Strangers

priest for thirty-two years, the rector of the Church of St. Bernadette for nearly eighteen years, and throughout his life of service, he had never been tortured by doubt. The very concept baffled him.
        Following ordination, he was assigned as a curate to St. Thomas's, a small parish in the Illinois farm country, where seventy-year-old Father Dan Tuleen was shepherd. Father Tuleen was the sweetest-tempered, kindest, most sentimental, and most lovable man Stefan Wycazik had ever known. Dan had also been troubled by arthritis and failing vision, too old for the job of running a parish. Any other priest would have been removed, gently forced into retirement. But Dan Tuleen had been permitted to remain at his post because he had been at St. Thomas's for forty years and was an integral part of the life of his flock. The Cardinal, a great admirer of Father Tuleen, had looked around for a curate who could handle a good deal more responsibility than would usually be expected of a rookie, and he had finally settled on Stefan Wycazik. After only a day at St. Thomas's, Stefan had realized what was expected of him and had not been intimidated. He'd shouldered virtually all the work of the parish. Few young priests would have been equal to such a task. Father Wycazik never doubted he could handle it.
        Three years later, when Father Tuleen died quietly in his sleep, a new priest was assigned to St. Thomas's, and the Cardinal sent Father Wycazik to another parish in suburban Chicago, where the rector, Father Orgill, was having troubles with alcohol. Father Orgill had not been a totally disgraced whiskey priest. He had been a man with the power to salvage himself, and he had been well worth salvaging. Father Wycazik's job had been to give Francis Orgill a shoulder to lean on and to guide him, subtly but firmly, toward an exit from his dilemma. Unhampered by doubt, he had provided what Francis Orgill had needed.
        During the next three years, Stefan served at two more problem-plagued churches, and those who moved in the hierarchy of the archdiocese began to refer to him as "His Eminence's troubleshooter."
        His most exotic assignment was to Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage and School in Saigon, Vietnam, where he was second in charge under Father Bill Nader for six nightmarish years. Our Lady of Mercy was funded by the Chicago Archdiocese and was one of the Cardinal's pet projects. Bill Nader had carried the scars of two bullet wounds, one in his left shoulder and one in his right calf, and had lost two Vietnamese priests and one previous American to Vietcong terrorists.
        From the moment of Stefan's arrival, during his entire tour of duty in the war zone, he never doubted that he would survive or that his work in that hell-on-earth was worthwhile. When Saigon fell, Bill Nader, Stefan Wycazik, and thirteen nuns escaped the country with 126 children. Hundreds of thousands died in the subsequent bloodbath, but even in the face of mass slaughter, Stefan Wycazik never doubted that 126 lives were a very significant number, never allowed despair to grip him.
        Back in the States, as a reward for his willingness to be the Cardinal's troubleshooter for a decade and a half, Stefan was offered a promotion to monsignor, which he modestly declined. Instead, he humbly requested - and was rewarded with - his own parish. At long last.
        That was St. Bernadette's. It had not been a prosperous parish when it was put into Stefan Wycazik's able hands. St. Bernadette's was $125,000 in debt. The church was in desperate need of major repairs, including a new slate roof. The rectory was worse than decrepit; it threatened to come tumbling down in the next high wind. There was no parish school. Attendance at Sunday Masses had been on a steady decline for almost ten years. St. Bette's, as some of the altar boys referred to it, was precisely the kind of challenge that excited Father Wycazik.
        He never doubted that he could rescue St. Bette's. In four years he raised the attendance at Mass by forty percent, retired the debt, and repaired the church. In five years he rebuilt the parish house. In seven years he doubled attendance and broke ground for a school. In recognition of Father Wycazik's unflagging service to Mother Church, the Cardinal, in his last week of life, had conferred the coveted honor of P. R. permanent rector - on Stefan, guaranteeing him life tenure at the parish that he had single-handedly