The Accidental Pope

by Ray Flynn

  “What did you say, dear?” Sister Teresa asked.

  “Just welcoming Bill, the new pope!” she replied. This was no time for explanations. Maureen reached into her pocketbook and withdrew a small cellular phone and dialed her father’s private number at the residence while staring intently at the balcony.

  In the awed silence that gripped the square, Maureen heard the number buzz and her father answering.

  She spoke to him, crying out over her cell phone that it was indeed Bill Kelly on the balcony. He said he knew. Ed Kirby saw his fisherman acquaintance on the TV screen just as his daughter’s call came through from the square. Instantly he turned to Patrick. “Take the film down to the AP Rome bureau. Stay with them while it is developed, and after they’ve picked a couple of pictures of Bill and myself for their story, bring the film back here. Tell Elizabeth Redmond I’ll call her with the details as soon as I talk to Washington.” Ed’s heart was glad, he felt secure in the knowledge that he had helped to accomplish something very important and significant.

  He strode from the sun room, where the enraptured chanting from the Vatican could be clearly heard. “Viva il papa! Viva il papa!” The overflowing tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square rejoiced as they had never rejoiced before. A barrier many centuries old had abruptly and totally unexpectedly tumbled down. High above the elated throng stood one of their own, a onetime layman, and they themselves felt elevated. The more they thought about it, collectively, the more excited they became.

  Once safely ensconced in his private office, Ed Kirby put through a call to the White House switchboard. It was just after ten in Washington when his call was transferred to the office of the White House chief of staff. A deputy was on duty and Kirby asked to be put through to the president. The deputy had obviously read the morning paper and was reluctant to put Ed through. The Oval Office might now be off-limits, and his boss was out.

  Ed explained. “Look, I was unavailable yesterday because I was escorting the new pope from Massachusetts to Rome. I know all about the Post story and I want to tell the president who the new pope is—an American, for starters.”

  The news surprised the deputy to the point that he opened up. “The president is over at the Pentagon. Scout’s honor. We do have a slight crisis going on, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Then put me through to the First Lady. It’s damned important!”

  There was a hesitation on the line. Ed’s voice uncontrollably rose an octave. “It’s important that the First Lady herself hear what happened and that she tell the president.” He paused to let his voice calm down. “It’s your fault if the president is asked a question by the national media before he hears directly from his ambassador. I was with the dark horse from his home on Cape Cod to here last night.”

  In less than three minutes, Ed Kirby had the sympathetic ear of the First Lady on the telephone as he explained the entire situation. In the background Ed could hear the coverage on a White House TV set of the scene happening immediately below his residence in the square. When Kirby had finished explaining to the First Lady, she was enthralled with the story. “I’ll brief the president immediately. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you directly, Ed.”

  “I’ll stand by at the residence to wait for his call—even at the risk of being accused of deserting my post at the embassy,” he chuckled.

  Now that he had reported everything to his boss at the White House, he picked up the phone to reach the AP bureau chief. For ten minutes he briefed her on the story until Catherine came in, a grin on her face.

  “Mr. Seedworth to see you, Ed.”

  “Tell him to wait.” Back on the phone, Elizabeth Redmond thanked him for the exclusive pictures of Kirby and Bill Kelly.

  “It’s the biggest Vatican story we’ve moved since the Turk tried to kill John Paul II.”

  “Glad to help. Just be sure to send back the negatives with my assistant.”

  “Will do. And AP will be moving the first paragraphs in a couple of minutes. Wait till my pals at the Post read this!” she chortled.

  In the sun room, Calstrom Seedworth was waiting for Ed, an innocent smile on his face. “Mr. Ambassador, we missed you yesterday.”

  “Cal, what about this story in the Washington Post this morning?” Ed asked abruptly. “What’s this about Nice, Monte Carlo, and Ireland?”

