The Accidental Pope

by Ray Flynn

  Tim gave the pope a questioning glance. “The avviso?”

  “I finally cracked the code.” Bill grinned. “Learned Italian, that is.”

  “You still haven’t shared it?”

  “Robitelli keeps asking, but I told him John Paul II did not want it made public. Some of what the pope confided flies in the face of his own public stance. For instance, he never wanted to criticize the Eastern Orthodox Church even when he knew the patriarch was responsible for outlawing Catholicism in Russia and the continuing campaign against our Church in the Balkans, despite John Paul II’s missionary visit to Romania.”

  “He told you that in this avviso?”

  “He wrote that and more in full confidence that it will never be published.”

  “Any other information you would like to”—Tim’s voice took on an ironic tone—“communicate to your ‘private secretary’?”

  “Certainly. The time has come for me to share his revelations with a few trusted people. The pope was shocked and horrified when the Russian Orthodox patriarch refused to join him in protesting Serb conduct in the 1999 war in Yugoslavia. The Serbs turned thousands of people in Kosovo out of their homes and country. They froze and starved these victims of religious and ethnic persecution, which the Russian Church could have prevented by joining the pope’s call for a Serbian cessation of the war. The Orthodox leadership in Moscow showed their true colors by not telling its Belgrade adherents to stop persecuting, driving from their homes, and killing all the ethnic Albanians, who are mostly Muslim, they could find. A terrible revenge for past centuries of Muslim outrages against Christians, no doubt. But as Pope John Paul said about capital punishment, an eye for an eye merely means two people are blinded, not one.”

  Both the pope and his top adviser were silent for some moments. Then Bill said, “The message of the avviso unequivocally states that it will be John Paul II’s successor’s job to steer a course between Muslim extremism and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Balkans. The danger may be great. It might take the reigns of two or three popes, ‘short ones,’ he wrote ominously, to succeed in bringing peace between regions, which, he pointed out, was far from accomplished in his own reign.” After a long, contemplative pause, Bill observed quietly, “Now you tell me about the relevance today of what happened over half a century ago.”

  “I’ll sum up the situation as briefly as possible, Bill.”

  “Take the time you need. Gus has a problem he can’t even talk about over the telephone. By the time he arrives here, I need to be aware of all the ramifications of whatever difficulties he finds himself confronting.”

  Tim nodded and stood up, walking over to a mahogany table on which were arrayed certain personal artifacts. He picked up the carving dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima. “Here is the crux of the problem that faced us midway through World War II and confronts Africa today. It concerns the message Our Lady gave to three Portuguese children in the year 1917.”

  “I’m deeply concerned about what remains the third secret’s revelation,” Bill said. “But it seems every time I ask to see if there is any more information following the message dictated by Sister Lucia, some Vatican excuse surfaces. Cardinal Robitelli doesn’t think I’m ready for it and that only he should deal with it. That’s just speculation on my part, but I’m certain I’m right.”

  Tim smiled. “Back at the height of the War in 1942 and ’43, the Vatican was virtually held hostage by Hitler and the Nazis.” He examined the wood carving a moment. “The second prophecy warns us that Russia, unless converted, will ultimately prove the cause of world destruction. Pius XII concluded because of wartime suffering in the then Soviet Union that a part of the prophecy—the beginning part—was coming true. That was, quote, ‘Only if Russia were changed would there be peace in the world,’ unquote!”

  Tim flashed a mischievous grin at the pope. “I’m afraid Pius XII jumped the gun a bit when he announced in a prayer broadcast about Europe that in effect ‘Russia will be converted and there will be peace.’ The Nazis linked this apparently pro-Russian prayer to the Allied invasion of North Africa and a general marshaling of religious forces throughout occupied Europe favoring the Russian side. The overall feeling among people in the pews was that Communist Russia would be reconverted, and, thanks to Russia, after the war there would be a spiritual renewal throughout the overall Christian Church. That being so, the Communist danger did not really, ultimately exist.

