J. Powers - Wheat That Springeth Green

Speak to Bill? And say what? Just tell him in a nice way to go easy on Scripture. Just renege in a nice way, you mean. You’re the one who set him off, you know, with your Scripture’s rough and tough and hard to stay with, people can’t have it both ways, and the clergy can’t, though God knows we try. And thy Father, who sees in secret, will reward thee — right, Joe? Not necessarily, Bill. You see, we have to distinguish between what we might call acts of true charity and simply contributing to the support of the Church, the former not to be performed at the expense of the latter. The faithful are obliged to maintain the Church’s mission, ministers, real estate, and so on, according to divine positive law. The Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel —1 Cor. 9:14. This, if read both ways, covers laity and clergy alike. This is also one of the Precepts of the Church, Bill. Joe, I know that. We had it at the sem, right after finger painting. But if people can’t afford to pay the going rate, let ’em give what they can — it’s better than nothing, isn’t it? And if it’s done on the Q.T. so much the better — thy Father, who sees in secret, will reward thee. Go easy on that , will you, Bill? Joe, I only say it to those who can’t pay the going rate. What’s wrong with that? Let God, who numbers the hairs on our heads, do the bookkeeping, Joe. Great, Bill. But if this thing spreads, if paid-up parishioners get wind of it, what happens to our fiscal system — the parish ? Joe, you mean the parish as we know it , don’t you? Well, yes, Bill, I do. Oh, that . One of the turning points in ecclesiastical history, Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, a case, you might say, of an idea whose time has finally come — and none too soon for me. I’d never been happy with the business side of the Church. Even as a child, when an altar boy and my mind was often elsewhere during sermons, I still heard too much about the Dollar-a-Sunday Club — an upgraded version of the envelope system, up from a dime (“A few lire, Your Excellency”). The day I celebrated my first Mass in my home parish will live in infamy. So, when I got my own parish, meaning to spare myself and my people all talk of money from the pulpit (“ Why , Your Excellency? I guess you might say I’m funny that way”), I installed the country club, California, or game sanctuary system (also known as the table d’hôte). With this I did as well as could be expected but not well enough, owing to the greed of the Archdiocese. Desperate to make my nut and deaf to the siren song of the fund-raiser, thanks to the prophetic counsel of my curate (as His Eminence then was), I installed the honor system, that is, no system at all, which, need I say, is now in use by dioceses everywhere and by not a few civil governments inspired, perhaps, by the success of our own IRS? We all know how this system works, but a word on why . People — and not just deep-seagoing saints and mystics — have always tried to make contact with God, especially in time of trouble. But most have had to settle for the ordinary, the all-too-ordinary, consolations of religion, among these the respect and sympathy of other believers (once a minority). Religion, in our time, had lost its clout, had become the victim, as “science” was the beneficiary, of changing fashions in credulity. Who, then, would have dreamed that religion could become what it is today — a matter of giving blindly, of sacrificing secretly, for the love of God? Could this be what the Great Bookkeeper — so jealous of his prerogatives and oh so mum since Old Testament times — has been waiting and hoping for? My view is that bookkeeping is bad for people, for those who do it and even for those who don’t if they take pleasure in thinking they aren’t like those who do. A plague on both your houses, I say. Sursum corda , folks!

“By the way, Bill, any ideas about those fives and tens in the flower collection lately?”

“No. But that’s good, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

Thanks to the honor system and to my young curate (as he then was) for his faith in it, in me, and in people (of whose magnanimity I confess I saw only the tip of the iceberg), I now have no money problems, I let God do the bookkeeping, I eat like a horse, I drink like a fish, I sleep like a log, I wish everybody did, or, anyway, wouldn’t call me at all hours of the night. “St Francis.”

“ You’re St Francis, I’m Lyndon B. Johnson.”

“It’s a deal. What’s on your mind, Lyndon?”

“Been readin’ the Good Book and don’t like how you’re runnin’ things over there.”

“That so?”

“Hate your methodology.”

“I’m beating my breast. What else can I do for you?”

“Ask not what you can do for me. Ask what you can do for yourself.”

“O.K. What?”

“You need a role model. We all do. Yours may not be mine. Mine may not be yours.”

“Who’s yours?”

“Talkin’ about yours . Know who it should be?”

“Offhand, no.”

“Give you a clue. He’s right out of the Good Book and so’s his methodology.”

“Hit me again, Lyndon.”

“ You should be his assistant.”

Joe pushed the button, terminating the call, and left the phone off the cradle. “The Repeater,” he said to Bill, and then, since Bill was going to bed: “Some woman and her husband phoned to complain about you — and true charity.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d go easy on that if I were you, Bill. Remember what Our Lord said about celibacy, and what somebody else said about reality — not that they’re the same, though maybe they are — few can take it.”

Bill, after a moment of introspection, nodded. “See what you mean, Joe. Thanks. Actually, I knew that. G’night, Joe.”

“G’night, Bill.”

The next afternoon, a few minutes after Joe called a number and gave his own to the answering service and hung up, his phone rang. “St Francis.”

“Dom, Father.”

“Oh, Dom. Say, a friend of mine wants the price on Gene.”

“For the nomination, Father?”

“And the election.”

“ Both , Father?”

“Both, Dom.”

“Father, how much your friend want?”

“Just a g, Dom. He’s got a cash-flow problem.”

“Hold on, Father.”

Joe, holding on, heard a knock, but it was next door.

“Come in,” Joe heard Bill say.

“You Hackett?” Joe heard a man say.

“Me Schmidt— Father Schmidt,” Bill said. (Nice going, Joe thought, hit him again.) “ Father Hackett’s in the other office.”

“Entrez,” Joe said to the knock at his door — a young man with a briefcase. “Sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute. Yes, Dom.”

“Nomination ten, election even, Father.”

“Hmmm. My friend was hoping you’d do better, Dom — on the election.”

“Sorry, Father. But that’s where your friend could collect.”

“Dom, what about a parlay — a double?”

“Hold on, Father.”

“What’s on your mind?” Joe asked the young man.

“State Board of Health.” The young man got up, with his wallet out, evidently meaning to show Joe his identification.

Joe waved him down. “Dom, would you mind repeating that?”

“Eleven and six to five, Father.”

“That’s it, huh?”

“Best I can do, Father. Vigorish.”

“You’d lay it off?”

“The second leg, if there is one, Father. Your friend know something?”

“Just what a little bird told him, Dom. I don’t put much stock in it myself.”

“Father, if I have to insure it I won’t get no six to five.”