My First Visit with the Bishop

By Jan Baker

Everyone dreams of retirement and the tougher the job, the grander the dream. I had been an urban schoolteacher for thirty some years and believe me, the job gives you a big dream. I wanted to move somewhere the stories of the students who didn't make it couldn't find me. I didn't want to know the girl with the nickel sized dimples and the dime bag crack addiction would never smile again. I wanted to go somewhere far, far away. Like many a weary soul, I wanted to move to Mexico.

Of course, I loved my Pennsylvania home and especially my Traditional Latin Mass parish. But did we the faithful not have Ecclesia Dei? Was this not 2004? Was I not a schoolmarm accustomed to three or four daily miracles before noon? Sure, I could work some magic on a bishop, in spite of the fact that the Spanish I knew was pretty well limited to street expletives picked up from students. It would work out because when it comes to language, I got game. And God is good. And so I headed south. Way south.

Over the four thousand or so miles I had plenty of time to make a plan. I would show the pastor (with whom I had spoken, in English, on the phone and who seemed quite sweet, if a little mystified) some TLM videos, for starters. I would help the parish and I would work with the women. There is no language barrier that women working together over rummage sale clothes and bake sale creations can't overcome (I do a nice flan, may I say). I would go see the bishop to let him know I was determined to obtain his permission to get a TLM even if it was the first in Mexico. And then I would gather signatures on a petition. God would make up for what I couldn't fluently express.

This plan went well. The women were eager to teach me, and they started with the names of all the flowers as we walked home from daily mass. And I traded with the English. Copa de Oro and Cup of Gold. Amor del Hombre and Bleeding Heart. The pastor was more than sweet, he was funny, and young, and I suspected he began to deliver his sermons to the packed church at daily mass, where I was the only gringo there, more slowly so I could understand. He took an interest in my spiritual life and counseled me in English. His pastoral advice was linguistically clipped but dead accurate: be a saint, he said, and try to be happy.

I wanted his acceptance if not his conversion to the cause, and I got it. After he viewed the video The Most Beautiful Thing This Side of Heaven and I came with some trepidation to retrieve it, he greeted me in yet another language. Dominus vobiscum, he said with a broad smile, and remarked he remembered it from his childhood. Yes, it is a beautiful mass. Yes, sure you should go to the bishop. And so I made a plan for that.

First I called for an appointment. No need, the bishop said. The answer is no. But language handicap can work two ways and I worked it my way. So when can I come? I replied. He sighed. He'd exhausted his store of English and patience both, and so he checked his calendar.

Then I wrote a classic confirmation letter on extra nice paper with matching envelope, enclosed Ecclesia Dei in Spanish (thanks to the Una Voce website), a brochure of Frequently Asked Questions developed first in English with on-line support from traditionalist friends and translated with Babelfish on-line and polished by a vacationing nun. As recommended, I cc'd Cardinal Hoyas. All this increased my juice at the post office. A registered letter to the bishop AND a letter to Rome? Que gringa!

I prepared for the meeting the way I'd prepare for any class. A lesson plan, completely scripted; visuals; hard copy of all references. Ecclesia Dei, a sample Latin/Spanish missal, pointedly inexpensive. The Publisher-made booklet of FAQ's on the Traditional Latin Mass in living color. Equally pointedly, copies of the confession brochure I had written for the parish, long-sought directions in English for the tourists about how to go to confession during their stay, with the mass and confession schedule. He would not be able to say I was unwilling to support the normative Novus Ordo rite and the community around it. Last, the little volume put together by my old parish, the story of building their traditional community over ten years. My homework done, I spent a lot of time staring out at the empty ocean asking myself, are you out of your mind?

Then I went shopping. Any girl knows you have to have bishop shoes. At evening mass the night before the trip to the distant town where the bishop rules, I poked my head in my pastor's office and asked him if there was anything I could take there for him. I was really just checking in with him, but it popped into my head. He was delighted. Oh, yes, the hosts!

Not consecrated ones, I said in stupid panic because it had taken me so long to untangle the word hostes into hosts. He shook his head. What must they NOT do in the states?

No, no, before they are consecrated, Juanita. We're almost out. Bring some back. I'll call the secretary, don't worry. They'll be ready.

And I went for my meeting with the bishop. And it was horrible. He had his own script. It involved saying no a lot, right from the beginning, and quite vigorously for so frail and apparently ailing a man.

Still, I worked my way through my material. The TLM is a rite in the church, I began, just like other rites.