  “The pope’s interpretation of the second Fatima prophecy was seized upon by the Nazis, especially in light of their defeats on the Russian front, as a wave of Catholic-inspired anti-Nazi sentiment generated throughout the world, particularly in Italy. This general belief would adversely affect the German war machine—or so the Nazis felt.” Tim Shanahan replaced the carving on the table and turned back to the pope.

  “When the war was actually won, Stalin recognized the power of religion to influence the masses. He wisely gave the few Orthodox bishops left in Russia permission to elect a new patriarch. Pius XII’s prayer hailing the conversion of Russia—mistakenly, as it turned out—had rekindled a European-wide interest in Christianity. The second prophecy of Fatima was cited as giving strength to the notion that Christianity had defeated Nazism.”

  Bill fixed Tim with a mock baleful stare. “Get back to Gus Motupu. How does this business with Pius XII almost sixty years ago impinge on Africa today, in the twenty-first century?”

  Tim turned away from the grotto image. “From that prayer to the fall of Communism in 1991, Russian Christianity Eastern Orthodox style became resurgent, accepted increasingly by the Iron Curtain rulers as an important, even necessary, ‘opiate of the people.’”

  The pope frowned and shook his head. “Like most Americans I was under the impression that active Christianity of any sort was nonexistent in the Soviet Union.”

  Tim smiled grudgingly. “Brezhnev, as atheistic as Stalin, recognized the value of using the patriarch and certain Orthodox bishops as a force augmenting the KGB to gain control over a vast African population and render it ideologically associated with both Russian Orthodoxy and Soviet Communism.

  “It was this duplicitous power, blessed by the patriarch’s missionaries on the one hand and the atheistic KGB on the other, which still poses the long-standing threat to Cardinal Motupu and his young fellow African priests. Gus fought the Communists from the African Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, which trained African youth to be Communists. The Orthodox Church, working toward the same goal, struggled to convert African people to a Russian style of Christianity. All these forces were working for one strategic purpose: control of the mineral and oil wealth of the ‘Dark Continent.’ Only the pope in Rome and his field representatives, priests, bishops, and cardinals held Catholic missions and their African faithful together. The pope had now made his inroads into Communist domination of Poland and all of eastern Europe.

  “Thus in 1981, the Communists, directed by Moscow and operating out of the Balkans, Bulgaria to be precise, dispatched Turk Mehmet Ali Agca to assassinate Pope John Paul II in Rome itself. Fortunately, the assassin picked the anniversary of the Fatima apparition for his deed. An instant before the bullets would have struck his head, John Paul II leaned forward to bless a girl wearing the icon of Fatima on her dress!

  “Although the pope was struck in the body by two rounds, his Swiss guard was able to wrestle the Turk to the ground, disarming him. John Paul II survived, ironically flying in the face of the third Fatima prophecy, and it set back the Communists and the Orthodox Church considerably.”

  Tim leaned down toward the pope. “But the successors to the Communists and the Russian Orthodox Church are trying to gain control in Africa to this day, Pope Bill. They have succeeded in strengthening the Orthodox Church at home, and several years ago, a law was passed in the Russian Duma weakening or prohibiting all other religions in Russia. I will be interested to hear how Motupu is doing against the advance of the Russian Church in Africa.”

  �
��So will I,” Bill replied.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if Motupu asks you to go to Africa.”

  “And if I appear successful, then may I expect a visit from another Mehmet Ali Agca?”

  Tim Shanahan turned deadly serious. “We live in the most dangerous of times, Your Holiness. But I wouldn’t even try to tell you to stay well guarded at home. I know you are an activist—a danger to yourself, perhaps, but you will do what you feel is necessary, go where you think you are needed.”

  “When was it—in the beginning of 1998 that Pope John Paul went to Africa?”

  “Correct, almost three years ago. Since then the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo has emerged, along with a powerful oil-rich Angola, to say nothing of Nigeria. The genocide in Rwanda went on unabated. And the crisis of AIDS and disease is as big a threat to their society as the demise of the family in the economically and technologically advanced United States. AIDS has reduced life expectancies in many African nations to less than half of what they had been not long ago. Augustine Motupu will be able to tell us more of how the Russian Orthodox Church is progressing.”

