Reflections on a Burial

May light shine on us all.

We buried an archbishop this week. Even though I’m not Catholic anymore nor had anything to do with the funeral planning, I say “we” because I knew him. Known him since high school. He was the brother of my best friend, and also my brother’s roommate in college.

The archbishop was sinking fast into Alzheimer’s, though he was only 66. In the past three years, he has gone downhill like a car with no brakes. It’s actually a blessing that his suffering is over. He didn’t recognize his brother any longer, but my friend was driving six hours back home every week to spend a couple of days with him at the group home. My friend is the type to never complain about anything; if this had stretched on for a couple more years, he would’ve kept this schedule, and we would be forced to watch him wear down slowly.

(As a side note, at my age, I’ve become quietly amazed at the range of people I have gotten to know in life. Archbishops, politicians, professors, Shakespearean scholars, journalists, actors, farmers, business people, pioneers in various fields. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this possibility, back when I was a morose youth? Maybe mobility is greater today than it was when my parents were raising me? Maybe it’s just luck? If I had been told, “By the time you reach your 60s, you will have met SO MANY interesting people!”, maybe I wouldn’t have been such an apprehensive, fretful mope.)

The archbishop (no surprise) was a loyal and dutiful person. When he joined the church, all he wanted to do was be a local parish priest. But for someone of his intelligence and potential, that was not to be. He was fast-tracked to higher things. Earned some degrees in Rome, learned about church governance, taught at a seminary, given more and more responsibility.

From the Holy Spirit Provincial Seminary, Queensland, AU.

The seminary was where his vigil was held. It was a huge, huge property built in the 1920s in our industrial hometown. The “chapel” where the visitation and vigil were held was bigger than the church I grew up in. Maybe this was the “parish” that the archbishop longed for, surrounded by students and fellow clerics. But he was reassigned time after time through his career. The seminary had beautifully waxed floors, and smelled of years of work and incense and contemplation. The walls were decorated with graduating class photos, which made obvious that the huge class sizes in the 1940s shrank down to the single digits by the 1970s.

My own brother flew in from the east coast. I picked him up and we drove to the vigil. The archbishop’s coffin was flanked by an honor guard of four Knights of Columbus, with swords drawn. At a distance and in the dim light of the chapel, he was only a little recognizable. Alzheimer’s had withered him and wracked his body. In high school, he played football and wrestled. He ran marathons for most of his life. But by the end, he couldn’t walk.

Most of the people for the Sunday vigil were family and church acquaintances. Church people stick up for their own, for better and worse, as history has shown. I saw a dozen nuns in full habit, something I haven’t seen since a visit to Rome a few years ago. They were dressed more precisely than Marines, creases and hems at exact proportions. It was impressive and brought back intimidating memories.

My friend spoke about his brother during the service, expressively, volubly, almost shockingly. Years of frustration and grief were being released in this dark, quiet setting. Years of stories growing up, years of school, years of working for the church. My friend didn’t cry, but in a few other ways, he barely kept it together.

The funeral was the next day, at the cathedral. My brother and I picked up my mother at her home and drove in. None of us had ever been to the cathedral before. I expected it to have suffered the fate of many old churches after Vatican II — hollowed out and rearranged and uglified — but the sanctuary was light and airy and impressive.

We got there 15 minutes prior, but the place was jammed. I parked illegally in the lot, but hung my mother’s handicapped card from the rearview mirror, for added protection. The grounds around the cathedral were immaculate, fenced off from the rest of the city. When the service began, a full Knights of Columbus honor guard led the way, then all 12 guards lined the aisle swords up to honor the clergy coming in. At least 100 diocesan priests processed down the aisle, followed by a dozen bishops. Many of them went to school or were taught by the person I knew. The homily was spoken by an old seminary friend of the archbishop, and the parts I could hear were warm and personal, probably the best homily I have heard in years. The service lasted so long, I barely got my brother to his plane back to the east coast.

TRIGGER WARNING: References to child sexual abuse.

I haven’t been that immersed in such Catholicity since we buried my father 45 years ago. Such pomp and ceremony, such history, such an elaborate, medieval system to keep things moving — it holds nothing for me anymore, much to my mother’s continued concern (I mean, I’ve only been married to a Presbyterian for 34 years). Every ex-Catholic – and every Catholic – has problems with the church, but I won’t bore you with mine.

But I can’t finish this reflection without saying I strongly suspect the archbishop was struck with this early Alzheimer’s because of his last posting by the Vatican. (Others suspect it, too.) Trauma and PTSD can exacerbate and accelerate Alzheimer’s, studies have shown. The archbishop was loyal and did what needed to be done. When asked to do something, he never looked for a way to refuse. And this might have led to an early death.

The archbishop was posted nine years ago, half a world away, in Micronesia to an archdiocese in terrible pain. The former bishop had been molesting and raping young boys and men, in ways that I am sorry I learned about. When pressed about details, I have described them to people in a raspy bark of astonishment, hoping that that would free the stories from my memory, but it never works.

So the archbishop, in his role as Vatican representative in this snake pit, took on a burden that is unimaginable. He served multiple roles: investigator, deposition taker, prosecutor, confessor, consoler, healer, church ambassador, accountant, property manager. The former bishop destroyed evidence, proclaimed his innocence and fought being removed from power every step of the way. The man was convicted twice by the Vatican and removed from office. I can’t find evidence he was criminally convicted, only that he was removed from office and barred from setting foot on any church property in that diocese.

My friend and I, back in the days when beer consumption led to long, hairy discussions about existence and the universe and stuff, used to debate the nature of Evil. I asserted broadly that Evil was a shadow, a void, an absence of divine light (however you want to define it). My friend said no, that Evil was a real force, as active and powerful as Good, and to mischaracterize it was to underestimate it and disarm one’s self in the fight against it.

After seeing and hearing the results of Evil on the archbishop, I’m persuaded against my earlier opinion.

May God’s perpetual light shine upon him.