What other rites? he shot back. There are no other rites in the Church. There is only one rite in the Church, the one we use in Mexico.

But the Dominicans? I said. The Carmelites? They have their own rite!

Never heard of it, he replied. Prove it!

This was a setback! I assumed a bishop would know that the church had a variety of rites, and now I had just named the only two I could reliably pronounce and he'd never heard of them!

Well, there are so, I said. Of course, then they came back to me, too late: the Mozabaritic rite, the Ambrosian rite, the Carthusian rite, all in use in the church with no apparent problem, peacefully co-existing with the normative Novus Ordo rite.

OK, next try: The Holy Father says we, the faithful, have a right to the Traditional Latin Mass, and I want to get your blessing, just your blessing right now, not your permission to have the mass, but just your blessing to gather signatures in the petition required by Ecclesia Dei. That way we will both know if there is a desire among the people. If there is not, I said, surprising myself, I will take it as the will of God. But let me just try to find out the truth.

Latin, he said. Latin! Show me one place in the world they use Latin in the mass. Show me one place! Maybe in Rome! I slid over the booklet from my old parish in the states. He looked at it in some disbelief, turning the pages with what appeared to be horror. I was trying his patience. I, too, was horrified. The way he pronounced the word Latin. He seemed to hate the very idea of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Finally he looked up from the booklet and said to me, madam, you must understand something. First, you are only one person. Your desire for this mass does not count more than the needs of the many. Besides, this is Mexico. We do not use Latin here. If you want to live here, it is essential; you must learn to pray the mass in Spanish.

That hurt. And it hurt doubly because I'd spent a professional teaching life fighting that same attitude toward Mexican kids in the US who were shamed, at times detained, if they dared to speak Spanish, and who were deliberately denied instruction in reading and writing Spanish, the language in which they thought. The ignorant "English only" movement. Those were fighting words. And now I found them applied to me! And just as those kids could not find the "main idea" of a paragraph in English if they did not understand the concept in the language playing in their minds, nor can I really pray in Spanish.

For the first time, the futility of the vernacular hit me. The cruelty! I thought of the millions around the world forced by necessity, not like me, to move beyond the borders of their native tongues. The Catholic Nigerians, the thousands upon thousands of Mexicans forced from their land and into a hostile north to earn bread, to live, victims of the decades of revolution that destroyed the wealth and work of Mexico. No, nor can they pray, unless fortune provides an occasional Spanish mass, and then they pray in a language ghetto. The doctors and dentists and carpenters and tool makers of any given town will not be there at that mass, where Mexicans might have a chance to meet the providers of services and jobs other than the back breaking work in the fields. One man's vernacular is another man's tyranny! It locks everybody up, or out! I wondered suddenly if it might to some kind of national churches.

What a contrast to the Traditional Latin Mass where everyone can easily have a cheap missal with their own language in it along with the Latin. You could be anywhere in the world and step into a Catholic Church an equal player-or pray-er, as it were. You didn't have to change identities!

I took a quick breath and tried to think fast, and in Spanish. But Father, I said, the documents of Vatican II tell us Latin must be preserved in the Church. If we never use it, how can we preserve it? That's what I tried to say, hoping the easy word documentos would overcome however I mangled Vaticano Dos or whatever it might be called in Spanish.

Or perhaps that's not what I said. Anyway, he didn't answer, but instead selected and opened a mass missal on the corner of his desk. This is the missal of the Church, he said. This is the missal of Mexico. He invited me to look. It was the vernacular Novus Ordo missae from 1970.

But Father, I began again. Can we please look at Ecclesia Dei to read what our Holy Father says?

I read it, I read it when you sent it, he said.

But could we please look again? I took out my copy in English, and he fished around in his briefcase and took out my letter and spread out the contents and opened the two page print out of Ecclesia Dei in Spanish. He ran his finger down until he found a part he wanted. I had a hard time understanding his simple 5C because for a moment the cinco c connected in my befuddlement to se the reflexive pronoun and I couldn't make heads or tails of his simple words. He had to point out the section, with a sigh. He was trying to be gracious.

Oh si--C! I murmured with embarrassment. Together we read the section. It is the part that invites "all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre" back to the Church. "This is the solution, is it not?" he asked me. "They must return." He re-folded the document to put it away. That was the part he liked.

Well, of course, I answered. But what about this other part? He had to take it back out. Seis C, that says, "respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application" of the indult. I began to interpret. See, Father, it's a trade, I said. We invite them back and we let them have their beloved mass. It's a strategy. It's the Holy Father's strategy to solve the situation. If the people in Chalko could have their mass within the church, we wouldn't be having that problem there, right? I was referring to the bad-press, police-presence situation that had erupted there close to Mexico City just the previous week and had caused me to accuse God of irony one whole ocean-watching evening.

