Glittering Gallows

Chapter 17

117 C Chapter 17 t was a large amount. The hour dusk, a purple sash around his neck forgotten over his grey suit, Father Hendrik van Vuuren gloated at the stack on his desk in his cathedral office. He sat motionless in an armchair, meditative, quietly asking God if he hadn’t erred by accepting the amount, but frequently trying to arm-twist Him that it was a normal practice for priests to receive gifts in homage to their office. The stack was tall. His estimate was that it was enough to buy him a luxurious house in Pretoria or Johannesburg, and a fleet of immaculate cars. Four days after accepting the money from the premier, the amount remained undetermined. The priest hadn’t counted it due to the guilt he felt in his heart. By accepting the money, he realised he had been cynical to the point of breaking his vow of poverty. At his ordination, an archbishop and a cardinal, both guests of honour at the ceremony, made it categorically clear that once one vow was breached the other two; in his case that of chastity and marriage to Christ, were rendered ineffective. The men likened a Catholic priest to a scooter. Two vows were incapable of propping a Catholic priest as a righteous man of God worth representing Him. The afterthought that the Devil had ensnared him gnawed his senses. Despite the premier’s seeming sincerity and apparent generosity, he was convinced the politician was somehow buying his allegiance for one reason or the other, though he found it difficult to doubt Moagi Makgunda’s commitment to the Church and his welfare as a priest. What would he use the money for? The fact that he neither told anyone about the gift nor handed it over to the parish treasurer deemed him selfish and ungodly. He wasn’t going to surrender it to the church’s coffers as was his custom with other gifts. Despite the self-condemnation, he couldn’t imagine himself surrendering the I 118 money, re-ushering himself to a frugal, priestly life of sorrow and solitude. He wouldn’t make a fuss of it. If it was bidden that he would shepherd his flock through the gates of Heaven, it would be so despite what he, a man, felt inside him. For forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert. For forty solid years they were smitten, yet those meant to enter Canaan entered it, and Moses, in spite of his overt efforts, didn’t set foot on the Promised Land. Man is never righteous; he thought as he reached the stack of hundred-dollar bills and fingered it. It’s the righteousness of God and His grace that veil believers and usher them into eternal life. The righteousness of God veils Man for his justification. The priest continued to brood carnally, offending himself, but resolute that money revolved the world and nothing happened by chance. If Judas had declined the pieces of silver, no man would’ve been saved today. Money from European and Colombian drug lords, declared pederasts, suspected Satanists and warmongers indirectly funded UNESCO, UNICEF, the Red Cross and many humanitarian relief organisations throughout the world. He, Hendrik van Vuuren, was neither a felon nor a Satanist. Why would he scrutinise his life over a gift instead of thanking his God for noticing his avowed poverty and prompting a resourceful man to squash it? Didn’t Apostle Paul write to the Corinthians that the Messiah was made poor for Man to be rich? Who was Hendrik to try and defy a biblical fact? His relationship with the premier wasn’t improper in any way. If the politician was a sinner and the origins of the money sinful, it wouldn’t deem their relationship scandalous; sin was the raison d’être of his priesthood. When Mary Magdalene poured the perfume of spikenard over the Saviour who obviously knew she had bought it from the proceeds of harlotry, Jesus neither condemned her nor the anointing. As was his custom from engrained habit, he knew he had to pray to exorcise himself from self-condemnation and the mental quandary he found himself in. God had the mercy to exonerate him if at all his acceptance of the money was sinful. The Creator would tell him what 119 to do with the amount for the sake of his salvation and the glorification...