Till Death Read online

  It was his impression that the internal forum solution was used often in the Detroit archdiocese. It was known popularly as the Pastoral Solution.

  Very, very few dared offer a public ceremony.

  Doubts lingered as to what would happen if he were to be publicly exposed as having challenged Church law. Doubts due only to the forbearance of the local archbishop, Cardinal Mark Boyle. Lowering the boom abruptly was not Boyle’s style. Backed into a corner, he could punish as firmly or as severely as any bishop. He tried to steer clear of that corner.

  By his fifth year at Nativity, Anderson had transformed the creaking parish into a mecca of year-round basketball called Nativityville. He also had soothed uncounted troubled consciences.

  As succeeding years rolled by, Father Anderson had become a parish institution. And then one day what he feared might happen did happen. He had almost convinced himself that it was so improbable it was impossible.

  It started with the telephone. The pastor was out making hospital calls. Anderson picked up the ringing phone. “Nativity,” he identified.

  “This Father Anderson?” The voice was familiar. It had a manly, professional tone.

  “Yes. And you are …”

  “Dea. That’s spelled D-E-A. Pronounced DAY.”

  Anderson put it together. “Dana Dea. The TV guy?”

  “The same. I wonder if I could have a little of your time?”

  Anderson hesitated. The call caught him by surprise. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”

  “Better face-to-face, Father. Got some time?”

  Anderson consulted his calendar. “How about late tomorrow afternoon? Say, five?”

  “Not so good. How about after dinner today. Say, eight?”

  “Uh … okay.”

  “See you then.” Dea hung up.

  Anderson wanted more information. The connection had been broken too abruptly. He tried to guess at the reason for the call. The only thing Nativity had that could be construed as newsy was the basketball program. Although nothing out of the ordinary was going on in the program currently, it was the only newsmaker he could think of. It must be sports.

  Promptly at eight the doorbell rang. In cassock and clerical collar, Anderson answered the door. Unlike many of his colleagues, he routinely wore the uniform. He needed it to work his little miracles such as witnessing weddings without benefit of Tribunal.

  Dea in the flesh was more impressive than he was on TV—though he was handsome enough in the medium. At a little over six feet, he was several inches taller than the priest. Thinning hair had given him a widow’s peak. His teeth caught the light and reflected it tenfold.

  He extended his hand. “Dana Dea,” he identified himself once more. “And this,” he indicated his companion, “is Trish Murrow.”

  As tall as Anderson, she was strikingly beautiful. Her thick black hair fell in waves to her shoulders. Her skin was not merely black, but deep ebony—almost purple. He guessed she was a model.

  Dea completed the introduction. “Trish is my fiancée.”

  Uh-oh. Anderson’s inner antennae went on alert. This, he thought, could be the start of something dangerous.

  Anderson led the couple into his office. After everyone was seated around Anderson’s desk, he looked at them, waiting.

  “I introduced Trish as my fiancée, Father, because we want to get married.”

  “I could have guessed.”

  Dea’s smile sparkled. “It’s that transparent, eh, Father?”

  Anderson nodded. “Would it be safe to guess that Dana Dea is not your real name? It sounds so perfect for TV”

  The smile never quit. “It is now. Had it changed legally when I started making it big in television. You need my real name?”

  “For the moment, Dana Dea is fine. You want to get married. I guess the appropriate question is, Why are you here? We get a pretty good crowd for the weekend Masses. But you two are outstanding. I can’t believe you’ve been attending our Masses and I never noticed you.”

  “Right! We’re from Grosse Pointe Farms.”

  The Farms sounded like the proper place for this couple. The clothes these two were wearing would cost probably a whole month’s salary for a Nativity parishioner.

  “When last I looked,” Anderson said, “there were four parishes in the Pointes. So, once again, why here?”

  “We live in St. Andrew’s parish.” Dea said. “We talked it over with the pastor. He didn’t hold out much hope.”

  “There’s a problem?” Anderson could have predicted some sort of problem the moment he’d met them at the door.

  “We didn’t think there was a problem. It came as a complete surprise.”

  Anderson was aware that Trish had not said word one. “Cutting through to the heart of this, what was the problem the priest at St. Andrew’s found?”

  “I was married before,” Dea stated.

  “Oh.”

  “But it didn’t count. I was sure it didn’t count. But that other priest said it counted.”

  “Odds are it did count. Gimme a rundown on it.”

  “I got married about five years ago. I got divorced four years ago. That should count for something … I mean, the marriage only lasted a year.”

  “Maybe,” Anderson said cautiously. “Tell me some more.”

  “Well, not only did we stick it out for just a year, but I’m not a Catholic.”

  “Was your first wife a Catholic?”

  “No. Methodist.”

  “And you?”

  “Episcopalian. Neither of us practiced any religion.”

  “You were married by …?”

  “A judge. You see what I mean, Father?” Dea spread his hands in an explanatory gesture. “There wasn’t anything religious about it. The Catholic Church had nothing to do with it. Now we want to be married in the Catholic Church.”

  “Why?”

