Strange Gods

by Peter J. Daly

  “But why would the Mafia want to make it look like New Church murdered Manning?” asked O’Toole.

  “The Mafia wanted to deflect attention from the bank. If they could make it look like the people who were angry about pedophilia were behind Manning’s murder, there would be no outcry to reform or eliminate the bank. By implicating New Church, they would send any investigation down a rabbit hole.

  “Bernard Willebroeck and his group were a useful cover for the Mafia.”

  Nate concluded the presentation and switched off the projector.

  “That’s the extent of my investigation. There is a lot to be concerned about. We are dealing with a threat that is so dangerous, the reputation and future of the Church are at stake.”

  Everyone but Nate and Tracy left the library in silence.

  As Nate packed up his case, he said to Tracy, “Bill, I want to show you something.” He pulled out the photo from The New York Times. “This is the man that Brigid saw with Peggy at the Four Seasons in DC.”

  He also pulled out a copy of the photo that the Italian police captain had shown him earlier in the morning. “This is the same man who attempted to run us off the road yesterday. What the hell is going on here?”

  Tracy was obviously flustered. “With God as my judge,” he said, “I never saw this man before. We do have friends in the Soldados, but I don’t know anything about this. Peggy and I would never be involved in any of this shit.”

  Nate looked him directly in the eye. “I want to believe you, Bill, but I can’t let it stop here. I have to follow the evidence where it leads. You know the drill.”

  Tracy put his hands up in disgust. “Damn it, Nate. Do whatever you have to do.” He turned on his heel and walked out.

  On his way back to the the Hotel Columbus, Nate told the taxi to pass by the FedEx office near the Stazione Termini in the Via Tiburtina. He told the driver to wait while he ran in with a package addressed to The New York Times.

  The young man behind the desk asked, “Do you want insurance with this?”

  “Yes,” said Nate with a smile. He thought to himself, Well, in a way this package is my insurance.

  28

  O’TOOLE AND MCCLENDON

  THE JESUITS HAVE SEVERAL HOUSES IN ROME, BUT THE biggest and draftiest is called the Bellarmino, named after St. Robert Bellarmine, the “Hammer of Heretics.” Everyone who spends a winter at the Bellarmino catches a cold, but by June the corridors are unbearably hot.

  Cardinal O’Toole arrived at the Jesuit house just before 1:00 p.m., the hour of pranzo. His boyhood friend from Salem, Jim Kelleher, S.J., and his old pastor and spiritual director, Jack McClendon, were already in the dining room. The rector of the house jumped up from his spaghetti to greet the cardinal, but it was Jim and Jack who got a hug from His Eminence.

  “Mike, you look good. Are you ready to become pope?” asked McClendon as he embraced O’Toole. It was a struggle for him to get out of his chair. His arthritis was getting worse.

  “No talk like that, Jack. We don’t want to scandalize these holy Jesuits,” said O’Toole, raising his eyes to the ceiling as if imploring heaven.

  As a Jesuit, Kelleher felt very much at home in the big, impersonal Jesuit house. As Voltaire said of Jesuit community life, “They come together, they don’t know each other, they live together, they don’t love each other, they die, and they don’t mourn each other.”

  One thing about old friends: the passage of time does not seem to matter. Jim Kelleher and Mike O’Toole had grown up together in Salem. When they got together, their Boston accents grew more pronounced, and they called each other “Mike” and “Jimmy,” as they had when they rode their bikes up and down Essex Street.

  After lunch, O’Toole suggested they go back to his apartment. “I have to pack my things to move over to the Casa Santa Marta. You’re going to have to move over there too, Jack. Why don’t you spend the night at my place? Then we can move over there together tomorrow.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said McClendon. “I’ll get my bag.”

  “What’s the matter,” asked Kelleher, “afraid of Jesuit hospitality?”

  “Nah,” said McClendon, “but at my age I can only take one Jesuit at a time.”

  The three men piled into a taxi and headed toward O’Toole’s apartment near the Porta Sant’Anna.

