The Fancy Dancer

by the post office, the packet from Father Matt was waiting in the St. Mary’s box. Over lunch, I managed to read some of what Father Matt sent.
    One booklet was “Principles to Guide Confessors in Questions of Homosexuality,” and it was put out by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It summed up the Church’s position very neatly and, as Father Matt would have said, very firmly. Since the genital relationship of two homosexuals cannot attain to procreation, and since the natural expression of love is between a man and a woman, these homosexuals have ipso facto committed a grave sin against nature and against God’s law. The Catholic homosexual who persists in his or her sin may not receive the Sacraments.
    The booklet went on to marshal all the Old Testament objections to homosexuality, as well as those in
    the writings of Paul. It said that lasting homosexual loves were rare. It finished up by recommending the proper pastoral approaches to helping homosexuals change, especially those who were married, or those who were in religious orders and the priesthood. Homosexuals who couldn’t be interested in heterosexual relationships would just have to give up sex.
    It was written in much the same stem, crisp language as similar official publications on divorce and abortion. If it had had a sound track, you would have heard the bishops’ hands briskly dusting themselves of the problem.
    I sat there drinking my coffee and feeling vaguely dissatisfied. The materials hadn’t told me anything that I didn’t already know (which wasn’t much).
    That same morning, Meg’s parents had learned that their daughter had ran away from home and they were turning the town upside down. Meg’s hard-boiled little girl friends refused to tell the police anything except that Meg had been to see me. That afternoon Police Chief John Winter came to call at the rectory, and it wasn’t to have coffee.
    “Yes, Meg did come to see me Monday evening,” I told Winter. “She wanted to go to confession.”
    “Did she say anything that would give us a clue why she ran away?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, “everything she discussed with • me falls under the seal of the confessional.”
    Little Meg had been pretty shrewd. She had known that she was sealing my lips. Like Vidal, she was an expert on covers.
    “You can’t possibly ... I mean, her parents are going wild,” said Winter. He was too good a Catholic to press me any harder than that.
    “Well, before she confessed, she did say that she knows someone in Seattle. No address or anything. Just—Seattle.”
    “You should have spoken to her parents about it,” said Winter.
    “I couldn’t, for the same reason I can’t discuss it with you,” I said.
    John Winter left to telephone the Seattle police to put out an APB on Meg.
    Father Vance eyed me. “Good boy,” he said. “You’ve got more backbone that I thought.”
    But that afternoon we heard from Meg’s parents. They marched up to the rectory and jangled the bell. When I came back from a hospital call, they were settled in Father Vance’s office ready for a good long fight.
    Mrs. Shoup did most of the talking, while her big good-looking husband with the tweed jacket and the salt-and-pepper crew cut just sat smoking his pipe. I now saw another side of Mrs. Shoup: a very emotional and primeval mother who, in the most sincere and misguided way, would have walked through the flames of one of her own auto-da-fe’s for her child.
    “Father Meeker,” she said, “how did you dare not to inform us immediately that our little girl was in • trouble?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can only tell you what I told Chief Winter. Anything she told me during confession is confidential.”
    “If anything happens to her, we will hold you responsible,” Mrs. Shoup said.
    “I didn’t think she was in any immediate danger,” I said. “She didn’t talk about running away. She was supposed to come back and talk to me this week.” “Surely you can tell us something! Was it drags? Was it . . .” There was one part of her mind, less fanatical, that was willing to admit the possibility. "... Was she unhappy at home?”
    “If the police find her, she can tell you if she wants to.” “Mrs. Shoup,” drawled my pastor, “I have to remind you that my curate is strictly within his rights and his sacred obligation to uphold the seal of the confessional.”
    “Sacred obligations!” yelled Mrs. Shoup. “A child’s