The Fancy Dancer

Mrs. Shoup for meddling that he seemed to assume they weren’t true.”
    The hint of a smile played around the Bishop’s 214
    mouth. He knew Father Vance’s mossback ways even better than I did.
    “Would you have lied to him?” he asked.
    “I’ve been lying for years,” I said. “First to myself. Then, when I tried to be honest with myself, I had to lie to other people. Yes, I might have lied to him. Last week I still thought I could protect my secret. Now I know I can’t. So there’s no point in lying anymore.”
    “Did you discuss this matter with your confessor?” “No.”
    “Why?”
    “At first I was afraid to. I knew he’d tell me to stop seeing the person in question, and I couldn’t. Later on,
    I reached the point where I didn’t think it was a sin.” “Oh, you didn’t,” he said, with the first hint of episcopal sarcasm. “Why not?”
    “If the Dignity people stated their theological grounds to you in Washington, then you know my grounds.”
    “Then this relationship that Mrs. Shoup alleges—it is a fact?”
    “It’s the first overt relationship I’ve had. So far the only one. But the feelings go back for fifteen years or more. I tried to bury those feelings with discipline and prayer, but..
    “Do you intend to continue the relationship?”
    “He’s going back to school, and we’re both backing off a little, so I doubt I’ll see him much now.”
    “But there may be another. Others.”
    “Maybe. Probably not till I sort myself out a bit more.”
    “Have you considered leaving the priesthood?”
    “It was the first thing that entered my mind. Not so much because I love him, but because I wasn’t sure I’d be a good priest any longer.”
    “Since your ordination, have you ever had temptations toward women?”
    “I’ve never had any temptations toward women,” I said. “There was the moment when I thought my vocation was invalid. I thought I’d become a priest just . to run away from the pressures to respond to women that society puts on you.”
    “Did you change your mind about your vocation?” “Yes. Now I’m sure that I also wanted to serve God.”
    “Mrs. Shoup said she saw you in the company of known homosexuals in Denver. Was this the Dignity chapter there?”
    ‘Yes.”
    “You are a member?”
    “Not yet.”
    “By that, I take it that you might join.”
    “Maybe.”
    The Bishop broke his statue stance and got up out of the big Gothic chair. He strolled thoughtfully around the room. I noticed a small patch on the seat of his cassock. Even the Bishop’s office was tightening its belt these days. I kept my frozen immobility in the chair.
    It was all over now. I had spilled my guts, given myself away, borne witness—and to my own Bishop, of all people. I wasn’t sure whether I felt good or bad about it. I had no feelings at all. Nothing was left but that rainbow haze of insomnia.
    “You’ve been honest with me,” said the Bishop, “so I’ll be honest with you. You have been one of the young priests in my diocese that everyone looks at and says, ‘He’ll go a long way. A biretta, maybe.’ Obviously, this revelation puts your future in a different hght. Have you considered that?”
    ‘Your Excellency, I’ve considered everything.”
    “You have an impressive folder on file here. Your school and seminary records, your social justice activities, your impressive record in the past two years. Even Father Vance thinks highly of you, though he’d rather be boiled in oil than say so.”
    I shrugged wearily. My shoulders felt charred, about to fall off.
    “I know what I am throwing away,” I said.
    “You would be sorry to leave the priesthood?”
    “Very sorry.”
    The Bishop was still strolling around. Behind him, on the tapestries, the Jesuits agonized and died.
    ■ “I would be less than honest,” he said, “if I didn’t admit that your affliction is a common one in the
    priesthood. Maybe commoner than temptations to the fair sex. Naturally we don’t have any statistics. All I know is what I’ve seen, and sensed, and heard through the confessional. And by no means is it limited to the rank and file. Once in a great while, some impressive man far up the ladder is overwhelmed by the kind of feeling you describe. I could tell you the sad story of a European cardinal, but . . . Two courses of action are open to him. He can give in to his feelings, and lead the kind of hidden life you’ve been leading. Or he can kill the feelings by