After Harvard, I had gone to one of the most rigorous medical schools anywhere. I had achieved high grades, and I had gone to one of the arguably most savage places on earth to practice medicine. Not once but twice.
There was no denying it in this moment, when I was all alone with the memory of the man who had stood in for my unknown father. What hadn’t killed me had indeed made me stronger. And now I missed the son of a bitch who had been the dominant influence in my life to this day.
Of course I forgave him. Why couldn’t I do it when he was alive?
I folded my arms on my desk then, put my head down and cried. I cried for the caring moments we never shared, for the fact that he had never told me he loved me and that I understood now that he had loved me. I cried because he hadn’t known Karl and he would have liked and respected him. He hadn’t known Tre and would never know the child I was carrying.
I cried because my father was gone.
When I was all sobbed out, I washed my face.
Then I went down to the church and prayed for G.S.F.’s immortal soul.
Chapter 93
WINTER MONTHS flew by, and while unique and devastating weather patterns disrupted growing seasons around the globe, spring unfurled in western Massachusetts with leaves and buds and red-breasted robins.
The first Sunday in May, James presented a woman priest to our congregation. Yes, a woman priest. Her name was Madeline Faulkner, and we welcomed her at JMJ with applause and coffee and sugar cookies in the basement room.
Madeline was in her mid-thirties, had degrees in theology and law, and had missionary experience in the Amazon. She made a presentation to the congregation and was welcomed and well received. If the archdiocese knew or cared about this new priest, they didn’t say anything to us.
That evening, Madeline, Bishop Reedy, James, and I had dinner in our oaken kitchen: chicken stew and honeyed tea and fresh apple pie.
Madeline asked me, “Have you seen the film Pink Smoke over the Vatican?’
I hadn’t.
“It’s about a movement that began back in 2002,” she said. “Seven women were ordained in international waters, outside the reach and regulations of the Roman Catholic Church. Incredible, really.
“Women protesting the exclusion of women by the conclave that chose Pope Benedict released a cloud of pink smoke in front of U.S. cathedrals in Rome. Other women, in support of female ordination, did the same in the streets and from balconies throughout the world. Pink smoke, Brigid.”
I said, “White smoke rises from the Vatican when a Pope is chosen…”
“That’s it,” said Madeline. “Pink smoke suggests that one day we could have a female pope.”
“May we live so long,” Bishop Reedy said.
Reedy, James, and Madeline proceeded to quote historic church elders who laid down Church law blocking women from the priesthood.
It was quite hilarious, really, to listen to the three of them snapping out quotes from ancient history that still lived today.
“Paul,” said Reedy. "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be silent.”
“Tertullian,” James said, grabbing my hand. “Woman is ‘the devil’s gate.’”
“Timothy,” said Faulkner. “‘I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.’” She banged the table with her fist for emphasis, and we all laughed.
As for me, I counted my blessings: I had love. I had friends. I had a baby on the way, and I was helping clergy who came to JMJ seeking guidance on opening breakaway churches like ours. A dozen new JMJ churches modeled on ours had started up throughout the Northeast in this past year. Congregations had opened their minds and their doors. Under the name of the church, the acronym JMJ was posted on the churches’ signs and doorways to let worshippers know that all were welcome.
I was excited to be at ground zero of this sea change in Catholicism. A woman priest. A married priest. Inclusiveness was catching fire. What next?
Chapter 94
WE NAMED our 110 percent healthy baby girl Gillian, and she became Gilly before we had even left the hospital. She was bright pink, had James’s blue eyes and my red hair, a glass-shattering scream, and she was absolutely beautiful, made with love.
James beheld his daughter with such awe, handled her with such tenderness, that it felt to me that he couldn’t believe that he had actually fathered a child.
He kept saying, “Brigid, look at her.”
“I see her. I see her.” I brushed her wispy hair with my fingertips. “Gilly, open your eyes.”
I’d gotten to know and love this baby deeply while I carried her, but when she was inside me, she reminded me of the months I had carried Tre and how much I had loved that little girl.