  “Trish here—he nodded in her direction—is Catholic.”

  “You are a baptized Catholic, Trish?” Anderson swiveled toward her.

  “Yes, as a baby, Father.” Her clipped accent was as attractive as she was.

  “You’ve never been married?”

  “No, Father.”

  “See,” Dea cut in, “she was born and raised in Haiti. She emigrated to America when that priest was elected president.”

  “Father Aristide,” she supplied.

  “Yeah. It didn’t take her long to sign up with an agency as a model. You can see she really looks the part.”

  “Yes, indeedy” Anderson rubbed his eyes. He had had a busy and demanding day. Very much like any other ordinary day. “Well, let’s do the drill.”

  “What?” Dea didn’t understand.

  “I’ll just ask you some questions. From that we ought to know how your case would stand up at the Tribunal.”

  Anderson’s questions were right out of Church law. They were comprehensive and covered every possible impediment that would have rendered Dea’s first marriage invalid. Nothing emerged that would provide grounds for an annulment.

  At the end of the interrogation, Anderson shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dana. I wish I could tell you you could build a case to challenge your marriage. But there’s nothing there.”

  Dea inched forward in his chair. “These questions were just about the same as the other Father asked. I can’t swear that they were exactly the same. But you both were in the same ballpark.”

  “Dana, did you think we made these things up? When it comes to Church law, we’ve all got the same books on our shelves.”

  “Okay, I thought maybe there’d be a difference. You know, like going to a doctor and then going to another one … to get a second opinion.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But you can do more.”

  Just as Dea had inched nearer to Anderson, the priest now retreated by pushing his own chair back a few inches. Anderson suspected what Dea had in mind. The Pastoral Solution.

  Ordinarily, at this point, when he wa
s dealing with any of his parishioners, it was he himself who brought up the noncanonical solution.

  But this one was different.

  Actually, he was not fully aware of what was different. But it had something to do with the status of this couple. They were not the obscure blue-collar people with whom he was used to dealing. These two belonged with the movers and shakers of local society. These were celebrities.

  The Pastoral Solution was a subject for the internal forum. This couple probably wouldn’t recognize something of any importance in secrecy if they found themselves immersed in it.

  On the other hand, what could be the consequences if either or both went public? They were free to do so. It was their secret as much as his. No matter what they did, he was in a position neither to affirm or deny it.

  It wasn’t as “safe” as if he refused to help them. That way there could be no negative outside reaction. But if he did help them, and if for whatever reason it reached the external forum, and he refused to comment, he was convinced, still there would be no repercussion. He would leave Cardinal Boyle an escape hatch. The Cardinal would not push the incident. If Father Anderson decided not to comment on the matter, then neither would his archbishop. Boyle would respect the inviolability of the secrecy just as he would were the matter protected by the seal of confession.

  All this inner argumentation took only a few moments. At this point Anderson had not even ascertained that Dea was proposing the Pastoral Solution. “What do you mean, I could do more?”

  Dea hesitated. “To be completely aboveboard, I don’t really know. The word I got was that you could fix things up.”

  “Where, may I ask, did you hear that?”

  “I don’t remember the name. Maybe I didn’t even get the name. It was about a year ago, a little less, maybe. I do remember it was raining like hell—uh, excuse my French, Father.”

  Funny, Anderson thought, if this guy were talking to anybody else, he wouldn’t have apologized. A clerical collar wasn’t everywhere. But God was. “You were saying …”

  “It was raining. I was doing a standup on one of the overpasses on 1-75. I had trouble keeping the umbrella steady and holding on to the mike at the same time. The story was that some guy had killed his wife—threw her out of his car on the freeway. All because she refused to lie so he could get a Church annulment. There was a guy who was just standing there taking it all in. Before I went on, he said something like, ‘Is that all the jerk needed? He could’ve got that from that maverick priest at Nativity.’ I thought it was an interesting comment. I tried to get him to stay and be on camera. But he slipped off in the crowd.

  “I didn’t think, at the time, I would have use for that scrap of information. But here I am.” Dea was grinning. “So, Father, you can do more. I just don’t know how much more.”

  Anderson sighed deeply. Push had come to shove. “Okay, there is another step possible. It’s called a Pastoral Solution.”

  He felt comfortable in having thought the problem through in this situation. Still their celebrity status made him uneasy.

  So, he explained that it was not precisely against the law; it was merely a simple admission that there were certain marriage cases which Church law did not address. He led them, step by step, through the entire process.

  “You mean,” Dea stated, “that all we have to do is get married by a judge, a J.P, or a minister and we can count ourselves really married. And Trish—she’s the one we’re most concerned about—she can still be a Catholic and can practice her faith?”

  “That’s about it. I’d like to go through that explanation with you one more time so you’re really clear on it. It’s kind of hard to grasp what we’re doing. I want to make sure you understand everything.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Dea said. “Real good.”

  Anderson could tell by the expression on her face that something was disturbing Trish. “What is it, Irish?” he asked.

  “You mean,” she said, “that getting married by a judge is as good as getting married by a priest?”

