Crooked Vows Read Online Free

non-believer of any sort. He can’t remember meeting anyone before who admitted to having no religion. He wonders how it is possible for anyone to make this admission so calmly. Casually. He looks at the floor under Macpherson’s desk, fumbling for the right words.
    â€˜A Catholic priest. We are expected to be models of …’
    He leaves the sentence hanging, unable to summon up an ending for it that will not create more problems. An image drifts up of Father Phelan, the rector, delivering his last homily to the final-year students at the seminary not long before the disaster. Fragments that stood out for him then come back to him now. You are to be in the world, but not of the world. We are all born sinners; it is the ordinary human condition. But a young man worthy of the priesthood must strive to rise above the ordinary human condition. And must, at least to some very slight degree, succeed in rising above it. A priest who is a known sinner brings the whole of God’s Church into disrepute. Saintliness. The struggle towards saintliness. It is the task you are called to. As I have been. No doubt none of us will achieve even a remote approach to it, but we must always strive, though always falling far short.
    The rector had stood facing the group for a good half minute in silence before leaving the lectern. Scanning them, his eyes pale behind their rimless glasses. Looking for something, as it seemed to Thomas; searching their faces, and whatever feelings or desires might hide behind them. The memory of those probing eyes brings back the familiar sense of general guilt, of unworthiness, the anxiety about having his short-comings exposed. His sins.
    Thomas struggles for words, stumbles through the embarrassment of trying to make at least a little of this intelligible to an outsider. The word sin inevitably finds a place in his attempt, but he wonders how it will be understood.
    After several minutes Macpherson cuts in.
    â€˜I think I am just beginning to see one side of the point a little more clearly. At least as well as I am likely to, from my perspective. Your archbishop is anxious to be sure that there is no chance of a—what should I say—an embarrassing revelation. He will not employ you if there is a danger of something coming out of this plane crash story that could damage the good name of his organisation.’
    Thomas listens in silence, feeling a prickly discomfort at this way of identifying the problem. How could anyone talk so flatly about his being employed, as if a priestly vocation was on the same level as becoming a dentist or a plumber? How is it possible to think of God’s Church as just another organisation, like a business? This is alien thinking. Disturbing.
    His thoughts are interrupted.
    â€˜But that is looking at the situation only from the point of view of your archbishop, as if the main aim is to help him make a management decision. My professional focus must be on you, not on anyone else. What outcome can we expect from our consultations for you? I’m not asking you to answer, I’m just raising the question. What is the issue for you? I am strongly inclined to think that there is one. I expect it will emerge gradually. And it might, I suspect, look rather different from your archbishop’s issue.
    â€˜Another thing. You mentioned sin a few moments ago. I must tell you that the word is not part of my vocabulary. My professional vocabulary, I mean. You need to understand my position, as I need to understand yours.’
    Macpherson’s focus shifts away to the bookshelves near Thomas’s chair. He scans a shelf, his expression suddenly lighting up.
    â€˜Yes! There it is.’ He leaps up with surprising vigour, darts across to the shelves, picks out a book, begins leafing through the pages. ‘Another of my favourites: Spinoza. A wonderful philosopher. Have you read him?’
    Thomas vacillates, replying cautiously, ‘Only a