  “A call came in for you yesterday from the Post. I told them you weren’t here. The driver said he had taken you to catch a nine-thirty plane. They probably checked and found one leaving for Nice. You know these press guys.” He stared out the window and down at the Spanish embassy, where many diplomats were standing on the roof observing the excitement around St. Peter’s Square below. Then he added helpfully, “I’ve asked the embassy press clerk to find out everything possible about the new pope for transmission to Washington.”

  Kirby nodded noncommittally. “I understand that AP is putting out quite a story on our new pope. You know, how he arrived here in Rome so secretly this morning.” The hint of a smile flickered over his face. “They have researched some detailed background material on Mr. Bill Kelly.” The DCM was beginning to sense that there might be a considerable and embarrassing gap in his perception concerning the ambassador’s absence.

  Catherine came back into the sun room. “That call you were expecting is coming through.”

  Ed turned back to the DCM. “You might get ready for a press conference about six P.M. when I’ll explain where I was yesterday. Have it at the Cardinal Baum Room at the embassy.”

  Before the startled DCM could reply, Kirby was striding out of the sun room and down the hall again to his office. He was resolved to let it all hang out with the president, let the chips fall where they may. This was no time to protect innocuous conclave secrets with the State Department setting out to destroy him.

  * * *

  It took half an hour before some semblance of order was restored in St. Peter’s Square. When he thought he could be heard, Bill Kelly stepped closer to the microphone.

  He began his talk in the simple Italian and Portuguese words he had picked up from many years of dealing with the immigrants who took the most humble jobs he could give them in his small fishing fleet. “My dear brothers and sisters,” he began in Italian and then switched to Portuguese and to English, “I cannot say why the Holy Spirit has led these cardinal princes to select a poor and humble fisherman like me.” From an utter ecstasy of jubilation the crowd was reduced to silence, absolute in its contrast to the uproar of a few seconds before.

  “Like the first fisherman, Peter, I feel more like saying ‘Depart from me, oh Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ But I know that being a poor sinner myself, Jesus Christ is the only one I can turn to. So I have accepted both His love and His cross.” Seeking to identify himself with the people of the Church in a spiritual as well as personal way, Bill glanced down at the one line in Italian written on the small piece of paper Tim had handed him and said the words which in English meant “Weakness reaching out to the weak in love.”

  “In the days to come,” he went on, “you will learn every smallest detail of my life. So let me conclude with my sincere blessing.”

  He paused and smiled benignly. “I have decided to use my own words. May our beloved Savior bless and keep each and every human being on the face of this Earth. May he grant us the grace to live together in peace! May the families of the world grow in God’s love like the Holy Family. And may we all learn to know and love Christ as He knows and loves us.” Pope Peter II continued to wave as he departed the balcony and stepped back into the basilica. Only those cardinals near him could see the tears flowing freely from his eyes.

  As Peter II disappeared from view, the crowd, which now reached all the way up Via della Conciliazione to Castel Sant’Angelo, began and continued to chant and sing long into the night. As Vincenzo, head cook at Sabitino Ristorante at Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, said to a group of pilgrims from Manchester, England, “I have never seen Rom
e like this before, and I was here when the Allies liberated us in June of 1944.”

  The celebrations continued into the night like a Roman festival of ancient times. Enterprising hawkers had already taken the first available picture of the new pope from the special edition of the afternoon newspaper, Il Tempo. A life-size cardboard replica of Peter II with the Statue of Liberty in the background had been mounted. They were shooting pictures with their Polaroid cameras at twenty thousand lire a copy, finally running out of film as the excited spectators crowded about to make this historic day and night a personal thing. Everything American was selling out, even the remaining pirated Elvis Presley CDs and tapes down at Il Colosseo.

  17

  FALLOUT

  A sense of shock gripped the Catholic world at four P.M. in Rome when Pope Peter II had been presented to the huge crowd in St. Peter’s Square. It was ten A.M. eastern standard time in the United States. In Fall River, Boston, and Washington, D.C., successive waves of the concussion were especially resounding.

