bishop, and he was still the youngest man here at the “heavyweight” table. And easily the lightest: a lightweight among the heavyweights.
Ted had a class of white wine in front of his plate. He flagged down the waitress (not Nancy, Luke was disappointed to see: another middle-aged woman, whose name did not magically come to his mind, although her face was familiar) and Luke ordered a draft beer. He looked around the table and saw that several of the others had Bloody Marys. The Stockyard was known for its Bloody Marys, served with just the right amount of bite. A Bloody Mary is often recommended as a hangover remedy. The Stockyard was very popular with the Boston clergy. These facts were not unrelated.
But the hangover cure was not the only reason for the restaurant’s popularity among priests. The food was good— not particularly innovative, but more exciting than the normal fare produced by a parish housekeeper— and the portions were generous. Best of all it was conveniently located near the chancery, so pastors who had business with archdiocesan officials could schedule their meetings at Lake Street for late in the morning, enjoy a good lunch, and then hop on the turnpike, or Soldiers’ Field Road, or Brighton Ave, for a quick trip back to the rectory. The Stockyard was the natural choice for this informal club of pastors and chancery officials, with anywhere from six to ten gathering on a given Thursday.
Luke looked forward to the lunches; he enjoyed being a part of this group. Yet was not quite a full member of the inner circle. For one thing he was Italian, and the “Irish Mafia” still dominated the clerical establishment in Boston. He had known that from childhood, but the message was driven home when he entered the seminary and his own name was changed. His classmates— all the Joes and Jacks and Toms and Bobs— could not wrap their tongues around “Luciano.” Since it seemed that everyone had to have a nickname, and “Lucy” definitely wouldn’t work, they settled on Luke. He didn’t particularly like it, but he lived with it. Now, aside from his relatives, Archbishop Devlin was the only one who used his baptismal name.
Then in another way he couldn’t really belong to the inner circle because he wasn’t Italian enough. He hadn’t been one of the top students at the seminary, the faculty hadn’t seen him as destined for great things, so he wasn’t sent to study at the North American College in Rome. There his more studious classmates had acquired that peculiar clerical sense of finesse, the romanitas, that set them apart.
Luke’s beer arrived. It was the only beer at the table. He took pride in his simple tastes, his blue-collar roots. He wasn’t at this table because of his breeding or any acquired finesse. He was here because he worked hard. He had volunteered for tough assignments (an inner-city parish, a moribund suburban church with a parochial school deep in debt), banged away at the problems, and got things done. He would never be a bishop, but he was recognized as an effective pastor. The archbishop counted on him; he sent him young curates (pastoral associates, they were called now) like Andy Miller: promising young men who just needed a bit more practical on-the-job training.
Luke had been the last to arrive, and several of the heavyweights were already ordering their second drinks. He frowned. Too early to get started. Some of these men were letting themselves go, and probably letting their parishes go as well. “Retired in Place,” he called it: RIP. Still serving as pastors, but no longer working at it. Spending too much time at their places on Cape Cod.
Once the drinks and the meals were ordered, Luke settled back to listen to the latest clerical gossip. He wasn’t involved with the inner political workings of the archdiocese, but he learned a lot at these meetings. He never had understood the arcane subtleties of the Roman-trained mind. He marveled at his friends’ ability to speak so confidently about what their superiors— not just Archbishop Devlin, whom he knew as well as they did, but Vatican officials— were thinking.
How did they know so much about what was happening in Rome? The clerical grapevine was very active, of course, but Luke had recognized some time ago that most of the “news” exchanged at these luncheons was unreliable. The men at this table made very confident predictions that usually did not come to pass. He had seen some of them speak with equal authority in choosing the wine at dinner, and he questioned whether they know much about wine as well.
Not that Luke was a wine expert himself. He had never had the time (or the money) to learn much about wine. He was happy to drink whatever other folks chose. He didn’t take the time to keep current with the clerical scuttlebutt, either. So once a month— not every week, but often enough to stay current— he sat and listened.
Maybe it was all a pose; maybe they were faking their expertise. But Luke couldn’t deny that he lacked their social skills: their ability to mingle comfortably with the rich and famous. They might not know one vintage from another, but they at least they knew how to pretend. Luke took another swig of his beer.
Luke didn’t take summer vacations amid the rich and famous, either. The other heavyweights bought homes on the Cape: usually little cottages, shared with one or two other priests, maybe on the less expensive side of town, but still close enough to the seashore mansions. They would head there for vacations, on long weekends, maybe even for a day or two during a slow week. Not Luke. He lived full-time in his rectory. When he took a vacation he visited with family or with an old high-school teammate or maybe, when he chose to travel, he stayed in a hotel. He had no need for a place on Cape Cod. A “place,” the Irish called it; they would never refer to it as a house or a home or even a cottage. They didn’t have “parties,” either. For a birthday or an anniversary, they would have a “time.” (“We’re having a time next week to raise money for the gym.”) He understood the dialect, but even after all these years he found it curious.