  Cardinal O’Toole had asked Father McClendon to come to Rome to be an English-language confessor for the cardinals in the conclave.

  For the period of the conclave, all the cardinals live together at the Casa Santa Marta. The only people permitted inside those living quarters, besides the cardinals, are confessors for various languages, doctors, and personal aides to the invalid cardinals. But even they cannot enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave itself. Those doors are sealed.

  McClendon was the kind of senior priest who would be respected by the cardinals. It was an extraordinary honor for him and an unusual opportunity to have something to say to the men who would elect the next pope.

  Back at the apartment McClendon headed for the bathroom. “The old man’s curse,” he said. “Never pass a working bathroom.”

  They watched him shuffle slowly down the hallway.

  O’Toole looked at Kelleher and said, “Jack sure has aged a lot. I saw him only three weeks ago, and he seems to have aged five years since.”

  “Well,” said Kelleher, “he is eighty-six.”

  “But he doesn’t seem well to me,” said O’Toole. The cardinal’s housekeeper brought in coffee. Over coffee, O’Toole gave the two priests a summary of Nate’s report.

  At the end Kelleher whistled. “Wow, who would have thought it could be so bad?”

  Jack McClendon had rejoined them and caught up with the conversation. He was philosophical. “The effects of original sin are still real, Mike. Clericalism breeds pride, and pride breeds hubris. Maybe this is a chance for the Church to really do something about clericalism.”

  “Like what?” said O’Toole, genuinely curious about what should be done.

  “Like admit that we are sinners just like everybody else,” said McClendon. “Let’s get away from the crazy idea that we are different from everybody else. What was that idea we were taught in seminary, that somehow we were ‘ontologically changed’ by ordination? Priests are just like everybody else, or maybe worse, because we pretend to be better.”

  The three Bostonians spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on news from home and recalling old times. Kelleher walked back to the Bellarmino for dinner.

  As evening came, Jack fell asleep on the sofa. O’Toole got up and covered him with a blanket. It actually felt good to do an ordinary act of service for someone else. Most of the time, other people waited on him.

  O’Toole woke Jack up for dinner. “What do you want for dinner, Jack?”

  “Just soup and bread,” said Jack. “I don’t suppose you have any clam chowder around here.”

  After dinner, they sat in the cardinal’s study and O’Toole drew an envelope out of his coat pocket. “Let me read you something that I got today from Nate Condon. You remember Nate. He’s Brendan Condon’s son from Charlestown.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said McClendon. “I became close to his father back home. Looks like he’s turned up a lot in his investigation”

  “Yeah, a lot,” answered O’Toole, putting his eyeglasses on his nose and adjusting the reading light by his chair.

  “Anyway, he gave me this letter from the mother of a monsignor who worked here in the Vatican and who was murdered last week here in Rome.”

  “I read about it in the papers,” said Jack. “Very tragic, so sad. He was found in the catacombs, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah. That’s the one. I want to share it with you, Jack.” O’Toole leaned on the arm of his easy chair opposite McClendon and read softly.

  Dear Mr. Condon,

  I want to thank you for making the arrangements to send my son’s ashes home to me.

  Not a day has gone by in
almost thirty years that I haven’t prayed the rosary for my son Matthew. I will continue to pray for him, as I always have, until God calls me home too.

  My son was not perfect. He was what the years, and the Church, made him. There were times when I was so angry at him. Matthew got into many things over there in Rome that I never understood. His work didn’t seem to have much to do with the Church that I love.

  I know this. I gave the Church my young boy, filled with a love for Christ and an enthusiasm to make the world a better place. I know he had a desire to be just a good priest.

  The Church gave me back the ashes of a self-loathing alcoholic … a man broken, bruised, and defeated. Despite all, he is still my son. Whatever he did, he is still my son. And I love him.

  I will always be grateful to you, Mr. Condon, for your kindness to me and my boy.

  Sincerely,

  Louise Ackerman

  The two men sat there in silence, devastated by the sadness of the letter.

