Page 223 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 211

“You’re the most analytical little boy I’ve ever seen,” he had said,
“and that’s not good in the spiritual life!”
He 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’t have a vocation, no one could question my
purity which the Church declared the barometer of a vocation.
“More seriously, however, I find this other matter.” He paused
expectantly.
“May I ask, please, Rector, what that is?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. No, Rector, I don’t.”
He 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.” He handed it to me. “This is
your handwrit ing?”
I 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 worker-priest, and be very Vatican II, and maybe help him. “I
wrote this,” I said. “Actually, I should say that I composed it. I never
mailed it. I think I never thought to mail it.”
“Why did you write to this boy? He is a former student. The rule
forbids you to correspond with former students.”
“Yes, Rector. But I wrote that note hoping the Vatican Council
might allow...”
“You dare contradict me?”
“No, Rector.”
“You still know this student?”
“I knew him, Rector. We were friends while he was here.”
“Friends?”
“We were classmates, Rector. For seven years, Rector. We knew
each other quite well.”

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