  Ambassador Kirby’s nemesis at the State Department listened, horrified, as the department’s assistant director of public affairs read the first two paragraphs of a story moving out over the AP wire. “The Post just called about the Kirby recall leak and asked if that information is still operative in view of this AP story. It seems that the ambassador personally delivered the new pope from his home near Boston to the Vatican,” the information officer said. “What’s my answer? The Post guy told me he had called the White House and heard that the president was very pleased with Kirby’s performance.”

  The Vatican Desk officer shouted at his assistant, “Is there a cable from Kirby explaining anything?”

  “Nothing. I checked around.”

  Then came an exclamation from the information officer. “Oh, bloody hell. A picture is being slipped in front of me. It shows Kirby and Peter II at the ambassador’s residence this morning just before William Kelly was elected pope. Kelly’s wearing a priest’s cassock.”

  “Get Kirby or the DCM, Seedworth, on the direct line,” the desk officer commanded. “How could Seedworth screw this up so? The Post will look like a bunch of asses, just like us.”

  The president of the United States was winding up a meeting as his chief of staff reported the latest from Rome. Already the First Lady had summed things up for her husband after talking with Ed Kirby.

  “An American pope, a widower ex-priest!” the president exclaimed. “Delivered to the conclave by my ambassador. Didn’t I say Kirby was ‘with the next pope’ when those State idiots couldn’t find him? Wonderful! Here’s a God-given opportunity to divert media attention from the last remnants of that impeachment trash.” He was referring to certain final Republican attempts to keep the scandal ongoing. “The talking heads will have to find something else to gossip about. Every big-time editor in Washington knew what previous presidents were up to, but they looked the other way because they liked them personally. I am going to nominate Kirby for the State Department’s highest award.”

  “The Jefferson Medal?” The press secretary who was present shook his head. “Don’t you think that’s a bit much? I mean, there’ll be a revolt at Foggy Bottom. They’ll turn the press against you if you anger and embarrass them too much.”

  “They need to be shaken up,” the president growled. “Regularly.”

  * * *

  An awed silence settled over the chancery in Fall River as the TV carried exclusive reports about the news from Rome, where it was now midafternoon. Disbelief and a sense of unreality disconcerted Father Raphael. He was conscious of the backside of his bishop flying out the library door toward his private den and then pausing. Bishop Sean Patrick turned to face the awestruck priest.

  “Ralph, get my car out and leave it running. NOW!” He entered his sanctuary and scuttled over to the big mahogany desk. Jerking open the middle drawer, he extracted Cardinal Comiskey’s white envelope. He was not surprised now to read the message the cardinal had left for him.

  * * *

  “Sean,” it instructed him, “as soon as you hear the news, get to the Kelly home and provide protective shelter for Bill’s children. Do whatever is necessary to help them. I will see to your expenses. And pray for Bill. He will need all the help he can get from all sources when you read this and know what has happened. Thanks, Brian.”

  Even before Bishop Sean Patrick had opened the envelope from Comiskey, he was complying with the instructions. His first move was to call the commander of the Massachusetts State Police, Bill McCabe of Charlestown, to provide protection for Bill Kelly’s family. Then he called the Kelly house and reached Colleen, who by now had recovered from the initial shock.

  Bishop Sean Patrick promised Colleen he would be at the Kellys’ home within the hour. He told her to take her phone off the hook until he arrived.

  Father Raphael was standing beside the car as the bishop emerged from the rectory. “Want me to drive, Bishop?”

  “God no, Ralph. I need you here to answer the phone and the doorbell.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything. Anything. I’m not here … whatever. I’ve got to get to the Kellys’. Call you when I need you.”

  Leaving his assistant trembling at the thought of handling the press and the crowds sure to descend on the pope’s home diocese, the bishop eased in behind the wheel of his car and, quietly praying for heavenly supports, sped off in a cloud of dust. His prayer was answered when he turned onto Interstate 95 toward the Cape. A state police cruiser was up ahead, giving someone a speeding ticket. Bishop Sean Patrick pulled over quickly and jumped out to see Trooper Joe Collins whirl around, staring at him. Miracle of miracles, not just a trooper but also a parishioner from St. Mary’s in Fall River!

