Bad Catholics by James Green Page A

last longer. To all the women at Mass, at the shops, in the street or market, Mrs Callaghan was a widow whose fine husband had suffered an early and tragic death. The men accepted the women’s decision and minded their own business. Children old enough to know something was not quite right made no jokes or comments, it was a grown-up thing, of no interest.
    Bernadette had not been humiliated in the playground, or anywhere else. She never tired of thanking God for his goodness to her. Others might have survived the humiliation but she knew she never could. God had spared her and in return she would devote her life to God.
    At fifteen she announced what she had long ago privately decided, she would become a nun when she was old enough. She talked about it first to her mother, then to Sister Angela, the headmistress at her school. Both were delighted. Bernadette was shy and somewhat awkward in company. She was a great help and friend to her mother, a good listener to her kitchen chatter.
    In another age, not long ago, but utterly gone all the same, her domestic accomplishments, her skill at looking after the two younger ones, her carefulness and ingenuity, all of these things would have made her a desirable wife. But now it was hairstyles and makeup, stylish clothes and dancing that the boys wanted, and whatever else they could get.
    It was explained to Bernadette that nuns lived enclosed lives in communities, apart from the world. Theirs was a life of prayer. Sisters took vows and belonged to communities but they worked in the world. Theirs was a life of service, showing God’s love by serving people in many ways. Bernadette’s mother was happy to be guided by Sister Angela who told her that while Bernadette was healthy and strong, she didn’t have the brains or aptitude for any serious academic training, so becoming a teaching Sister was out of the question. But she might make a very good nurse and as a nurse she could go on the foreign missions. Mrs Callaghan thought long and hard about what Sister Angela had told her.
    â€˜I don’t know, Sister, all those black people. I know we’re all God’s children and He loves us all, but it would be terribly different in Africa, wouldn’t it?’
    â€˜It wouldn’t have to be Africa, it could be South America or India, anywhere she was sent. Nurses are needed all over.’
    â€˜But it would be somewhere foreign. You know what I mean, it wouldn’t be like being among your own, would it?’
    Sister Angela nodded in agreement. She knew what Mrs Callaghan meant. Hadn’t she left Donegal to come and live and work in London? She knew all about being an alien in a foreign land all right.
    â€˜You know, they say that when God created mankind, first He made black people, but He wasn’t satisfied, so then He made the white people, but still He wasn’t satisfied, so then He made the Irish and said to Himself, “Well, I’m glad I’ve got that right at last.”’
    They both laughed.
    Eventually a decision was arrived at.
    â€˜So, an enclosed order, Mrs Callaghan. Well, you can’t do better than one of the Benedictine convents. I’ll talk to Bernadette about it and we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, pray for her. A vocation is a very important thing and needs lots of prayer.’
    But God’s plans for Bernadette, if indeed He had any, lay in quite another direction, the direction of Jimmy Costello.
    A few years before God, according to Sister Angela, was providing for Bernadette Callaghan, God – or at least His Church – was also providing for a young woman in the West of Ireland beginning her novitiate with an order of missionary teaching sisters. Her vocation, however, was less a response to God’s plan than an escape from a weak, worn-out mother, a drunken, violent father, and a brood of younger brothers and sisters. The convent was a haven from rural dirt, poverty, and