On Broken Wings by Francis Porretto Page B

baptized most of his parishioners, and had buried a comparable number, including several of his brothers in the cloth. The great majority of the Catholics of Onteora had known no other pastor in their lives. He would not surrender their care to any other man, no matter how capable, until he was forced to do so. He had even turned down elevation to monsignor, with a strong hint that a bishop's miter would be within his reach, to avoid a transfer out of Onteora.
    Occasionally his clerical colleagues would cluck their disapproval at him, hinting that his grip on his position smelled more of vanity than dedication. But they always dropped the subject when he scowled at them.
    Schliemann took his duties seriously. His vision of those duties was clear, and quite at odds with the notions of most newer priests. He had little patience for the social-activist clergymen, whatever their denomination. They seemed to want to make their churches into gathering places for the envious and self-pitying. They were infinitely willing to use politics to impose their visions of good upon others. Father Heinrich Schliemann led no marches, signed no petitions, and never talked politics. While the prelates of the American Church tacitly permitted the social-activist priests to convert the legacy of Saint Peter into a stained-glass staging area for the crusades of special interest groups, the pastor of Onteora parish remained exclusively a man of God.
    What Louis Redmond had done troubled him, and he was struggling to learn why. Historically, procedurally, and doctrinally, the young man's arguments were sound, but the vehemence with which he had rejected a course of formal religious instruction for his new charge had shocked the old priest nonetheless.
    "What has the typical response to indoctrination been, Father? What percentage of the children that have passed through parochial schools remain communicants as adults? Do we really need any other explanation for why the schools are closing down at such a rate?"
    The priest grinned without humor. "Don't you think the property tax situation might have had something to do with it, Louis? To say nothing of the problems the Church has had with zoning boards all over the country?"
    Louis shook his head. "That's nothing new. The American Church has faced those forces for three centuries. It's only in the last fifty years that our numbers have diminished this way. And we're mostly to blame for it."
    He scowled. "It was always a mistake, you know. Religion isn't for children, and to impose it on them by force has never been to anyone's greater good. As society has secularized, the resentments over that practice have been free to come out into the open. Is the Church better off for all these claims of the physical and emotional abuse of children by priests and nuns, even if every last one of them were eventually disproved? Are Catholics better off?"
    Schliemann kept his composure with an effort. One such accusation had even been leveled at him, a decade ago. It had been his great good fortune that no one had believed it.
    "Why did you baptize her, Louis?"
    The younger man sat up ramrod straight at that. "Because I was supposed to. Because you would have done the same. It's the first duty of a member of the faith toward a newborn, especially if that newborn's life is in danger."
    Schliemann nodded. "A duty of a member of the faith, yes. But what about you?"
    Louis's face went slack. "What?"
    "It's not a week ago that you sat in that very chair and told me that you thought your faith had deserted you, that you could no longer feel it in your bones the way you always had. You pleaded with me to do whatever I could for you, remember? What validity did that baptism have, coming from you?"
    The younger man's words rang like the strokes of a cathedral bell, harsh and regular. "Exactly the same as if you had done it. Non-Catholics have baptized children many times. The point is to declare the child's name to God and ask