Usually Luke was not talkative in this company. But now he noticed that Rick Sullivan was seated across the table, and he knew what was coming. Rick, who had been an outstanding athlete in his youth (many years ago now), still had the easy bonhomie of a born jock, and now he was re-living his glory days in a strange way, by recalling one of his rare athletic failures.
“You know, I’ve forgiven you,” Rick said. Luke gave him a tired smile. Rick raised his voice so that everyone could hear (while Luke wondered to himself how many people at the table had already heard this story).
“You know, I was a big deal as a high-school ballplayer. Senior year, I had pro scouts coming to my last game. Two of them: from the Pirates and the Tigers. I got a line-drive single my first time up, and then this chunky little catcher from Malden Catholic (he pointed toward Luke) gunned me down trying to steal.”
Luke had been a mediocre player— good field, no hit— but he had a strong arm and he had seen Rick leaning. Luke listened to the story of Rick’s inglorious final game for the umpteenth time with an indulgent smile.
“I’ve always wondered: how did you know that I was going to run?” Rick asked.
“Because I knew the scouts were watching, too,” Luke answered. A moment passed, then a ripple of laughter ran around the table.
When the meals came— red meat all around; only Ted Kenny ordered chicken—the tone of the conversation shifted from joking and story-telling to more serious discussion. The heavyweights enjoyed talking about politics, local and national, and spoke with complete confidence— that ineffable romanitas!—that they understood the issues better than the pundits or the politicians themselves. But they also shared stories about the practical business of running a parish. Mike Goldin had found a way to protect the face of the clock on his church steeple; he strongly recommended Lexan. (But who else had a clock on his steeple?) Bob Wright reported that the police had finally reeled in the woman who had been raising money from shoppers at Downtown Crossing, dressed as a nun (which she was not) and saying the funds would go to her non-existent orphanage. Ed Meade warned that another grifter was in town, posing as a priest, looking for an empty room in a rectory.
Today, however, the hottest topic was the rumor that the Pope would soon call a consistory to name new cardinals. Would Devlin (invariably “Dev” in their conversation, although never to his face) be getting a red hat? He was an obvious candidate, as the head of a large historic archdiocese. The last three archbishops had all become cardinals. The Vatican generally avoided having two cardinals in the same city (Rome excepted), but the old cardinal had been dead for almost two years now, so the timing seemed right. The only real question, the heavyweights agreed among themselves, was whether Dev— who wanted the red hat very badly, they all understood— had damaged his own chances by being so outspoken about El Salvador.
“You can be sure the White House wouldn’t be happy if Dev got a red hat,” remarked Bob Wright. “But I don’t know that they’d have a chance to say anything about it.”
“Probably not,” responded Ed Meade. “But Stato [the Vatican Secretariat of State] would still be sensitive to what the White House might think.”
Luke kept quiet. He was not politically savvy; since he was not particularly interested in politics, the defect did not bother him. He would have been more comfortable talking about the virtues of Lexan, or the best way to deal with the contractors building a new school hall. He wasn’t ready to analyze the latest thinking of people he did not know, sitting at desks far away in Rome.
But this week, it turned out, he could not be a passive bystander. The heavyweights had reached a consensus that if Dev wanted a red hat, he could not afford any unwanted controversy, about El Salvador or anything else. At that, heads turned toward Catano.
“Is that young Miller going to be a problem?” Dan White wanted to know.
“The kid who played hoops for BC?” Rick Sullivan asked. No one responded; the group was not interested in talking about basketball.
“Not at all,” Catano replied. “He’s not the type to make a scene about anything— least of all politics. He’s not a political animal. And as a matter of fact, on El Salvador he’s closer to Dev than to his brother.” Caught off guard by such a direct question, Luke realized that he was responding defensively. Looking around the table, seeing questions on every face, he wondered if he was missing something.
“Or is that what worries you: that he’ll get into some sort of public fight with his brother?” he asked.
“No, Luke,” answered White, not bothering to conceal his condescension. White, a short pudgy man, had spent several years as secretary to the previous archbishop before being rewarded with his affluent parish in West Roxbury. No longer young, he still had the look of an up-and-coming cleric, with his $25 haircut and his French cuffs, and he took an extra measure of pride in knowing (or divining) the wishes of the current archbishop. “We’re worried about his other habits. Is your young curate going to hit the headlines, acting like a witch doctor?”
Oh, so that was it! While imperious little Dan White was acting as the inquisitor— two martinis on an empty stomach will do that— Luke could see that everyone was waiting for his answer. This wasn’t a political issue, then; this was about Andy’s conduct as a priest. Luke was back on familiar ground. He answered slowly, emphatically, with an edge in his voice. In this group it was very unusual for a pastor to be questioned about his handling of a younger priest. Luke didn’t appreciate being challenged.
“Don’t you worry about Andy Miller, Dan. He’s a good kid, and he’s going to be a good priest. He’s nervous, he’s too sensitive, he’s naïve, and he’s way too self-conscious. But he’s smart, he works hard, and he cares about people. He’s going to be a good priest,” he repeated.
