Page 193 - Demo

%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 181as a worker-priest, writing for my supper, in the general calling to the priesthood? I would not relinquish my lifetime of focus now. Not to an assassin who knew me only as a name in roll call, another mouth to feed, and a brain that was so cogito: ergo sum, I think: therefore I am, that he feared, what? My powers of analysis?%u201cYou%u2019re the most analytical little boy I%u2019ve ever seen,%u201d he had said, %u201cand that%u2019s not good in the spiritual life!%u201dHe knew nothing of my heart and my soul. He shuffled the sheets of my ten years of excellent grades and solid reports on my behavior. He mumbled over the early chapters of the discontinued translation. I felt secure because my purity was unassailable. Sex alone, or with others, was a mortal sin of impurity against the sixth commandment, and against the priestly vow of celibacy. I was a pure boy. I had never ever even touched myself, never ever interfered with myself, so even if I didn%u2019t have a vocation, no one could question my purity which the Church declared the barometer of a vocation.%u201cMore seriously, however, I find this other matter.%u201d He paused expectantly.%u201cMay I ask, please, Rector, what that is?%u201d%u201cYou don%u2019t know?%u201d%u201cNo. No, Rector, I don%u2019t.%u201dHe reached again into his drawer and pulled out a folded piece of stationery that had never been placed in an envelope.I found this letter in your room.%u201d He handed it to me. %u201cThis is your handwriting?%u201dI looked at the letter I had never mailed to Dick Dempsey. It was an invitation for him to come some visiting Sunday. I had thought his talking to an old friend might help. I thought I might play a bit of the workerpriest, and be very Vatican II, and maybe help him. %u201cI wrote this,%u201d I said. %u201cActually, I should say that I composed it. I never mailed it. I think I never thought to mail it.%u201d%u201cWhy did you write to this boy? He is a former student. The rule forbids you to correspond with former students.%u201d%u201cYes, Rector. But I wrote that note hoping the Vatican Council might allow...%u201d%u201cYou dare contradict me?%u201d%u201cNo, Rector.%u201d%u201cYou still know this student?%u201d%u201cI knew him, Rector. We were friends while he was here.%u201d%u201cFriends?%u201d