William Kienzle - Chameleon

“You sent me to a Catholic grade school,” Irma interjected, “and I didn’t see any married priests.”

“Ah,” Fred responded, “but that’s because you happen to live in this country and because you’re a Latin Rite Catholic. If you’d been living anywhere that the ancient Oriental Rite has been functioning you’d have found married Catholic priests. You can even find Catholic priests with wives and families here in this country.”

“Where?”

“In parishes where married Protestant ministers have converted to Catholicism and have been ordained to the Catholic priesthood.

“The point I’m trying to make, honey, is that in the first place there’s no reason-Biblically, historically, or just about any other adverb-for us not to be married and still function as priests. And on top of that, they need us. They need us desperately.”

“If they need you so much, how come they don’t know it?”

“Irma,” her mother admonished, “don’t be flip. Your father is very serious about this!”

“Just playing devil’s advocate,” Irma said. “Daddy always says I’m good at that.”

“You are good at it,” Fred said. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t quite so good. ‘How come they don’t know about it?’ They know about it all right; they just won’t admit it.”

“But, Daddy, if they won’t admit it, they won’t admit it. What’s the use of your struggling, going to meetings, trying to convince them, if they’re just so stubborn they won’t admit they need you?”

Fred Stapleton hesitated, lips compressed in a thin line of anger and resolve. “There are times,” he said, finally, “when you have to do something you would have sworn you’d never do-if only to get their attention.” As he spoke, there was an aura of foreboding about him that was completely out of character for this ordinarily gentle and compassionate man. Neither Pam nor Irma could bring herself to break the spell.

Finally, Fred tapped out his pipe in an ashtray, rose, and announced, “It’s time. I’m going to the meeting.” He softened as he studied his daughter. “You will give us a concert before you go back to school, won’t you?”

“Sure, Daddy.”

In a few minutes mother and daughter were alone, gazing at each other wordlessly.

“I’m worried about him, Mother,” Irma said finally.

“So am I. He just hasn’t been himself lately.”

Irma hesitated. Then, “I’ve never asked you, even though I’ve wondered from time to time. But I have wondered.…”

“What? You know we can talk about anything you want to. What is it?”

“Well … what was it like when you got married? I mean … did you feel guilty about marrying a priest? Did Daddy?”

Pam smiled warmly. “I certainly didn’t. I don’t think your father did either. I’m sure he didn’t. I’d left the convent long before we married. We fell in love slowly … oh, so very slowly.” She obviously cherished the memory of their earliest days of a growing love.

“Our greatest hurdle,” Pam explained, “was his priesthood, of course. He’d been a priest twenty years. It was all he’d ever wanted to be from the time he was a small child. He loved his work. And he loved what his vocation had become just a little less-as it turned out-than he loved me. It wasn’t a matter of feeling guilty. It was a matter of feeling loss.”

“Seems like a case of seasickness and lockjaw simultaneously, to use the metaphor Daddy uses so often.”

Pam winced. “I guess so.” True enough, Fred did use the phrase with some frequency. But she’d always found it in poor taste.

“So,” Irma persisted, “how did he settle the dilemma? Or did you do it for him?”

“Oh, no. My only contribution was to urge him to stay functioning as a priest.”

“You did?” This came as a genuine surprise to Irma.

“Oh, absolutely. I could see down the line in the years ahead where that could be an insurmountable problem. I never wanted him to feel that I had put any pressure on him to leave the priesthood. I knew the way he felt about his vocation he would surely miss being a priest. And he has. So it had to be his decision. His alone.

“With me on the side of his remaining a priest, there wasn’t anyone even suggesting that he leave and marry me. No one but himself.”

“So it was his choice?” Irma asked.

Pam shook her head. “You don’t understand, dear. It’s what your Father was trying to tell you before, What he regrets is the Church’s inability or refusal to understand that there’s no contradiction in being a priest and, at the same time, being married.”

“I think I understand, Mom. He’s very comfortable about having married you …”

“And having you for a daughter,” Pam interjected.

Irma smiled. “Yeah. That’s neat. So he’s okay about all that. The problem is with the Church. He should be able to be a priest now-saying Mass and everything.”

“Think you’ve got it?”

“I think so. But I’ve got to think about it some more.”

“Good.” Pam began massaging her forehead.

“Headache? Let me do that for you.”

Pam smiled. “Know what you can do for me, dear? Maybe you could play something nice and soothing.”

Irma gave it a moment’s thought. “Sure.” She moved to the spinet and the beautiful strains of Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraunr” filled the room.

Pam relaxed, rested her head against the chair, closed her eyes, and let the memories flood over her.

Her daughter’s query had brought to mind those fateful days after she and Father Fred Stapleton had first met.

He was an attractive man, talented, handsome, well read, with an infectious sense of humor-and off-limits. On neither’s part was it love at first sight. She taught in the parochial school attached to the parish of which he was pastor. As a nun, she had taught for many years before leaving the convent. She was a gifted teacher.

Father Stapleton took an active interest in his school and, naturally, in its teachers. Of all the teachers, religious and lay, he managed to find more time for Pam Baldwin than for any of the others. She was such a good teacher, and attractive and fun-and off-limits.

Their relationship grew, as most authentic love does, gradually. By the time they realized they were, after all, an ordinary couple who wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, it was too late to turn back. If Pam had made the slightest suggestion that he leave the priesthood so they could marry, he would have started the process immediately. On the contrary, however, her resolve that he remain an active priest was far stronger than his.

So when the decision was finally made, it was his entirely.

In terms of staying in good standing with the Church, they were fortunate. Fred left at a time when the Pope happened to be lenient in granting laicization.

Pope Paul VI had inherited the legacy of his predecessor, John XXIII. The inheritance included the Second Vatican Council. There are those who believe Paul didn’t know what to do with it. Laicization, a modern phenomenon, at least in its frequency, was a case in point. Pope Paul vacillated from year to year in granting the request.

Laicization is the tortuous, complicated, and lengthy process by which a priest is “reduced” to the status of a lay person. And then some. Catholicism teaches that, “Once a priest, always a priest.” But in order to function-say Mass, absolve, marry, bury, etc.-the priest needs “faculties”-permission of his bishop, in the case of a diocesan priest, or of his religious superior, for a religious order priest.

The bishop giveth as well as taketh away.

Permission to function is withdrawn if, for any reason, a priest’s superior punishes him with a penalty called “suspension.” Should a priest “attempt” marriage without having been granted laicization, he is automatically excommunicated, in addition to being forbidden to function sacramentally.