  “Joe, I need help. I need to get to Buzzards Bay posthaste. Know what I mean?”

  The trooper nodded, looked back at the stopped speedster, and warned, “Slow down. Now get going.”

  Turning from the driver he had halted, who was gratefully moving away, Joe called out, “Follow me, Bishop. Stay close.”

  The cruiser’s blue lights flashed as the bishop struggled to keep up with the trooper. Twenty-five minutes later he was shaking the hand of Trooper Collins on the main street of Buzzards Bay. “Thanks, Joe. I’d appreciate it if you would follow me and stand by the home we’re about to visit.”

  “What’s happening, Bishop?”

  “No time to explain now. Turn on your radio and you’ll find out.” Bishop Sean Patrick sped off down the back road to the Kelly house and dock with Trooper Collins behind him. Colleen Kelly came out to meet him.

  “Welcome to our humble house, Bishop. So good of you to come. I have the kettle on for tea or coffee if you wish.”

  “Thanks very much, Miss Kelly.”

  “Call me Colleen, Your Excellency. Dad always tells me friends should use first names.”

  “Well, I agree with that, especially given present circumstances. Please call me Sean.”

  Trooper Joe Collins emerged from his car. “Bishop, I heard the news. Wow! I can’t believe it! I don’t know what to say! Anyhow, I figured the Kellys might need a bit of protection, so I called my sergeant to let him know I was taking on the duty. I’ll be here until my relief comes at midnight, Miss Kelly. No one gets near your house without permission.”

  Touched, Colleen replied, “Dear Lord, what can I say, Trooper, except thank you so much. Will you come in for some tea or coffee with us?”

  “Thanks, no, Miss Kelly. When the media arrives I can best handle the show out here.”

  “Thanks for your thoughtfulness, Joe,” the bishop broke in. “We’ll need some time to decide how to handle these people.” He followed Colleen into the house.

  “Please sit at the table, Your Excel … Sean,” Colleen corrected herself. “I want you to meet my younger brother, Roger. My sister, Meghan, is at school, but should be home as soon as her teacher gets the news. My older brother, Ryan, is a fisherman like o
ur father and is on his way to Georges Bank. I think he’ll call us on the shortwave radio when he hears the news. We didn’t really believe Dad when he told us where he was going or why. I guess I am a bit confused,” she ended helplessly.

  “Colleen, I’m as baffled and amazed as you are. But I do know that if your father was picked by all those cardinals there must be some reason for it.” The bishop thought about his statement for a moment, watching as Colleen took a kettle off the stove.

  “From what Cardinal Robitelli said on the balcony at St. Peter’s,” the bishop continued, “they have had more interest in the laity than I could have ever imagined! There have been lay popes before. But most were men from powerful and influential families.”

  As Colleen poured the hot water into the teapot she discerned a note of wonderment in the bishop’s voice.

  “This is so vastly different,” he went on. “Like, well, like choosing the first fisherman, Peter, I guess. Choosing him all over again.”

  Colleen nodded and turned toward the kitchen door. “Roger,” she called. “Please come out here and say hello to Bishop Sean Patrick.”

  A ruddy face emerged from the bedroom area.

  “Hi, Roger,” the bishop said. “I’m happy to meet you. Would you like to sit down with your sister and me? We can discuss what has taken place today in Rome and how we feel about it.”

  Roger sat down quietly and looked warily at the table. Colleen finished pouring tea for the bishop and herself.

  “Well, Roger,” the bishop began, “may I ask how you feel about your dad being made pope? It certainly sounds like a scary thing to me. I never would have imagined him being made pope of our entire Church.”

  At that moment Meghan Kelly burst in the front door of the house. She saw her brother and sister sitting at the table with Sean Patrick. Her eyes fixed on the bishop, she cried accusingly. “I don’t want my dad to be a pope. All the kids at school will terrorize at us. Why does he want to do it? I want my dad at home, like always.”