My mouth parted as his words hit me. He’d never spoken about this before.
“Alessio came to me in the garden. He was so angry, angrier than I had ever seen him. He said God had taken you from him and he hated both me and Him for it.”
“I could’ve…handled things better.” Every second of that day had replayed in my mind for years after that. Alessio’s confusion, followed by shock and then outrage when I told him I was leaving. For him, it must’ve seemed like the wrong choice, and looking back, maybe it had been too rash.
“He still came,” the archbishop continued. “To church. Showed up every Sunday after you left. Glared at me the whole time, but he was there. I didn’t take it personally, of course. He loved you fiercely?—”
“He still does.”
“Yes.” Archbishop De Vecchi nodded. “And you love him equally.”
“Yes.”
“What troubles you is not that you love him…”
I shook my head. “It’s that I promised my life to God.”
“And you believe those loves cannot coexist?”
“I don’t know how they can.”
He nodded slowly, no disapproval or disappointment in his expression. “You stood in this very office years ago and told me you were entering the seminary.”
“I remember.”
“You were grieving. And you were afraid.”
“I was.”
“Tell me, Rafael. When you made that choice, were you running toward God? Or away from loss?”
There it was. What I hadn’t wanted to face or voice to Archbishop De Vecchi out loud, but he’d found it anyway.
“I…needed solid ground,” I admitted. “Structure.”
“Yes.”
“I needed peace.”
He nodded. “And did you find it?”
“Yes. For a time.”
“But now?”
“Now I feel divided.”
“Between God and Alessio?”
“Yes.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Between who you were and who you are becoming.”
I sat with that for a minute, let it sink in. It hadn’t occurred to me to think of it that way. With one sentence he’d given me more clarity on the situation than I’d gleaned for myself—but he wasn’t done yet.
“There are other ways to serve, Rafael. You know this. A priest who seeks laicization does not cease to be Catholic. He does not cease to believe. Stepping out of active ministry doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to be of service.”
I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes, but they weren’t from regret or fear.
