The Green Revolution Read Online Free PDF Page A

obscenties and condoms. And emerged to say that the matter was still under review!
    No wonder a group of alumni, alerted to such strange goings-on, had formed themselves into the Weeping Willow Society, their Web site helpfully citing Psalm 136. In Latin! Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus cum recordaremur Sion. In salicibus in medio eius suspendimus cithara nostra. Genoux looked it up. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and we wept, when we remembered Sion. On the willows of that land we hung up our harps.” Their theory was that, in the matter of that lesbian play, Notre Dame was under assault from nameless secular and neo-pagan forces. The members of the group began to acquaint themselves with other matters on campus, matters of a sort that they found incredible. The Gay and Lesbian Coalition, Gender Studies, other efforts to attack an imaginary homophobia. Papers were leaked to them and appeared on their Web site. Their calm and forceful letters had respectfully asked for an appointment with the president in which he could explain such matters to them, a request that had never been granted.
    Their next great concern, after sexual perversity, had been the issue of Catholics on the faculty. Over recent years, the percentage of Catholic professors had dropped precipitously. The Weeping Willow Society got hold of the white paper on the subject that had been prepared and pointed out that the proposed corrective, far from remedying the situation, ensured that the problem would increase. Of course there were members of the faculty who regarded this topic with loathing equal to their hesitation to permit the Monologues to be put on under university auspices. They professed to feel menaced. They saw this concern as retrogression, an attempt to reverse the great strides Notre Dame had made in recent years, the restoration of a Catholic ghetto, turned in on itself, hankering for the Inquisition. How often was poor Galileo invoked in such diatribes.
    It was the sense that he was failing in his job of special advisor to the president that had turned his thoughts to Father Carmody. What a mistake it had been, though, to seek to enlist the old priest’s help through Kevin Dockery. It had made him feel duplicitous when he telephoned Carmody, but the old priest had made no reference to the plea from a surrogate in the foundation. Barring an interruption, Genoux would head for Holy Cross House within the hour.
    His first thought when he pulled into the parking lot and saw a man seated just outside the entrance smoking a cigar was that here at least the ban against smoking inside could have been grandfathered.
    He approached the old man swiftly, hoping that his agility did not seem an insult.
    â€œGood afternoon,” he said brightly.
    â€œHello, Father.”
    Genoux stopped. When you have done it unto the least of men, you have done it unto me.
    â€œThat smells good.”
    â€œWould you like one?” Cigars emerged from the old man’s shirt pocket like a Latin American musical instrument.
    â€œNo!” He actually stepped back. Imagine returning to the Main Building reeking of cigar smoke.
    â€œI’m Father Genoux.” He held out his hand. The old man seemed to be studying his life line before taking it.
    â€œI know.”
    Genoux looked at him more closely. How old was he? “Were you on the faculty, Father?”
    The old man sighed. “I’m used to defective memories, living here.”
    And slowly, out of the fallen flesh, cheeks stubbled with gray whiskers, the absence of teeth, and sunken still-merry eyes, Genoux composed a portrait of the man as he had been. And recognized him. It was like a moment in the Commedia when Dante came upon a fellow Florentine.
    â€œFather Witte?”
    â€œAffectionately known as Nit. I had you in class.”
    Genoux pulled up a chair and sat. “Of course. Epistemology.”
    â€œI met my class in Moreau.”
    How