The Mirror Apocalypse

by John Ayang

  “The old rusted bucket syndrome,” Bishop Caravaggio de Pietro muttered again, looking downcast. “The bottom always falls out without warning.”

  “The bottom didn’t fall out. It was knocked out,” the pope said, looking straight at Bishop Caravaggio de Pietro. Then he added. “Well, I think the time might be now, for me to make the long-delayed decision I had always considered making. The wolves have won for now, but not for long.” He stopped abruptly and did not say more, leaving the Bishops wondering what the long-delayed decision might be, and who he referred to as the wolves. But none of them had the courage to ask him to explain.

  Both bishops stood silently for several seconds, not knowing what to say. Eventually the pope looked up and indicated by a nod of the head that his meeting with them was over. They started slowly toward the door, looking a bit disappointed that he had not said much, or made any concrete decision beyond the mandate for Father Lombardi to issue an explanatory statement about what the Church’s decision had been regarding Fr. McCarthy’s request. They could see that he was in a state of mental anguish. The pain was visible on his face. Yet, not knowing what else to do, they decided to leave him alone to battle with his thoughts.

  As if he was eavesdropping by the door, Archbishop Ganswein, recently raised to that position, appeared on cue from nowhere and walked past them into the office as they were going. The pope looked up and beckoned him to get closer.

  “Georg, I think I may need to take a rest for the weekend. I have a very big decision to make, and it is weighing on me very heavily because it is a decision that will impact the current administration of the Church,” the pope said in one breath. “I am due to address the Consistory in a few days. With a whole lot of pressing issues to make decisions on, I need to be rested and prepared.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness,” Archbishop Ganswein replied, wondering what the pope meant by his words. There was talk of a shake-up in the Curia for a long time and he wondered whether the Holy Father was going to make the changes during that Consistory. He wondered who was going to get the boot and who was going to retain his portfolio.

  “Make an appointment for Cardinal Bertone to see me tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness,” Archbishop Ganswein replied, dutifully and then inquired, “at the library or here in the office?” The pope hesitated for a few seconds.

  “The library is a relatively quiet and safe place. Don’t you think so?” he asked genuinely.

  “I think so, Your Holiness,” Archbishop Ganswein concurred.

  “Then inform him I will meet him in the library.”

  “It will be done, Your Holiness.”

  Pope Benedict stood up, perhaps too quickly because what took place happened so quickly, also. Archbishop Ganswein thought he tripped on the leg of his chair and moved in quickly to help. His alert reflexes saved the day as the pope wobbled, then lunged forward, and his full weight dropped into his arms. He staggered a bit, but quickly regained his balance and moved the pope back to his seat, gently and slowly.

  “Are you alright, Holiness?” Archbishop Ganswein inquired, squinting as he looked at the Holy Father’s face as though he was trying to find a clue to the cause of his sudden loss of balance. “Are you alright?”

  “I think so, but…” the pope replied, not quite firmly. Beads of perspiration were already forming on his forehead. “I feel a little dizzy. I may have gotten up too quickly.”

  “Breathe, Your Holiness,” Archbishop Gasper urged. “Breathe faster and deep. Keep breathing.” He grabbed the desk phone and dialed a number that was all too familiar to him. The pope’s primary doctor, Patrizio Polisca, came on at the second ring and Archbishop Ganswein rattled through his summons and the description of what happened in one breath. Then he urged the doctor to make it to the office on the double because he suspected the Holy Father may have been on the verge of a heart attack or a stroke. He dropped the phone after extracting the assurance from the doctor that he was, in fact, making his way to the papal office right away. Then he went back to his job of coaching the Holy Father to maintain a fast pace of deep breathing until the doctor arrived.

  Rome, Italy

  February 11, 2013

  POPE BENEDICT XVI did rest for the weekend. Dr. Polisca had prescribed a two-week rest for him, only permitting him to come out to address the Consistory and then go back to rest. Although the pope had wanted to be present throughout the entire Consistory, his doctor would have none of it. He jokingly, but seriously, put him under obedience, as he told the pope to stay in bed for the good of his life, an order which the pope found amusing, yet ironic. Being the one who was used to preaching obedience to others, it amused him to realize he could only reluctantly bring himself to obey his doctor’s orders.

  “I guess I have to take my own pill,” he said ruefully, chuckling mirthlessly.

  “Yes. Your Holiness, you have to,” Dr. Polisca replied, firmly. “It is for your own good. And, I would add, for the good of the Church.”

  So, the pope stayed in bed in the papal quarters, in obedience to his doctor’s orders. He had the time to pray and reflect deeply on a very personal level. And those few days were also very crucial, not only for him but for the whole Church.