  “Robitelli tells me, despite the avviso, that we are on most cordial terms with the Russian Church.”

  “We’ll find out from Cardinal Motupu what the real story is in Africa.” Then, after a reflective pause, Tim chanced an observation. “It has been called to my attention that Patsy Monassari has been getting cozy with the Orthodox Vatican representative here and his colleague, Bishop Yussotov, the Mad Monk of Odessa. My sources tell me the monk, as everyone refers to him still, makes frequent trips between Rome, certain African destinations, Moscow, even America—Chicago, to be specific, according to Kirby.”

  “You seem to have your own intelligence service,” the pope remarked.

  “Well, Your Holiness, in this new capacity which Comiskey and Kirby thrust on me, I feel that to be effective, I have to be informed on what goes on. I kind of miss being a history teacher. But this job is certainly intriguing.”

  “Is it less interesting to be a history maker?”

  29

  DINNER WITH THE KIRBYS

  The holiday spirit of the Christmas season in Rome is far less intrusive than the commercial circus to which the average citizen is subjected back in America—more about family and tradition and less about gifts and parties.

  It was on a mid-December morning that Ed Kirby, his wife, Kathy, and their daughter, Maureen, now a senior at Marymount International High School in Rome, drove to the da Vinci Airport to meet the other Kirby daughters: Julie, twenty-three, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, working part-time at a Chicago law office; Nancy, twenty-one, a senior at Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island; and Kate, nineteen, a sophomore at Providence College. All were arriving on TWA from Chicago via Boston. Their two sons, Ed Jr., twenty-seven and a navy officer, and Ray, twenty-five, owner of a Chicago pizza restaurant and an avid Cubs fan, would not be arriving until just before Christmas Day.

  The Kirby girls greeted the household staff at Villa Richardson upon their arrival, updating everyone about how they were doing in school. Nancy said she had nothing to wear a couple of evenings from now to the big U.S. Marine Corps Birthday Ball at the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto, and had to buy a new dress.

  When three Marines stationed at the Rome embassy had met Maureen a few weeks back at a popular nightspot—Ned Kelly’s Australian Bar—they asked if her sisters were coming over for the Christmas holiday season and invited them to go to the ball as their dates. The ball was a very special event, with the Marines dressed in their formal blue uniforms, swords and all. The talented Italian Carabinieri Band, with some sixty members, provided music annually.

  Ambassador Kirby enjoyed a very special relationship with the marines, always attending their events and regularly playing basketball with them to keep fit. The Kirby girls had attended the big ball in the past and knew that they were in for a real treat. As a matter of fact, Ed Kirby was scheduled to receive the U.S. Marine Corps’s “outstanding service” award, for upholding the very professional relationship that existed between the old U.S. embassies and the Marine Corps. When the State Department decided to cut back on security and downsize the marines at the Vatican embassy, it was Kirby who strongly protested against it. The Rome embassy and all the other embassies throughout the world had marines guarding them, and so should the embassy to the Vatican. The State Department responded, “Our budget was cut, and the Vatican embassy is less important than the Italian embassy.” That comment provoked open resentment at the Holy See, despite the special, personal relationship Ambassador Kirby and his wife had established with the pope himself. United States and Vatican relations, as important as they were, were not a priority at the State Department.

  Now, when Nancy said she needed a new dress, the other three girls chimed in as well. “Let’s go now before the stores close for supper,” said Katie. The four went running down Via Giacomo Medici to Via Garibaldi and took the bus in short order to shop for dresses at Via del Corso. By eight o’clock, just before the shops closed, they had bought three beautiful dresses on sale at the Lisa Spinnelli and Bellini shops on the Via Condotti. The week before, the dresses had cost L250,000, said the saleswoman, but this week they were on sale for L150,000. The girls stopped at Campo de’ Fiori to get some ready-made Roman pasta before heading back up the Janiculum Hill to the Villa Richardson.

