AS THE debate on Pension reform dragged on four years later, I continued to ponder my brother. He was certainly aware of the good notices I was earning in the national media and in the cautious Chicago Daily News, even if the Examiner polls showed H. Rodgers Crispjin running against me in the election a year and a half away. At the cost of enormous effort and strain I had become an effective Senator as I had promised that night at the first of many Georgetown dinners. I had many friends on both sides of the aisle, did my homework, counted votes, arranged compromises with which people could live, attended meetings, did not grandstand nor hog the TV camera. I was, as the Daily News had said, a quiet and influential member of the Senate who paid his own air fare on the few junkets he made.
I had even remained faithful to my wife in the house of ill repute which the Senate often seemed to be—people coupling in closets, bathrooms, cubbyholes, anterooms, and especially in the small and discreet “hideaways” which some of us had just outside the senate chamber. They were supposed to be refuges of peace and quiet to which a Senator could retreat from the floor during a debate to read and think and pray perhaps for a few quiet moments, away from the hubbub of debate. I had one such hideaway now in virtue of my position as minority whip—assistant minority whip.
I used the hideaway rarely and forbade my staff ever to bother me there. I did not want Robbie slipping into it when I was unprepared.
I remembered the romp Marymarg and I enjoyed the night
we had returned from that first Georgetown party. Nothing like that for a long time. No way could Robbie ever compete with her as a bed mate. If only …
I had paid a heavy price, both of us had, for my becoming an effective Senator. So had all our family.
I would never persuade my brother that I had played successfully with “the big guys” and indeed had won the occasional victory in the process. In his world view I had not “stood up” for my Catholic principles on the floor of the Senate. I had not denounced abortion, stem cell research, and homosexuality. I had not made them my basic issues. Instead I had concentrated on small issues like the protection of the pensions of workers, the property of ordinary folks which local governments wanted to condemn so they could build supermarkets with big block stores, the rape of women cadets at the service academy, the protection of the rights of immigrants. For Tony these were trivial issues. They were not for the people who were the victims, as I had tried to explain to him many times.
Our first Sunday in Washington we had gone en famille to the local parish Church. I suppose the four redheads were a give away. During the homily the pastor denounced Catholic politicians who did not sacrifice their careers for their principles.
“I think he knows we’re here, Daddy,” Mary Rose had whispered, a stage whisper, the only kind our exuberant daughter would attempt.
He certainly did. At Communion time he passed ostentatiously by all five of us at the rail—though the four redheads were hardly offending Catholic politicians. We promptly marched out of the Church, followed by at least a third of the congregation.
The Jesuit who greeted us at the entrance of the Georgetown chapel for the afternoon Mass assured us that we were “most welcome.”
And then he added that the Monsignor was an absolute asshole.
CNN was waiting for us after Mass.
“The Jesuits let you into the Church, Senator?”
“They said we were most welcome.”
“Were you aware that the Monsignor has been fighting this issue with his parishioners for a long time?”
“We’re new kids in town. I must say that I am astonished that the Monsignor would deny the Sacrament to my wife and children too. That violates the Code of Canon Law.”
“Why is the Church refusing the Eucharist to Catholic politicians?
“Only to Democrats,” I said, “and only a few priests and ambitious bishops.”
“But why?”
“I suspect that it is a way to persuade themselves that they are regaining the power they lost because of the sexual abuse mess.”
“Isn’t that counterproductive?”
“I would think so.”
My three daughters all are gorgeous young women with red hair, like their mother, but they are not really clones, though you would know at first glance that they are sisters and, if Marymarg were present, she was their mother.
Mary Rose (also sometimes Maryro) is the oldest. She is tall, brilliant, and self-possessed. She doesn’t so much argue with us as tell us when and where we are wrong. She is a power forward on the Gonzaga basketball team and very dangerous. She is authoritative rather than bossy and shares her mother’s intensity, but is much more serious than Marymarg. She is as prone to tears, however, as her mother. When we stalked out of the church, she led the way, her head proudly in the air, like she was thinking of shaking the dust of the place from her feet.