  There were so many pressing issues that he suspected some of the Cardinals might ask for direct answers to: the demand for women priests; for recognition of the right of gay people to contract same-sex marriage; pressure to admit the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion, etc. There were also numerous and very-pressing bioethical issues ranging from human cloning, prenatal genetic screening with its eugenic tendencies, to the long-standing dispute over surrogacy and IVF procedures, of which the recent case of Fr. McCarthy happened to fall into. There was the request from some third-world bishops for permission for married couples in their countries to use condoms to reduce instances of HIV/AIDS infection. Even from Europe and America, the pope expected considerable pressure in support of the distribution of condoms to teenagers for the same purpose. The big paradox here was that as ultra conservative as the Holy See was, or, was reputed to be, the tendency toward liberalizing views also had quite a considerable number of supporters, though mostly from outside the Roman Curia. He had already preempted the solution to Fr. McCarthy’s case, but he was prepared to defend his decision on that issue if it was brought up again.

  It was not that the solutions to these problems were difficult to arrive at. Some, if not all, were already fully addressed in the moral teachings of the Church. But those doctrines were being increasingly and vehemently opposed by pressure and lobby groups both within and outside the Vatican. And there were even a few in the Curia who critically observed that the Church was more than 200 years behind in certain aspects. Pope Benedict had constantly agonized over these issues, trying to figure out the best way to handle those oppositions which sometimes got so shrill that he would think about the good old days when the ‘hammer’ of excommunication was a ready solution for curing stubborn dissent. Alas! Imposed excommunication had not only become obsolete as a papal administrative instrument, but also had been somewhat denounced. Only automatic excommunication—incurred without imposition, but by the very nature of the circumstance into which one has put oneself—was still applied in the Church. And merely opposing papal teachings without action would not be enough to attract that penalty, as there was no canon to that effect. Moreover, the few instances that it had happened in the past, it proved to be counter-productive, as the excommunicated individuals gleefully accepted to stay excommunicated, defeating the purpose in an era when the Church, through ecumenical efforts, would rather see the fruits of Jesus’s unity prayer in John’s Gospel, Chapter 17, come forth. Pope Benedict’s yearning was to present himself as a pastoral leader of the Church, rather than a despotic autocrat. But with the vindictive bashing of him by the media over Fr. McCarthy’s case, it seemed that that hope was doomed. He wasn’t faring very well
with the cream of the Curia, and did even worse on the international stage, image-wise.

  Then there were the internal problems of the Vatican City-State itself, and the very personal problem of his confidential documents always being leaked out of his control. Vatican finances were in shambles, and material decadence had eaten so deep into the clerical ranks that it seemed practically impossible to do anything about it. He sometimes thought he would prefer to bear a wooden cross on his shoulder and walk up the Lateran hills, than continue to carry the immense weight of the problems of the Church that he was carrying then. But he didn’t have that choice. And since it was getting practically impossible by the day for him to meet the demands of office in adjudicating on all these issues, he came to one conclusion which he was going to announce to the Cardinals at the Consistory.

  He felt very peaceful as he dressed, prepared to join the Cardinals for midday prayer. He had prayed a lot during the night and had come to a final decision. As soon as he had resolved to act on that decision, he had experienced so much relief that he slept well the rest of the night. The Church of Christ would go on despite all the problems, and the gates of Hell would never prevail against it, as the Master Himself had promised.

  A gentle knock on the door woke him from his revelry.

  “Yes, come in,” he called out.

  The door opened and Archbishop Ganswein walked in with Dr. Polisca in tow.

  “Your Holiness,” he announced. “The doctor wants to check your vitals before you go into the Consistory.”

  “How did His Holiness do last night, and this morning?” Dr. Polisca inquired, sort of airily.

  “I think I did much better,” the pope replied. “Thank you for ordering me to rest. I slept like a log and my appetite is good. I feel more energy inside me.”

  “Certamente, Santo Padre!” Dr. Polisca approbated in Italian. “Bravo! Bravo, Santito! It is good for you and for the Church. Now let’s take your temperature,” he said, sticking an oral thermometer into the Holy Father’s mouth, presuming the permission to do so. He read aloud the number and proceeded to check his blood pressure and take his pulse. He pronounced every one of the numbers bene. “You are ready to take on the world, Holy Father.”

  “If the world is ready to take me on,” the pope quipped, and Archbishop Ganswein and Dr. Polisca chuckled politely. “They are in for a surprise, I bet you.”

  “Good, ready to battle the forces of evil!” Dr. Polisca pursued, humorously. “All your vitals have checked out good.”

  “Battle! What an ominous word,” the pope replied. “Unfortunately, a very appropriate word for the life of a pope. Let’s go, Georg,” he said, leading the way out of the room with measured steps. Archbishop Ganswein and Dr. Polisca followed closely. In the hallway, on their way to the elevator, they ran into Angelo Cardinal Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and Msgr. Alfred Xuereb, Pope Benedict’s second personal secretary. Cardinal Amato had an open folder which he brandished in front of the pope, falling into step with him and his entourage.

