God’s Child

The interior of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit hummed quietly with reverent anticipation as the organist played a medley from the Orgelbüchlein of Johann Sebastian Bach. The dove of peace and love embroidered on the reredos, its silver and gold wings outstretched to embrace all of humankind, glittered like a permanent burst of sunlight. The tall candles in the sanctuary, five at either end, stood aflame, flanking a sea of red roses, for it was Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter; the Sunday that commemorated the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles of Jesus Christ; the Sunday of the Tongues of Fire, the glossai hosei puros, the singular gift that enabled the twelve to speak in languages heretofore unknown to them. It was also the Sunday of the Gospel according to John with those sublime words spoken by Christ: Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained. Virtually all of the members of this parish in the affluent Long Island Sound town of Ash Creek, Connecticut, still found it difficult to believe that the Church of the Holy Spirit had been accorded such a signal honor. It would be the first parish Mass of the newly ordained priest who peeked out of the sacristy and saw a church with pews so full that attendees spilled into the two side aisles where they would have to stand. The priests of the diocese, together with visiting clergy from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington, D. C., had already taken their places in rows of chairs positioned in front of the lectern on the gospel side. As befitted the historic occasion, all were attired in ornate raiment, their red chasubles with orphreys of gold a reflection of the candles with their lambent tongues of flame. The centuries-old underpinning of the Catholic Church’s pomp and ceremony was the symbolism of colors. But whereas red was the color of the Passion, of Pentecost, and of the blood shed by martyrs faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ, white was the color of purity, of the Resurrection, and of Ordination. And each ordination brought new life-giving force to the Church, more so in the groundbreaking reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders several Mondays ago in Norwich, Connecticut, for in that ritual Reverend Mother Nancy Nye became one of the first American women to be ordained a Catholic priest, with the full sacerdotal powers of her brother priests. Pope Francis II himself, to the chagrin of his archconservative, hidebound opponents in the Vatican, had journeyed from Rome to bestow the papal blessing in person on her, Reverend Mother Ellie Ride, Reverend Mother Merici Gallarelli., Reverend Mother Caroline Rankin, Reverend Mother Doris Tessier, and Reverend Mother Liliana Amaral. Mother Nye’s four priest friends—loyal, stalwart supporters through thick and thin—had presented her with gifts and left to take their places in the chairs by the lectern: Father Samuel Shroyer, C.S.C., chaplain of the Newman Club at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, gave her an alb; Father Christian Mannheim, S.J., professor of theology at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, gave her a cincture; Monsignor Matthew Goodpaster, pastor of the parish of Saint Aloysius and advisor of their Catholic Youth Service Organization, gave her a stole sewn in the Holy Land; and Padre André Sousa Neto, resident at the Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima, and past parochial vicar at Santo Christo Parish in Fall River, Massachusetts, gave her a copy of the Breviary in English and a companion volume in Portuguese. The moment came to don those priestly vestments. With each one she would now, and forever more, follow the practice of her mentor and say a silent prayer. Stepping into the sacristy’s el while giving thanks to the Almighty and to Popes Francis I and Francis II, she clasped the alb, the full-figure white garment that harkens back to the purity of baptism, and slipped it over her head as she would a dress, letting it drop to her ankles; then she looped the cincture, a white cord belt symbolizing chastity, around her waist, but as she began to tie it, Mother Nye froze momentarily; next, she picked up the stole—red on that Pentecost Sunday—and kissed the center part of it before placing it around her neck and over her shoulders, securing it with the cincture; lastly, she grasped the bright red chasuble, the outer piece whose various colors signified the Church’s feasts and calendar, and settled the opening over her head, smoothing it as the richly embroidered garment—a precious gift from her beloved parents and grandmother—fell below her knees, its very existence on her person an overt sign of the years of prayer, study, and sacrifice that had culminated in her ordination. Entering the sacristy proper, she glanced at her five concelebrants and saw that they were chatting softly with one another: Most Reverend Vito Vigano, Archbishop and Papal Nuncio in Washington, D.C.; His Eminence Dylan Cardinal Guilfoyle of Boston; Most Reverend Anthony Yates, Bishop of Norwich; Reverend Thomas Exxum, pastor of the parish of Saint Xavier where Mother Nye would officially take up her first assignment in one week; and Reverend Timothy McNally, the recently appointed acting pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Rev. McNally made no secret of the fact that he, following the lead of two American cardinals, had opposed the entrance of women into the priesthood and was not happy that Mother Nye, a new parishioner, would say her first “parish” Mass at his church. He yielded only in obedience to the bishop and Pope Francis II’s directive. At the instant that she turned her head, Rev. McNally turned his. Did Mother Nye expect a smile? Was she that naive, that innocent? Because the blank yet somehow scrutinizing expression that she beheld chilled her from head to toe. But it couldn’t be; her imagination was running away with her. Only her mentor, and confessor, Reverend Gabriel LaVecchia, knew. Only that saintly man knew how it had happened, and yet Father “Tim,” as he preferred to be called, looked at her as if he knew. But how could he know that she was pregnant? Not even her parents knew, for she hadn’t yet found the right moment to tell them. Only her doctor and her mentor knew. Could her rapist know? How? And if he did know, did he care? He must have, otherwise he wouldn’t have left the hair-raising note that had taken her breath away. And in addition to the fact that she had no recollection of the man at all, could form no image of him at all, no one had ever located the Mrs. Rickles who had requested that late afternoon private appointment. After Nancy had recovered a hazy consciousness, she knew, knew instantly. Her torn panties and the skirt used as a wipe for semen were the least of it. Blood drawn at the hospital told her and the police that the missing Mrs. Rickles—if indeed Rickles was her name—had somehow managed to slip the so-called date rape drug GHB into her tea. When pregnancy was medically confirmed she had refused to cry. She had said, tellingly, to Father Gabe, “I’m in God’s hands. I hope in the Church’s, too.” Abortion—the sacrilege of it a horror to her—had not entered her mind, nor had it entered her mentor-confessor’s mind. But how and when to announce her state had turned into a dilemma of near obsessive, staggering proportions. Confirmation of the pregnancy had come five weeks after her ordination, and now she had to notify Bishop Yates. Father Gabe, in his capacity as her mentor, had insisted on accompanying her. Would a scandal ensue? Most certainly. Would it militate against other women becoming priests? She would fight. She hadn’t sinned, hadn’t even been the “occasion of sin.” She had simply been a woman, which for her spoke a truth for all ages, and she would refuse to be cowered, would refuse to allow it to appear that fault was hers.