The bishop was an elderly man who would never be made a cardinal. Maybe that wasn’t something he really aspired to, but it was what everyone in the city said about him.
He limped slightly, the result of a war wound, and once he told me it was the only thing he had in common with Saint Ignatius. He had a twin sister who was afflicted by severe mental disorders; her condition was what caused him the greatest distress in life, and the subject made it difficult for him to maintain the contagious serenity that had otherwise brought him widespread popularity, even among nonbelievers.
Don’t think, however, that he wasn’t an astute man. He had passionately and devotedly followed the work of the Second Vatican Council, fully aware of our church’s inescapable challenges, and throughout he’d remained close to Cardinal Spellman, whom he’d accompanied in all of the cardinal’s travels. When I met the bishop for the first time, he spoke to me about his fascination for the Latin language: The council’s liturgical changes were what he’d found least convincing about that historic turning point.
He received me with unaffected, unfussy warmth, typical of certain elderly priests, and invited me to take a seat in an armchair while a nun served us tea and cookies; they seemed much better than the ones we ate in the parish. On his desk was a photograph of him and his sister. Their physical resemblance was striking, but the woman had a frozen smile.
The bishop sipped his tea and remained silent; he didn’t know the reason for my visit. The lady hadn’t called him, at least not yet.
I wasn’t sure how to conduct myself. I was relieved by the fact that he didn’t know anything, and I realized that I wasn’t up to making a full confession, I wasn’t ready, maybe I never would be.
“I heard about Father Harrigan,” he said suddenly. “How is he doing?”
“He’s in serious condition, but they say he’s going to make it.”
He looked me straight in the eye; for a person of faith, life and death take on different values. Then he smiled. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
No, I wasn’t ready. Much better to let it slide, to postpone it, until the time came and the case exploded. Assuming that it was destined to explode: Maybe that lady would never say anything.
I didn’t answer for a few seconds, and then I said something that surprised even me: “I wanted you to hear my confession, Your Excellency.”
“And you came here especially for that? There are so many fine priests, in your parish and elsewhere…”
“I feel as though I can trust you.”
“You must trust anyone who wears this habit, Father Abram, even the frailest and most mediocre of us: We’re all sinners, but God trusts us. Surely I don’t have to teach you that.”
He got up from his desk, took a few steps, and sat down beside me. Then he made the sign of the cross and waited for my confession: He’d invoked the power that God had conferred on him, and I felt its entire weight.
“Father…Excuse me, I mean Your Excellency…”
He smiled, and so did I. Then I started to talk as I had never done before.
“I don’t believe in God anymore.”
After a silence, I continued, with my eyes closed: “I believe in nothing. Nothing but the void. And in a few moments of occasional pleasure, which dissolve, like everything else, into nothing.”
I tried to imagine nothingness and saw myself naked in bed.
Then I saw a chasm, dark and bottomless, that made me sweat.
“I believe in the flesh and in death, Excellency.”
I found the strength to open my eyes again before concluding: “I’m afraid of myself.”
Basically, I wasn’t lying, I thought, but I didn’t know how to go on; I didn’t have the courage.
“It’s not true that you don’t believe, Father, otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. I think you still want to love our Lord, in whom you say you don’t believe. I think you want to beg his forgiveness.”
He spoke those words with a smile—I hadn’t told him anything he hadn’t heard before—and then he said, “But there’s an important question I must ask you, a question you must ask yourself: Are you ready to beg his forgiveness?”
Maybe he’d understood everything. Avoiding his eyes, I found myself looking at the photograph of him with his sister, and at her sickly smile.
I didn’t say anything; I didn’t have the strength. And I was hoping that he’d interpret my silence as assent. One of my greatest sins is underestimating people.
He went on: “There are saints who lost their faith for many years—did you know that? And men and women of faith who sinned throughout their lives but kept doing good the whole time, and they have remained models. The important thing, Father Abram, is never to close the door to the Lord but to continue to speak to him, without fear and without pride.”
I don’t remember what else he said to me, because I burst into tears.
I went away without saying anything about Lisa, and I received an invalid absolution. At least I think it wasn’t valid, because God goes down roads we don’t know, and maybe the bishop knew them a little better than I did. He put a hand on my forehead and used all the emphases of the Latin formula: “Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
Then, before I left, he embraced me hard, telling me not to fall into the blasphemy of pessimism—that was how he defined it.
And he thanked me for having come to see him.
New York was glorious that morning. As I stepped out onto the street, I thanked the Lord in whom I’d said I no longer believed, and I felt free to sin again.