William Kienzle: Body Count

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

She settled into the chair opposite Father Robert Koesler as he recited, “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may rightly confess your sins.”

“It’s been … oh … may be a couple of years since my last confession-good Lord, what the hell is that?”

The priest, startled, followed her gaze and found himself staring at a green growth on the table between them. “It’s a plant,” he explained vaguely.

“You mean it’s alive?”

He smiled. “It won’t bite you.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. What is it, do you know?”

“It’s a Gynura. It’s also called a purple passion vine.”

“Then how come it’s not purple?”

“Well …” He was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was the first time he’d been challenged to defend a plant. “… it needs a lot of light to keep its purple. And, as you can see …” His explanation drifted off. He gestured toward the tiny stained glass window. A lighted candle and a low-wattage electric bulb were the only other illumination in the small cubicle. He felt the woman was looking at him as if he were mentally deficient.

“It’s a wonder it’s alive at all … it is alive, isn’t it?” she pursued.

“Uh-huh.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Father, why put any kind of plant in a room like this?”

“The new liturgy for the Sacrament of Reconciliation suggests a table, a Bible, a candle, and some sort of plant in the place set aside for face-to-face confession Speaking of confession; That is why you came, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes … sure. I was shopping across Gratiot at the Eastern Market and I saw your steeple and it was Saturday afternoon. So I thought, why not? And here I am.”

So much for his reputation as a sensitive, kindly confessor to rival St. John Vianney, the holy Cure d’Ars. She just happened to be in the neighborhood. “So, here you are. Two years is kind of a long while, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” She reflected. “Yeah, it is. Good grief, I can remember the good old days. Once a week. At least once a month.”

Koesler could remember the good old days even more vividly than his penitent.

“The good old days!” she continued: “I used to come to confession and say the same old things over and over: ‘I quarreled with my husband. Lost patience with the kids. Gossiped.’”

Koesler smiled. “Is that what it’s going to be today: Anger? Arguments? Gossip?”

“I wish it were. I got bigger problems than that. Matter of fact, I don’t exactly know why I’m here. It was just on the spur of the moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” She moved as if to leave.

“No; wait.” She did. “There must be a reason why you came today, ” the priest said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you live around here?”

“No. Out in the ’burbs. Like I said, I was shopping at the market and-”

“What’s the problem?”

“Uh … the Church.”

“The whole thing?”

“I just can’t believe everything the Church teaches. Maybe I’ve lost my faith. Maybe I’m not a Catholic anymore.”

“Like what don’t you believe? In God? In Jesus Christ?”

“Oh, no, for Pete’s sake, no! Sure I believe in God, in Jesus!”

“Then …?”

“Things like birth control, divorce, remarriage, even abortion. To be perfectly frank, Father, I don’t think the Church has the slightest clue as to what’s going on in the real world.”

“Have you prayed over this?”

“Oh, yeah, I read about that in the papers: Some Cardinal in Rome said that if you don’t believe what the Church teaches, you should go pray until you do. That seems kind of silly to me.”

“Me too.”

“You too!” She was startled.

He shifted in his chair so that he more fully faced her. “When I asked if you prayed over this, I meant more in terms of prayerfully forming your conscience.”

“You did?”

“I imagine just about every institution, bureaucracy, whatever, would like to dictate what its members believe. It keeps things nice, helps keep them just the way the institution wants. But that’s not the way it works for us. I mean, we have an absolute obligation to form our conscience and follow it.”

“That does sort of ring a bell, ” she admitted. “Then what’s all this stuff about praying until you agree?”

“Sort of stretching a point, I guess you could say. I must admit it is kind of tricky. You can see where following his conscience got Hitler, for instance. Nevertheless, it holds true: We’ve got to form our own set of values-what’s right and what’s wrong. The Church tries to be extremely helpful in assisting us to accomplish this. But no one-not me, not the bishop, not even the Pope-can be a substitute for our own personal responsibility. So you may have a big job ahead of you in settling the questions you raise. You know how the institutional Church feels about artificial birth control, remarriage, and the rest. You’d have to have the strongest, most legitimate defensible reasons to disregard all this.

“On the other hand, if you don’t actually believe what you profess to believe, you’d only be kidding yourself. You’ve got to be straight with yourself and straight with God. We can’t fool God. Not in the recesses of our conscience.”

The silence was so total the creaks and groans of the ancient church could be heard.

He had given her a lot to think about. Could she trust a guy who kept a plant in a dungeon? Yet what he said seemed to make sense. She was deeper in doubt now than she had been before coming to confession today. But now it seemed a sort of creative doubt. Henceforth, when she took time for silent prayer, at least she would know what it was she was praying about.

If nothing else, the silence reached her. She had to say something. “I don’t know what to tell you, Father. I gotta get by myself and think this through.”

“Pray it through, ” he amended.

“Yes, that’s right, pray it through. It didn’t take you long to say it, but that’s a lot to consider. I’ve felt so … uh … guilty. It started when the Pope said that the old rules on family planning were right and you couldn’t use birth control. I was sure he was wrong. But, then, how could he be? He’s infallible!”

“He wasn’t being infallible when he said that.”

“Okay. But the Cardinal said you had to agree with the Pope whether he was being infallible or not.”

“An overstatement, I think.”

“Some overstatement! It threw my life into a tailspin … my spiritual life, that is.”

Another pause. Finally, Koesler asked, “Doyou want to go to confession? Do you want to mention some sin of your past life if you’re not aware of any sin now? Do you want me to give you absolution?”

Her brow was profoundly knit. “No, no … not now. Maybe I’ll be back. Would it be okay if I come back that I come to you? I mean, I’m not from your parish.”

“It’ll be fine if you want to talk to me. When you leave, why don’t you take one of the parish bulletins in the vestibule? It’ll give you the times when we hear confessions at St. Joe’s.”

She smiled. “I’ll do that.”

He blessed her and she left.

It seemed to Father Koesler that he’d been engaged in this sort of activity-demythologizing Church teaching-for an awfully long time now. Since shortly after he’d been ordained thirty-eight years ago.

Then, as now, the most frequent misunderstanding was over birth control. Just before Koesler had been ordained, Pope Pius XII had, in effect, blessed the rhythm method of family planning. Now it seemed archaic. But at the time it was a monumental relief for Catholics, who, until then, had had no acceptable recourse but abstinence.