  “You all got phone calls from the marines!” their mother announced. “They are looking forward to seeing you. They will stop by tomorrow night at seven to escort you to the ball. Call them tonight if you care to, at the Marine House. Let’s see, I have their names right here … Jackie Killcommons, Jeremiah Foley, and a Jamie Long. They sounded very nice on the phone. I often meet them down at the commissary. I think I know all three. Kate, call Jackie Killcommons and tell them to meet you tomorrow in the lobby of the Excelsior. It’s easier on them to meet you there, not travel all the way up here.”

  After unpacking their suitcases and once more surveying their new dresses, the young women turned on the radio for some Italian pop music before succumbing to jet lag and to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day and they wanted to conquer their jet lag as much as possible.

  Early the next morning Ida, the Filipina housekeeper and cook, knocked on Katie’s bedroom door with a smile. “Flowers for the girls,” she said, barely able to hold back her exuberance. She repeated, “Flowers for the girls!”

  The Marine Corps Ball always turned out to be the most colorful social event the Kirbys attended in the course of their five years in Rome. This one was no exception. They danced and sang all night until the “Marine Corps Hymn” and “God Bless America” drew everything to a close.

  The next day would prove to be even more eventful. It was the feast of Our Lady of Assumption, an Italian holiday.

  Every year on the feast of Our Lady of the Assumption, following Mass at the North American College chapel, more than six hundred seminarians, friends, American nuns, priests, and American Catholic Church leaders living in Rome would take lunch in the spacious dining room. Traditionally three toasts were offered. The first one honored the pope, the second recognized the president of the United States, and the third was for the North American College. A leading cardinal usually raised his glass to the pope. This year he was Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, of Milan. The second toast, which in previous years according to custom the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See offered to the president, this year was a somewhat more delicate matter.

  The American president had not only vetoed the bill banning partial-birth abortions a second time, thus permitting abortion of a fully grown unborn baby, but one of the liberal members of his administration even publicly ridiculed the Catholic Church in America. His words were, “The Church only cares about a baby before it is born, not after.”

  The statement was not only inaccurate and highly offensive but an insult to the majority of people in America who were p
ro-life. And so, this third millennium year, it was decided that the college would not ask the U.S. ambassador but invite Mrs. Kirby, very popular at the college, to do the honors. Monsignor Timothy Shanahan, the rector, had been called on by Pope Peter II to serve as his chief of staff, yet continued to be active in the college and thus was responsible for the invitation to Mrs. Kirby. American Church leaders had hoped that Mrs. Kirby’s toast would not mention the president by name, but instead toast “the people of the United States.”

  Mrs. Kirby, not being an overly political person, thanked everyone for inviting her and expressed how honored she felt. She said that in all the years her husband had been mayor of Chicago, she had never been asked to speak before such a large audience. Looking out at the nearly all-male crowd of cardinals, bishops, priests, and seminarians, she said, “Monsignor Tim, dear friend, as a woman, I am pleased to present this toast.” Looking directly at the affable Shanahan, standing next to her, she continued, “This proves you’re such a good, open-minded, progressive ‘liberal feminist’!”

  Tim turned beet red. He reached for the microphone and replied, to the delight of all there, “Mrs. Kirby, I’ve been called a lot of things in my day, some of which I can’t repeat here, but never have I ever been called a liberal.”

  This brought the house down. Kathy continued with her toast after the roar of laughter stopped, lifting her glass to the audience. “Today is very special for all of us in the U.S. but especially for mothers, for it is the Blessed Mother whom we honor today.

  “Let me toast Mary, and your mothers, who have worked hard and sacrificed much to prepare you to come to this great college, thereby to serve God and country.

  “Let us also think about the mothers back home who have sons and daughters again facing armed conflict in the Balkans and all mothers who at this time face pain in their family, depression, separation, poor health, death, and some even loss of faith.”