  “In this instance, yes.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Think in terms that you’re on an island with Dana. There isn’t anybody else on the island. You want to get married. What would you do about getting married?”

  She hesitated. “I guess we would just say the words to each other. You know: I take you as my husband for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

  “That’s exactly right. And then you would be not …” He paused.

  “… a little bit married, but a lot married.”

  He smiled. “So, in those circumstances, having no priest around to witness your words would be as good as having one.”

  Trish shook her head. “On the island there isn’t anyone else. But we’re not on an island. We’re here in Detroit. There are lots of priests around.” Tears welled in her eyes. “What am I supposed to do when I come to confession? What am I supposed to say? That I got married by a judge but that it’s okay?”

  “Why would you bring it up at all?” Anderson said. “In the confessional, we deal only in sin. Your conscience—yours and Dana’s—tells you that you are free to marry. No matrimonial Tribunal can crawl inside your conscience. Your conscience tells you one thing. The Tribunal would tell you quite the opposite. As long as your conscience is sincere, you follow it and you don’t sin. So, you don’t have to mention in the confessional how you were married. You will be really married. Just as you would be really married if a priest had witnessed it. You wouldn’t confess the way you were married if a priest had performed the ceremony, would you? Because it’s a real marriage. Well, it’s a real marriage, in your case, either way—priest or judge.”

  She said nothing. She searched in her purse, found a handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. “I understand, Father,” she said. “And I agree with everything you said. But there’s something …”

  “What is it, Irish?”

  “My upbringing, I guess, Father. Marriage, a priest, and a church all go together—if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s the way I was raised too.” Anderson turned to Dea. “What do you think of all this?”

  Dea shrugged. “None of this matters much, as far as I’m concerned. I never even think of my first wedding as a marriage. It collapsed. You could hardly even say it was a good try. We had a good … physical relationship. I think we thought it would get better if we got married. It got worse.” He grimaced. “I don’t want to go into all the lurid details. It just didn’t work. We were driving each other nuts.

  “So, it was a … it was a surprise to me when the priest said I’d have to prove that wreck was a wreck. And he, just like you, went through all the possible reasons why the Church might agree it was a wreck. Neither of you found anything that would make the Church agree that the marriage was a farce.

  “On top of that, if we did get this cripple up and off the ground, we’d have to get testimony from a whole bunch of relatives and friends and especially from my ex.

  “My conscience was clear going into this that I am free to marry. I must admit I am surprised that we found you and that you agree with us.

  “I’m clear on this deal. And I’m grateful. But, then, there’s Trish. She grew up Catholic—I guess you’d say traditional Catholic. She’s used to having a priest around for the big events of her life. Marriage certainly would qualify as a major event.” He looked at Trish, then turned back to the priest. “Maybe I can get her to change her mind. But I doubt it. You gave it a pretty good shot.”

  All three were silent for several moments.

  Anderson knew what step had to follow. He could understand Irish’s reaction to attempting marriage without benefit of a priest.

  Some Catholics who seldom if ever attend Mass—which is the core of the faith—wanted—demanded—a priest to baptize their children, to give them absolution, to anoint them when they were sick or dying—and t
o witness their marriage.

  Trish gave evidence of being a far more faithful Catholic than that. She desperately wanted a priest to witness her marriage.

  But Anderson was loath to get more deeply involved than he already was.

  Again, the problem was their celebrity. They were not ordinary people. They were, at least on the local scene, Very Important People.

  Indeed, he had performed marriage services for people who were canonically barred from a Church wedding. However, no way would those weddings have attracted any public attention.

  But Anderson had to be open and honest with this couple. That’s the way he was.

  “There …” He paused. “There is another way. If I am going to be forthright with you and apply the same standard to myself as I have to you, I must admit that my conscience speaks to me too. From your attitude and all you’ve told me, I must confess I believe you. Specifically, I believe that you can be married validly. No more validly, mark you, than if the ceremony were to be witnessed by a judge. That last statement is true only because Church law doesn’t recognize your freedom to marry. That circumstantial technicality allows you to marry validly even if your marriage is performed by a judge. Naturally you would be validly married also if a priest performed it. Except that Church law not only prevents you from having such a marriage, it also specifically forbids a priest from witnessing it.” He paused to let this be assimilated. To this couple, what he had just explained must seem like tortuous Byzantine complexities.

  Dea broke the silence. “Have you ever done it? Performed a ceremony like this?”

  Anderson nodded slowly. “I have. Not often. Usually people are content with the internal forum solution. And I include myself among the people who are happy when that does the trick.”

  “Well,” Dea said, “let me ask you this. I don’t want to insult you, but are you reluctant to perform the ceremony because deep down you really don’t believe in this conscience thing we’ve been talking about? You don’t want to get involved … you want the couple to be totally responsible?”

  “No, Dana.” There was a touch of impatience in Anderson’s voice. “I don’t want to actively participate in the wedding because I want to cover my ass. Pardon my French!” Turnabout not only was fair play, it brought a sense of satisfaction.