Mary Ann (Maran) is our resident little mystic, quiet, reflective. Often seems to be in another world. Very sensitive to her parent’s emotions. Sweet and sympathetic. She wept when we were denied the Eucharist.
Mary Therese (Marytre) is the youngest of the brood and the loudest. She doesn’t mind a good fight with anyone, inside the family or out, but is as quick to make peace as she is to make war. She wanted to stay and fight the priest at the parish.
The Chicago Examiner carried a headline the next day which said
CHURCH DENIES SACRAMENT TO TOMMY, FAMILY
Leander Schlenk didn’t add that we later received the Eucharist at the Georgetown chapel.
My brother called me that afternoon and bawled me out.
“What kind of example are you giving to your poor children? How dare you countenance their embarrassment in public.”
“I’m thinking of filing a canonical suit,” I fibbed, “against the pastor for denying the sacrament to my wife and children.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“He violated the Code of Canon Law. I am entitled to seek relief.”
“You’d be a laughing stock … . I suppose you missed Mass?”
“We went to the Georgetown chapel in the afternoon.”
“They let you in!”
“Actually they welcomed us.”
“They’ll let anyone in,” he snapped.
Lee Schlenk had yet to supply such labels for me as “Renegade Catholic,” “Cute Little Tommy Moran,” and “The Tom Cruise of the United States Senate.” Those would come later.
When I had begun my campaign without much hope of winning, but trying to make a point about negative ads, I consulted with a certain theologian about these issues.
“What do you think about these matters, Tom?” he had asked me.
“I’m opposed to abortion. I’m not sure you can call it murder. It is also a right sustained by the law of the land. It’s not going to change. The public does not want it to change. Most of my constituents don’t want it to change.”
“And gays?”
“I think they’ve been dealt a bad hand and the Church should leave them alone.”
“And stem cell research?”
“I’m told that half of fertilized ova are never implanted. I can’t imagine God causing that many abortions of human persons.”
He examined my face silently for a moment.
“It would seem you have done your research, Thomas.”
“The Church expects us to follow its orders when we vote.”
“Yes, it does. Your moral decisions should be ‘informed’ by church teaching.”
“That makes it very difficult for those of us working in politics.”
“It makes it impossible, Thomas.”
“The Bishops don’t care. They’re trying to persuade themselves that they still have power despite the mess they made of the sexual abuse crisis.”
“That may well be part of it. Better say ‘some bishops.’”
“All right … And they want to force us to use our political position to impose Catholic teaching on all Americans.”
“Precisely.”
“And I believe that Catholics have struggled for hundreds of years to destroy that impression of the Church.”
“And your conscience tells you?”
“That, finally, I have to make my own decisions as to what is best in the circumstances.”
“Then you must follow your conscience, must you not?”
“That’s what I was taught in college … but my brother says that the Church has the right to tell me what the right prudential choice is.”
“Forgive my language, Thomas, but your brother, dear sweet man that he is, is also an asshole.”
The sound for a quorum call was echoing throughout the chambers, calling everyone away from their booze and their naps and maybe their women. I glanced at my watch. Eleven. Too late for the last flights. Serves them right for talking so much.
“It looks like we’uns a gonna win, Brother Tom!”
“Shunuff, Brother Hatfield.”
“Brother Tom, you lookin’ like hell. You a needin’ time off.” Shunuff we did win.
I found a cab to take me back to Georgetown. I avoided the office, fearful that Robbie might be waiting for me there.
I was too dependent on my brother’s opinion, I told myself. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist about that. That would take too much time. My work in the Senate had worn me out. The constant assault on me and my family was sapping what little energy I had left. Maybe I should have told Tony that I had no intention of running for reelection. That would have pleased
him somewhat, but it would not satisfy him. I would never satisfy him. I remembered in the cab the experience with my wife after our first Georgetown dinner, the sheer joy of taking off her clothes, slowly, one by one, as she stood motionless, save for mischievously dancing green eyes, and lips twitching with suppressed laughter.
“Tommy, even your most lascivious fantasies are sweet.”
Such love between us would never happen again as long as I was a Senator.