  Jack leaned forward in his chair. “What have we done to these poor men God gives us? You have to be a spokesman for this poor woman, Mike. Somebody has to speak for her and all the people who are hurt or disappointed by the Church.”

  Jack paused for a second, then asked, “What was his problem, Mike?”

  “He was lonely, I think. And like lots of guys here, he was ambitious. He hated himself because he was gay. He hung out in bars and became an alcoholic. He started doing desperate things. He felt he was unloved and unlovable. Ackerman was not a bad guy, really. He was just lost.”

  “How sad,” said Jack, “but let’s be honest with each other, Mike. We both know there are thousands of priests just like him. Many priests and bishops are gay, more than we want to admit. They live in terrible isolation. They can’t be honest with anyone, not even themselves. You have to do something about it, Mike.”

  “What can I do?” asked O’Toole, somewhat irritated.

  “For one thing, we can end mandatory celibacy,” said McClendon.

  “What would that do?” said O’Toole.

  “Well,” said Jack carefully, “it would take away the safe haven for gays. It makes us all be more honest. Celibacy isn’t the real problem here anyway. The real problem is honesty.

  “Celibacy is part of a much bigger problem of dishonesty about sex and sexuality in the whole Church. We can’t ask people to be celibate all of a sudden after ordination.”

  “But we give them a long time to think about celibacy in the seminary,” responded O’Toole. “They have five years. We tell them to think about it carefully.”

  “Sure,” Jack answered, “but just because you think about it carefully doesn’t mean you really understand it. How can you say with certainty when you are twenty-five years old that you are really going to be chaste and celibate for the rest of your life? Maybe you could promise for a few years, but your whole life?

  “We have the same problem with marriage. When people say, ‘I do’ at the altar, half of them really don’t. They don’t know what is ahead.”

  “But they still promise,” said O’Toole.

  “They promise,” agreed Jack, “but often they don’t deliver.” He continued, “Celibacy is even harder than fidelity in marriage. Some people can’t be celibate, no matter how much they think about it. Some people can be celibate for a while, but then loneliness or desire overwhelms them. It’s an inhuman and unnecessary request to make of people who want to be ministers of the gospel.”

  “But we have been doing it for millennia,” interrupted the cardinal.

  “No, we haven’t. It has only been the official policy of the Church for eight hundred years, and we know that it has been more honored in the breach than in the observance. Look at what Chaucer says in The Canterbury Tales.”

  “Lots of people keep their vow of celibacy,” said O’Toole.

  “And plenty more don’t,” answered Jack. “The Church says something that is basically untrue about ordination. We say that at the moment of ordination men suddenly get the grace to be celibate. They don’t. It doesn’t come that way. It’s a process. Everybody is called to be celibate at times in their lives, but almost nobody is called to live without sex for their entire life. Besides, it really has nothing to do with the priesthood. We already admit many people to the priesthood who are not celibate. Look at the Eastern churches. Their priests aren’t celibate. Look at the Anglican and Lutheran clergy. We let them in, even if they are already married. We already have a married clergy. Look at the deacons. We don’t require them to be celibate. Maybe we should just drop this charade. It keeps good people out and distorts the people who are in.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to rewrite our whole sexual ethics,” said O’Toole.

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like in the parish, Mike. Nobody is paying much attention to us on sex or marriage anyway. Couples are living together before they are married. They have babies out of wedlock. They get divorced and get married again, and they don’t care about an annulment from the Church. Gay people are not ashamed of who they are anymore. Nor should they be. Most of my nieces and nephews didn’t get married in the Church. They don’t care what the Church thinks. They won’t stay in bad marriages either, just because we expect them to. No, we don’t have much influence these days.

  “Maybe if we did away with the demand of celibacy, we would free priests to be more honest with themselves and with the Church. If we allowed people like Ackerman to come out of the closet, they might be healthier men. Then they might be better able to serve others without the weight of shame bearing down on them.”

