From Sand and Ash(96)

“She is young, and she is strong,” Monsignor Luciano said, trying to comfort him. “She will be all right.”

Angelo bit back a curse. Monsignor Luciano could be incredibly blind and stupid sometimes.

“You can’t come back to the apartment, Angelo. You will stay here at the Vatican until Rome is liberated,” Luciano continued as if the matter were resolved.

“I will continue on until Rome is liberated, until the people I am responsible for no longer have to hide,” he agreed softly.

“And then?” Monsignor O’Flaherty asked, clearly sensing there was more.

“I no longer want to be a priest. I have broken my vows,” he said with finality.

He’d broken them willingly. Intentionally. Angelo had taken a vow of obedience, and he’d been anything but obedient. He’d taken a vow of celibacy, and he’d made love to Eva. The only vow he’d kept was that of poverty. But maybe he’d broken that one too. He’d been greedy for time with Eva. Greedy for her touch, her kisses, her love. She’d offered them time and time again, and he’d resisted her, rejected her. Refused her. Until the day he hadn’t, and he’d taken her love and her kisses and her touch, and she’d made him a wealthy man, rich in love and promise and possibility. And he’d only wanted more. More. More.

That was what haunted him. He could have had a lifetime with her, and he’d squandered it. He didn’t feel remorse that he’d broken his vows. He was remorseful that he hadn’t broken them sooner. He should never have made them in the first place. When he told the monsignors how he felt, Monsignor O’Flaherty quietly listened, but Monsignor Luciano grew angry.

“You have broken your vows, but you have been ordained. Sin can be forgiven. You don’t just stop being a priest because you sin. You have been ordained—indelibly changed—and you can’t be unordained. You know this. You are God’s. You don’t belong to yourself anymore, Angelo. You don’t belong to Eva! You are God’s,” Monsignor Luciano repeated emphatically, thumping his chest as if God himself resided beneath the cloth of his robes.

“I am Eva’s,” Angelo said quietly. “In my heart, I am Eva’s.”

“But she is gone!” Monsignor Luciano shouted.

“She is not gone. She is still here!” Angelo cried, and it was his turn to thump his chest. “She is still here inside me, and I am still hers. I will always be hers.”

“Does loving Eva mean you can’t love God?” Monsignor Luciano said after a long silence. His anger was gone, his voice subdued, his face haggard. But Angelo was committed to answering honestly, even if it hurt his old mentor.

“No. But I would ask you the same thing. Can I only serve him if I’m a priest? If I’m Catholic? I don’t believe that anymore, Monsignor. I’ve seen too much. I want to do the right things for the right reasons. Not because someone will judge or someone else will wonder. Not because of tradition or pressure. Not because I’m afraid or embarrassed to do anything else. And not because it’s what people expect. I want to do his will. But that is what I struggle with most, knowing what his will really is. Not his will according to the Catholic Church, but his will.”

“We need you, Angelo. Rome needs you. The refugees need you. This church . . . needs you,” Monsignor O’Flaherty said.

Angelo could only shake his head. “I have put Eva last for too long. She needs me. She needs me to love her enough not to give up on her.”

“Tell me this. Is it that you don’t want to be a priest, or is it that you want Eva more?” Monsignor O’Flaherty asked.

“I want Eva more,” Angelo said honestly.

“And if Eva . . . doesn’t survive. What then?” Monsignor Luciano asked.

“I can’t think that way, Monsignor. I won’t.”

“I’m not asking you to give up. I’m asking you to continue on in your duties. You are a priest. That has not changed. And if Eva survives, if she returns to you, then we can talk about leaving the clerical life, about laicization,” Monsignor Luciano coaxed.

“I’m not going to wait for her to come back. I’m going to find her,” Angelo said.

“You can’t simply shrug off your ordination, Angelo. You know this. It is permanent,” Monsignor Luciano declared with finality.

Angelo ran shaking hands through his hair, despair and fatigue bowing his back and fraying his nerves.

“Then I am absolved?” he asked wearily.

“You are not repentant,” Monsignor Luciano barked.

Angelo searched his heart. Was he repentant? No. He wasn’t. “I seek your forgiveness—both of you—for disappointing you, for not being who you want me to be. But I am not sorry for the way I feel or for my actions.”

“Then you are not absolved,” Monsignor Luciano shot back.

“You are not absolved,” Monsignor O’Flaherty concurred softly. “But you can continue with your duties. I forgive you. Wholeheartedly. And I can attest that if you ask, God will forgive you as well. He understands, Angelo. You know that he does. You feel it. He is giving you his peace.”

Monsignor O’Flaherty’s loving forgiveness, spoken in the soft burr of his Irish accent, had Angelo fighting back tears of exhausted surrender. His anger and rebellion left him suddenly, and he fought to remain upright. He was so tired. So incredibly tired.