not resist her hunger for it.
Gerhardt, by contrast, insisted on making eye contact as he took the Host in his own gnarled fingers and placed it on his tongue, and chewed, and swallowed, as though these were acts that must be performed under priestly supervision.
Gerhardt had left another of his tirades on the answering machine last night, apparently in response to Wilfrid’s having relayed Father Bryce’s wish that he would stop harassing members of Agnus Dei, a group of laywomen that met at various churches in the Twin Cities— at St. Bernardine’s on the first and third Wednesday of each month— to discuss issues peculiar to their sex.
The membership included some women who had once been in religious orders, some of whom had spoken out in favor of pro-Choice political candidates, while others were ardent advocates of opening various church offices, and ultimately the priesthood, to women. In some parishes they had managed, briefly, to have girls assist at Mass, a trespass on ancient masculine privilege that had provoked Gerhardt Ober and some few other old-timers into a fury of denunciation. Even now that Bishop Massey had clamped down on the practice and
“altar girls” were no longer tolerated in the Minneapolis archdiocese, Gerhardt continued to picket meetings of Agnus Dei and to inveigh against the organization in a steady outpouring of crank letters to parish bulletins, to local news media, and even to the papal nuncio in Washington, who had replied to one of Gerhardt’s missives with a form letter thanking him for his frankness and concern. That letter had acquired in Gerhardt’s mind the magisterial importance of a papal bull. It had become his license to go on making a nuisance of himself every time the urge came over him. And because he was Father Bryce’s parishioner, the leaders of Agnus Dei tended to hold the priest personally responsible for each of Gerhardt’s outrages.
Father Bryce had yet to play through Gerhardt’s latest tirade from beginning to end. It seemed to take up most of the tape on the answering machine and included a reading of the nuncio’s entire letter and of Gerhardt’s three obsequious replies. Gerhardt could test one’s patience even more than one’s charity.
Thinking of such matters was somehow cheering. It returned Father Bryce to his ordinary parish problems and gave him something to fix his mind on besides the larger bind he was in. For years he’d dealt with his guilty mornings-after by acting as though the night before hadn’t happened, by turning his thoughts to other matters, by trying to bring a kind of zeal to business-as-usual. He had often observed the same behavior in those who came to confession to him, which afforded a kind of sanction: He was dealing with his sins just as other sinners dealt with theirs. It was humbling to know that he was no better than the most peccant of his flock.
After Mass, he was thankful that there was no altar boy on hand and that he could remove his vestments without having to keep up a stoic front. He could wince and flinch and grimace as the different customary motions of disrobing provoked different uncustomary pains. The wadded gauze bandages taped to his chest and abdomen protected his raw flesh from the direct abrasion of his clothing as he lifted his arm, or bent over, or turned sideways, but the pain was now more than skindeep. He felt as though his flesh were being roasted, as though he were covered with Ben-Gay that had gone nuclear. He knew he was running a fever, but he didn’t want to take his temperature for fear of finding out he was dangerously feverish. It occurred to him, for the first time, that medical examinations would be problematical in the future, for he couldn’t let a doctor see his tattoo. He couldn’t go swimming (but then he hadn’t been swimming in several years) or go into saunas.
But his sex life might not actually change that much. It was not something he cared to think about right
Gerhardt, by contrast, insisted on making eye contact as he took the Host in his own gnarled fingers and placed it on his tongue, and chewed, and swallowed, as though these were acts that must be performed under priestly supervision.
Gerhardt had left another of his tirades on the answering machine last night, apparently in response to Wilfrid’s having relayed Father Bryce’s wish that he would stop harassing members of Agnus Dei, a group of laywomen that met at various churches in the Twin Cities— at St. Bernardine’s on the first and third Wednesday of each month— to discuss issues peculiar to their sex.
The membership included some women who had once been in religious orders, some of whom had spoken out in favor of pro-Choice political candidates, while others were ardent advocates of opening various church offices, and ultimately the priesthood, to women. In some parishes they had managed, briefly, to have girls assist at Mass, a trespass on ancient masculine privilege that had provoked Gerhardt Ober and some few other old-timers into a fury of denunciation. Even now that Bishop Massey had clamped down on the practice and
“altar girls” were no longer tolerated in the Minneapolis archdiocese, Gerhardt continued to picket meetings of Agnus Dei and to inveigh against the organization in a steady outpouring of crank letters to parish bulletins, to local news media, and even to the papal nuncio in Washington, who had replied to one of Gerhardt’s missives with a form letter thanking him for his frankness and concern. That letter had acquired in Gerhardt’s mind the magisterial importance of a papal bull. It had become his license to go on making a nuisance of himself every time the urge came over him. And because he was Father Bryce’s parishioner, the leaders of Agnus Dei tended to hold the priest personally responsible for each of Gerhardt’s outrages.
Father Bryce had yet to play through Gerhardt’s latest tirade from beginning to end. It seemed to take up most of the tape on the answering machine and included a reading of the nuncio’s entire letter and of Gerhardt’s three obsequious replies. Gerhardt could test one’s patience even more than one’s charity.
Thinking of such matters was somehow cheering. It returned Father Bryce to his ordinary parish problems and gave him something to fix his mind on besides the larger bind he was in. For years he’d dealt with his guilty mornings-after by acting as though the night before hadn’t happened, by turning his thoughts to other matters, by trying to bring a kind of zeal to business-as-usual. He had often observed the same behavior in those who came to confession to him, which afforded a kind of sanction: He was dealing with his sins just as other sinners dealt with theirs. It was humbling to know that he was no better than the most peccant of his flock.
After Mass, he was thankful that there was no altar boy on hand and that he could remove his vestments without having to keep up a stoic front. He could wince and flinch and grimace as the different customary motions of disrobing provoked different uncustomary pains. The wadded gauze bandages taped to his chest and abdomen protected his raw flesh from the direct abrasion of his clothing as he lifted his arm, or bent over, or turned sideways, but the pain was now more than skindeep. He felt as though his flesh were being roasted, as though he were covered with Ben-Gay that had gone nuclear. He knew he was running a fever, but he didn’t want to take his temperature for fear of finding out he was dangerously feverish. It occurred to him, for the first time, that medical examinations would be problematical in the future, for he couldn’t let a doctor see his tattoo. He couldn’t go swimming (but then he hadn’t been swimming in several years) or go into saunas.
But his sex life might not actually change that much. It was not something he cared to think about right
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