“But what about these ‘healing services?’” Dan White drew out the words “healing services” with a sneer.
Later, as he drove home, when the heat of the moment had passed, Luke realized that he had flared up at White’s snide remarks in part because not so long ago, he had the same ideas about the healing services. He hated the loud music, the excitement, the emotional pitch of the congregation. He mistrusted the claims of many parishioners that they had been “healed” of vague complaints. Healed of a grudge, or healed of a worry: were these real blessings, or were people experiencing a sort of placebo effect? Luke detested the television preachers who claimed all sorts of healing powers; he knew they were frauds.
Yet he felt sure that Andy Miller was not a fraud. Andy seemed almost as uncomfortable with the whole thing as he was. For that matter Betsy Howell, although she could be exquisitely annoying, was not a fraud; she was a very faithful woman of the Church, without a trace of self-interest in her motivations. So Luke had held his skepticism in abeyance, letting the services continue— although he stayed away, himself.
“OK, if you’re uncomfortable with that sort of thing, so am I,” Luke admitted. “You know me. I don’t go in for that kind of drama.” He heard a few suppressed snorts around the table, and knew he had scored a point. Catano had earned his reputation as a hard-nosed, by-the-book pastor. If the heavyweights were surprised that he had allowed Andy to continue those services, he didn’t blame them; he was more than a little surprised himself. But he wasn’t backing down.
“Yeah, he’s given me heartburn a few times with those services,” he conceded. “I gave permission for them, but when I saw what they were like, I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. Still, honestly, aside from the fact that they make me uncomfortable, I don’t see any harm in them. And you know,” he slowed down to underline the next few words, “the Church isn’t here to make us comfortable.”
Now Luke was coming dangerously close to breaking the unwritten rule that at these lunches, priests would not preach to each other.
“Andy has his problems,” he continued. “We all did, starting out. You can’t expect a newly ordained priest to have the same practical sense that we all have.” He let those words sink in, too; they all caught the irony, knowing that Luke wasn’t terribly impressed with their practical sense. Let these guys take a second or two to think about how fat and happy they’ve all become. “He’s too eager to please, he doesn’t know how to say No, and there’s this one old lady in the parish who’s talked him into these situations.”
“The miracle lady?” Dan White asked. The sneer was becoming tiresome.
“Yup, that’s the one.” Luke wasn’t going to take the bait. He was annoyed, being asked to defend his own curate— which meant defending his management of his own parish. “Don’t worry about Andy Miller,” he said. “I’m working on him.”
“Well, work faster,” Joe Sprague nearly shouted from the far end of the table. “There’s a consistory coming up any day now, and our boy needs his red hat!” Everyone laughed, defusing the tension.
But now Luke felt the urge to say more, to show these heavyweights how a practical pastor thought. At the same time he wanted to see whether other pastors shared his concerns.
“I’ll tell you something,” he said earnestly. “It’s not Andy Miller that I worry about. It’s Ed Mulvey. He’s not interested in normal parish work. He spends all his time with the kids. And some of their parents are started to complain about it.” He saw the other monsignors nodding. They knew what he meant; he didn’t have to spell it out. Everyone understood.
“Don’t worry too much about that, Luke,” Chris Leary assured him. Chris would know; he’d had to cope with the fallout a year or two ago, when a pair of unsuspecting parents came home early from their vacation and found their teenage son hosting a keg party, with Chris’s young pastoral associate, gloriously drunk, leading the festivities. “If it gets to be a problem, the chancery will pull him out of your parish. Maybe send him away for a couple of weeks to that place in Maryland, maybe give him a new parish assignment. He’ll calm down, and so will the parents.”
“If Ed Mulvey has a problem, he isn’t alone,” said Dan White, drawing some mumbles of discomfort from others. “We can handle it. Just don’t make a big production out of it. Isn’t that the real problem with your friend Andy Miller? Isn’t he the one who accused Mulvey?”
“Accused him of what? What are you saying?” Now Luke was angry again. “Andy didn’t accuse Mulvey of anything like that. Sounds to me as if you’re making some assumptions about what Mulvey did. Andy just said that Mulvey seemed depressed— that he seemed like he needed help. And you know what? He was right! Mulvey isn’t interested in the priesthood right now. He has no prayer life, as far as I can tell. He’s headed for trouble, one way or another. I give Andy credit for saying that; I should have said it myself.”
Now Ted Kenny chimed in. “I thought Andy was the one who needs help. Didn’t you say so yourself, just a couple of weeks ago? That Andy needed some counseling?”
The meal was done, the bill had been paid, and some priests were making moves to leave the table, perhaps anxious to get away from a confrontation. Luke stood, too, but he was not ready to drop the subject.
“Yes, I said that. He could use some work on his self-esteem, for sure,” he said. “But I was only half serious. He’s a good kid. I’m not worried about him.”
“Luke, my friend,” said Rick Sullivan, as he brushed past on his way to the door, “don’t worry about Ed Mulvey. Worry a bit more about Miller. I dunno about the healing services, but I know that he needs to learn how to play ball. He needs to learn how to be a team player.”