Well, he said, you know this document is not a mandate, it's only a recommendation. It doesn't apply to Mexico anyway.

I think it applies to Mexico more than anywhere, more than ever, I answered. And besides, I don't care if it's only a recommendation. Are we not obedient? It got quiet then, right enough. You could hear the central fountain splashing, and someone singing at their work.

I must finally have exhausted his considerable patience, and he showed some irritation. Murmuring what might have been a prayer for fortitude, he put away Ecclesia Dei. I think I heard the word obstinate and wanted to smile. Yeah, yeah, you and several thousand students over the years! And then he said, "I'll have to have a little chat with Father at your parish. Yes, I will." The words made my heart sink! Oh poor Father! He'd become "responsible" for me, sure enough! His career!

The interview was over. People were waiting. I gathered my things and balanced the large bag of hosts the secretary had given me on top of my books and notes. I would have clutched them to my heart if they hadn't been fragile. No not consecrated. But comforting. A reminder, He at least is something we have in common.

Father, I said. Thank you for your time. I will gather signatures. I will be discrete. I regret that I do not have your blessing, as I wish to be your good daughter. But this document gives me the right as a Catholic, and I will use it.

You will cause much anguish among the people, he said wistfully. You will invite the Lefevristas in. Well isn't that the point, I wanted to say again. But for the bishop, somehow the cost is too high. "I will never give permission. Never." Those were his last words to me. It's war, then.

In spite of that, he offered his hand. In spite of that, I took it. I took both of them so that we both had our arms wrapped around the books and the hosts. We helped each other to the door. There was a great gulf, but God is good and there is love.

Driving home, retracing my route, I passed street corner after street corner where battle-uniformed men cradled assault rifles. It's a common sight in Mexico, supposed to be part of the drug wars, although how their presence in the busy center of the small city, even close to the cathedral where a proliferation of white habited hospital nuns walked, has anything to do with the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, is quite beyond my grasp. I would pass a military check-point along the road home, too, and they had ouzis. I remembered the vehemence with which the bishop had said, I will never give permission. One phone call, to an old friend, I thought. That's all it would take. And me with my precious immigration papers safely at home where I wouldn't lose them! One call, and me with nothing but a Pennsylvania drivers' license and a bag full of hosts!

The soldiers made me think of Mexico's history, the rape and attempted murder of the Church, only so recently mitigated, for Her "crimes" of faithfully offering schools and hospitals, faith and hope, to the poor. The suppression, the unexplainable hatred. How sad that we now we have learned to do that to each other, one rite against another rite.

But then I thought again. Perhaps he, too, is afraid of the guns. So recently they were turned against the Church of Mexico. Perhaps he is afraid that any change in the careful balance could turn them yet again? Or perhaps if fear, it has another source. Perhaps he is afraid that in a fair fight with the cuffs off the Traditional Latin Mass would win. Even without war, there's always a winner and a loser and by their fruits shall they be known. But does not the rite with 1500 years of history carried lovingly all this time into the future, the rite among whose fruits are the Little Flower, St. Francis, Joan of Arc not deserve a chance in a fair fight? From whom did we learn suppression-Karl Marx, Calles? Not Christ!

My hands were trembling. I felt like a non-combatant in the no-mans' land between two giants. The sun was as hot as Mexico can take it, as hot as hell. I tried to pray, but I wanted to cry. It was too hot to cry. I worried about Father Pastor and that phone call. I worried about driving too fast and breaking the hosts. I worried about driving too slow and annoying everybody piling up behind me on the narrow, twisting road through the mountains. I worried that I might indeed cause anguish. I worried about the Church, against whom the gates of hell shall not prevail but they keep making these damned good tries. I tried a prayer in Spanish: Padre Poderoso, ayudame. Then I quit worrying and took my hair loose and opened the sun roof and let the wind blow me all wild and the heck if the military checkpoint thinks it's got a crazed gringa on their hands. Might as well enjoy the ride.

Back home, I am still trying to be a saint and be happy. The next stage is ahead. Writing this, I just went out under a stormy sky, for it is September in Mexico. I begged Our Father poderoso, thank you for my interesting life. But could you, would you please not make it worse! Next time send me with a friend. I'm scared of history and I'm scared of hatred and I'm scared of the guys with the ouzis.