  “Oh, Jack, I’m too tired for this discussion now,” said O’Toole.

  “I’m tired too,” said Jack. “And I’m old. So, let’s get some sleep.”

  The two men stood up and gave each other a hug.

  “I love you, old man,” said the cardinal, “and I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I’m glad to be here with you, Mike.” Then, thinking of his beloved dog back home, he added, with a smile, “but I’d rather be home with Chocolate.”

  The cardinal looked at him with surprise. “Just kidding, Mike,” said Jack.

  “I know,” said O’Toole. “I can’t really compete with Chocolate anyhow.”

  He added, “Tomorrow we move to the Casa Santa Marta to get ready for the conclave. Much to do.”

  * * *

  In the morning, just about the time that McClendon and O’Toole were checking into the Casa Santa Marta, Nate and Brigid were temporarily checking out of the Hotel Columbus, but they weren’t leaving Italy. They were headed to Venice for a second honeymoon.

  The Condons had decided that several more days in Italy might help them remember why they’d fallen in love with each other in the first place. Rushing back to New York and a life that seemed to drain them of passion made no sense after the week they’d had. Somehow it was easier to be passionate in Italy, and the Condons were rediscovering their love together.

  For the first time in a long time, they found themselves compassionate and caring with each other. They were more engaged. Nate wanted to reignite what had begun in Orvieto. What could be more romantic than Venice? he thought. He had made arrangements for them to spend a few days at the Hotel Danieli on the Grand Canal in Venice.

  Brigid told Nate, “It will be our long-delayed honeymoon.”

  She was already there by imagining the two of them drinking wine on the hotel balcony overlooking the Grand Canal, looking out on the water taxis and vaporetti plying the canal. Maybe they could feed the pigeons in the Piazza San Marco or go for a gondola ride and snuggle up on a red velvet cushion while the gondolier sang Verdi.

  It is said that Venice invites dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. The Venetians have been idle for hundreds of years. Brigid was hoping that kind idleness would be what their marriage needed.

  Nate called the desk to reserve a car. While they were waiting for it to be brought around, Brigid sugges
ted that Nate call Cardinal O’Toole and let him know they were delaying their return by a few days. “We should at least wish him well,” she said. “After all, he is preparing to elect a new pope.”

  Nate called the cardinal on his cell phone.

  O’Toole was thrilled that they were staying. “After the conclave I’ll have a chance to show you the bits of Rome that most tourists never see,” he said.

  “I also want to thank you, Nate, for everything you have done for the Church,” said O’Toole. “I think your investigation will have far-reaching implications.” He paused for a second and added, “You’re a good man, Nate Condon. Your father would be proud of you.”

  “Thank you, Your Eminence,” said Nate. “God bless you, too.”

  29

  THE GENERAL CONGREGATION

  AS SOON AS CARDINAL O’TOOLE HUNG UP THE PHONE WITH Nate, he called the Vatican transportation office to request a car to transport him and Jack McClendon the few city blocks from his apartment to the Casa Santa Marta, inside the Vatican walls.

  The Casa Santa Marta is a guesthouse used by official visitors to the Vatican. The term “guesthouse” is a misnomer. It is actually more like a small hotel, with about 140 rooms, a large dining room, and a chapel that can accommodate a few hundred people. Each of the residential rooms has a private bath, and most of them are small suites with a sitting room as well. The hotel was built in the 1990s, on the orders of Pope John Paul II.

  Most of the time, it serves as a short-term residence for clerics who work in the Vatican or for visitors on some official business. During the election of a pope, however, the regular residents are evicted to make room for the cardinals who will elect the pope and their immediate staff.

  Prior to the construction of the casa, the Vatican workmen used to construct cubicles for the cardinals in the hallways of the Vatican Museums, just off the Sistine Chapel. Those lodgings were uncomfortable, drafty, and difficult for the elderly men who might be locked up there for days in the conclave. All those old men had to shuffle down the hallways to common bathrooms. For men of a certain age, who found it necessary to get up several times per night, it was quite a procession.