Free The Sacrifice by William Kienzle Page A

read, and the bishop would read. He would direct the bishop where to go, and the bishop would go. It was all so simple; all the bishop had to do was relax and follow directions.
    As for Father Tully, there was a certain satisfaction in telling a bishop what to do and where to go. Even if it was only for a short time.
    Whatever, about half an hour before the procession was to start, Bishop Donovan had surprised everyone by accepting the pro forma invitation from one of the caterers to partake of some port.
    How could the bishop have known about the goddam bomb?
    Now Bishop Donovan sat torpid, trying to clear his mind of all fuzziness.
    A police interrogation was bad enough. But there were all those reporters and TV cameras just outside. Slur one word and you’d be nothing more than an auxiliary forever.
    â€œWas it a bomb?” Father Tully asked his brother.
    The lieutenant nodded.
    â€œIs the priest dead?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Zoo replied. “They took him to Receiving. He was alive—barely—when I last saw him.” He turned to Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley and asked without preamble, “Where are your children?”
    â€œRichard’s with us,” said Nan. “He’s …” She turned to look vaguely in the direction of the hall. “He’s indisposed. He’s in the washroom.” She turned back to Lieutenant Tully. “He knows he’s expected. He should be out here shortly.”
    â€œAnd the others?”
    â€œRonald … Father Ronald is on his way. I reached him on his car phone. And Alice is also en route.”
    â€œWhere was she?”
    â€œIn her room at the Pontchartrain downtown.”
    Zoo Tully, from the first moment he’d learned that the two older children would not be present at the ceremony, had been curious. Why weren’t they attending? After all, this would seem to be a moment of triumph for their father. Why would his children not be there?
    Back to that later. For now, Tully accepted the premise that the younger Wheatleys would soon put in an appearance. Meanwhile, he had a problem that might easily be solved, but which, were it left unaddressed, would continue to bother him. “Since my wife and my brother have been involved in the plans for this ceremony for the past few weeks,” Zoo said, “I’ve heard the terms Episcopalian and Anglican tossed about as if they were identical. I heard the same thing from others here today. Anybody tell me the difference between the two terms?”
    Silence. The consensus seemed to be that George Wheatley had spent a good part of his life in that communion, so he should be the one to explain. But he sat motionless and silent.
    â€œI’ll give it a try,” Father Koesler said finally, with a slight nod toward the Wheatleys. Turning back to Zoo, he added, “I assume you’d like an explanation in twenty-five words or less.”
    â€œIt’s just that it would help if I knew: Are they the same or not?”
    â€œYes and no.” Koesler smiled. “If you go far enough back, we’re talking about a ‘Christian’ Church. When you get to the fourth century and Constantine, we’re talking about the Roman Catholic Church … as in Holy Roman Empire,” he explained in an aside. “Then came schisms and the Reformation. Then King Henry VIII claimed that the monarch of England, and not the Pope in Rome, was head of ‘the Church of England.’ And that’s when the Church throughout the considerable British Empire became Anglican.
    â€œCertain territories—such as the United States and Ireland—in a move to gain more autonomy, took on the added title of Episcopalian. So, for instance, the proper title for this communion in the U.S. is ‘The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America’—otherwise known as the Episcopal Church.”
    â€œAnd the Anglicans?” Tully