  “Good morning, Your Holiness,” he greeted, hurriedly. “Just to let you see the names of the beati before I present them in the Consistory.”

  The pope stopped for a brief second and looked at the three names and nodded his assent. “After midday prayer, you will proceed as usual.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness,” the Cardinal replied.

  Dr. Polisca took his leave with permission, followed by Cardinal Amato, while the pope and his two Secretaries got into his private elevator.

  As the pope entered the hallway to the Chapel of the Consistory, all the Cardinals, draped in scarlet cassocks, birettas, and capes over white surplices, killed their raucous din and stood ready. Someone started to clap and others joined gradually, swelling the applause as the Holy Father walked to the front, acknowledging the applause with the usual gesture of a smile and a wave of the hand in fraternal welcome. Then the Cardinals followed the pope into the Consistory hall and took their places.

  Sext, as the midday prayer—a relic of the monastic tradition—was officially called, proceeded as usual, with the Cardinals all chanting gustily, after which the Holy Father took his seat on a high-backed chair of purple fabric framed in ornately carved wood. The chair was placed on a miniature stage raised three steps at the center front, against the wall, facing the rest of the Cardinals. He himself wore a gothic, embroidered, stole of deep violet with a cape of the same color over his white surplice and white cassock, underscored by the red “fisherman’s shoes,” with his usual white zucchetto on his head. He was flanked by his two secretaries, Archbishop Ganswein and Msgr. Xuereb, both in white surplices draped over their purple cassocks. The gathering was solemn and very impressive. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Angelo Cardinal Amato, stood up, cleared his throat, and began to announce the names of the beati—the blessed—who would be raised to sainthood later. The whole Chapel was very quiet, though this was not an unusual ceremony. In fact, the Cardinals were very familiar with the process, but the silence had an ominous foreboding that was quite palpable.

  There had been significant grapevine gossip about a couple of changes that the Holy Father was going to make. But, again, the pope making changes during a Consistory was not unusual, except that this time, the Cardinals all thought the changes—usually consisting of a few transfers, promotions, and the creation of new offices and portfolios—were going to include a formal pronouncement of the doctrinal stance already taken about the situation of the U.S. priest, Fr. McCarthy, who was outed as the fruit of IVF, and who they were informed had applied for and been granted the lay status. They had all received the preliminary and informal document a few days back, stating the pope’s doctrinal stance on the matter. Most of the Cardinals irksomely wondered why the pope decided to use an open medium like email to communicate to them a document of such importance. But the stormy reports from the press across the Western world which came out simultaneously with the email, exacerbating an already complex situation, made it clear to them that the document had already leaked, and that the pope preferred the email as an instant way to reach them. However, not all the Cardinals agreed with the pope’s decision, though it was doubtful whether they would seek to breech protocol and pressure him to reverse the process since it had not been discussed by the plenary Session of the Curia before a decision was made on it. Some of them wondered if Benedict XVI was subtly applying the age-old principle of ex cathedra pronouncement in such a minor case that was not a de fide doctrine. And so, a few of them were still vacillating, mentally, on whether to call for a review or, at least, for more explanation on it.

  The Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints finished announcing the beati, and it was greeted by a very brief and low-keyed applause. Then the Chapel became silent again. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, took out a sheet of paper from his cassock pocket and started reading in Latin. This slight and unusually deviant act was noticed only by a few of the Cardinals on the front row, who did not wonder too long why it wasn’t Archbishop Ganswein or Msgr. Xuereb who opened and presented a folder to the Holy Father, with the document to be read neatly clipped inside it, as they tended to do on such solemn occasions. They quickly absolved the Holy Father for being so private. The “Vatileaks” machine, as it was now called, was still very active.

  Dear Brothers,

  The Holy Father started addressing the Cardinals, reading in Latin.

  I have convoked this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After repeatedly examining my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

  An unexpected shuffle suddenly erupted as the Cardinals all raised their heads, shifted in their seats and glanced at one anothe
r, alarmed. The pope’s language was confusing. Instead of talking about issues in the Church, and the likely course of action he was going to propose, he seemed to be talking about his person. What did he mean by “my strengths … are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry?” Greatly taken by surprise, some of the Cardinals instinctively put a hand over their mouths, as if to prevent them from exclaiming aloud involuntarily. Others looked somewhat quizzically at the Holy Father, as if to ascertain that he still had all his faculties intact. A few unconsciously suffered dropped jaws. But all looked on alarmed at what they thought they were hearing, but which did not make much sense. The Holy Father continued.

  I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but also with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, to steer the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, strength of both mind and body are necessary, strength, which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

  The Cardinals were still sitting on the edges of their chairs, straining to hear the pope as his voice was low and somewhat weak, perhaps intentionally so, to accentuate his point. And the silence was still very unnerving. And, besides, he was reading in Latin.

  For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom, I declare that I renounce the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those who have the competence to do so.