(with a suggestion for the next post)
We have several valuable observations to make here................
The future Attorney General and United States Senator and Presidential candidate apparently believed he could prejudge the eternal destiny of souls, could cancel the applicability of infallibly defined Catholic dogma, and could "pull rank" on an ordained Jesuit priest by virtue of his simply being born a Kennedy. Yet despite these imagined powers, all Bobby Kennedy could do at that point was leave the office in a disrespectful huff. Humility is the foundation of a spiritual life, not a political one.
The two respectful laymen heard it all. Bruno leaned towards Lawrence and whispered out of the corner of his mouth: "Maybe I should come back another time." He did not want to contribute to the burdens of the priest that afternoon. Lawrence settled his concerns. "It's okay. Don't leave. Let me try again to introduce you."
They went to the open door of the office. Fr. was standing by his desk going through the day's mail. His face was expressionless. "Father, I would like you to meet the man I said was waiting to see you." The priest looked up with interest: "Oh. You mean you have more fawning sycophants to see me, Lawrence? By the way, who was that inspired fellow who could decide who was or wasn't going to heaven? He could be useful around here."
That was Robert F. Kennedy. His father is big in Democrat politics, and was the Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Brother Jack was some Navy war hero. Grand dad was the mayor of Boston."
"I see. They are Irish Democrats before they are Irish Catholics. They can't afford to offend the voting protestants with any 'inopportune' Catholic dogma. Better to offend God than the party faithful. So.. who is your friend, Lawrence?"
"Bruno Gregory, Father." Bruno helped with the introduction, for he had not yet given his name to his new acquaintance. He held out his hand and the priest took it with a firm, manly grip. "I'm pleased to meet you, Father. I've heard so many bad things about you!" Bruno grinned and the priest chuckled.
"All of it true, I'm sure!" Father took his seat behind the desk and pointed to the chair beside Bruno. "So, Mr. Gregory, ... Protestant, Catholic or Democrat?"
"None of the above, Father. Just an independent Christian veteran, Too Catholic to be a protestant too protestant to be a Catholic. But I never miss a free lunch or a free lecture." Bruno held up the program insert.
"So you're a Dominican!" Bruno looked puzzled and the priest chuckled again at his intramural Catholic joke. "Never mind, Mr. Gregory." With a wave, the priest cleared the air of his dry humor. Lawrence giggled and returned to his books.
"It is my pleasure to meet you. You don't happen to be armed are you?"
"No, Father. Lawrence frisked me in the lobby."
"Just like I taught him. Tell me Mr. Gregory. What do you find most distasteful about 'the Dogma'? Too harsh, too divisive, too judgmental, too Popish, too Latin, too...?"
"Too Catholic, Father. Much too Catholic. It's hard to imagine all those bible-quoting protestant grandmothers, Sunday school teachers, and... and homesick infantry privates who never made it back, burning in hell because their daily bible readings were out of a King James rather than a Douay-Rheims, or because they thought they were already saved rather than subject to losing salvation by one last mortal sin before the unexpected heart attack or the bullet from nowhere with their name on it."
The priest paused for a moment and contemplated the personal pain dripping from the real memories that carried the words of Bruno's objections. Bruno's visions of a potentially hopeless death drifted in the room like incense. The priest could see them as well as the veteran could. Bruno struggled in his mind to give them hope because he could not return to give those dying bodies and eternal souls sanctifying grace.
"That would be the very definition of a tragedy, wouldn't it? Almighty God does hate that result. Indeed, that is why he gave humanity seven sacraments to provide that grace which would make that heart attack, or that bullet
eternally irrelevant. "Everyone knows they will die eventually, except the very young and the insane. Baptism can assure them of heaven. The rest of us had the means of sacramental grace given by a merciful God in his perfect time to prepare us for our own end of time."
The priest leaned back in his chair and studied Bruno's face.
"So tell me, Mr. Gregory, who took those sacraments away from the homesick privates, from the dear grandmothers, from the Sunday school teachers?
"Who left these poor souls with just a bible they really don't understand, but think they do?
"Who put their souls at such risk by removing their access to sanctifying grace? Was it God or was it man? Was it the Catholic church -- or -- was it someone's
'private hostility toward the Catholic Church' posing as
a denomination he named after himself, that led men away from the sacraments?
"Who gave any of the thousands of founders of protestant sects the right and authority to take away God's gift of the means of grace, the means of salvation itself, the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church? Who rejected and buried the settled truth that the people must either have these sacraments or spiritually die? And with that left accomplished, how can it be wrong now, or insensitive, or harsh to tell the people that
they have been robbed of their eternity with God simply because a king wanted a new wife, or because an Augustinian monk had spiritual struggles, or because subsequent reformers rejected the teaching of prior reformers?"
The priest paused, even though both men knew, his ostensibly endless string of stinging questions was only rhetorical.
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