by Ray Flynn
The pope pulled out a chair on either side of his thronelike seat and gestured for each of his daughters to sit down. Roger sat next to Colleen. Glancing off to his right, Bill noticed that Leonardo Cardinal Bellotti was standing alone, like some dark specter, in the wings of the stage, almost out of sight of the large gathering of people. Here he could unobtrusively observe the pope’s first public audience. The man was an enigma to Bill Kelly, obviously providing a set of eyes and ears for Robitelli. Even Cippolini seemed surprised to see the tall, black-haired, sharp-featured, angular cardinal surveying the large gathering with gleaming black eyes. Bill knew only that Bellotti was a Vatican expert on canon law.
Bill sat down and the children followed suit, coolly regarding the expectant throng excitedly chattering away. Monsignor Cippolini, taking over as master of ceremonies, tapped the microphone. “Please be seated,” he asked the crowd, which was mostly standing and gawking at the Kelly family. Then, without further introduction, he announced, “Pope Peter II will introduce himself and” he gulped audibly “his immediate family.”
Eschewing the usual procedure of introductions by a cardinal or bishop, Bill Kelly opened the proceedings himself. “As you are aware, when I was elected the two hundred sixty-fifth pontiff of the Catholic Church, I took the name Pope Peter II because, like the first pope, I was a fisherman, and I had a family. As is also well known by now, my name is William Kelly, and I was an ordained priest for seven years until I fell in love and married a beautiful girl from Ireland. Mary Kelly gave me four wonderful children and was a loving, caring wife and mother until tragically she died three years ago of cancer.
“As it was with the first Pope Peter, two thousand years ago, and almost every lay member of the Church since then, I, too, have had children to bring up and educate, a business to run, and bills to pay. I share your problems, your joys in your children, and the personal tragedies that happen in every human’s lifetime. I think that in many ways, I am you and you are me.”
He paused a moment, surveying the largest audience he had ever in his fifty-seven years stood before. His welcoming smile seemed to catch the heartbeat of the multitude for a trice before he continued to address the eager crowd. Many of his enthusiastic listeners had waited since early morning for a seat to hear and see the new pope introduce himself and his family.
“To my left is sitting my daughter, Meghan. She is just eighteen. Beside her is Roger, a fourteen-year-old bundle of energy. The bandage you see above his eye is the souvenir from a skateboarding expedition about the Vatican hallways yesterday, during which he collided with a Swiss guard. The guardsman is expected to be back on duty by tomorrow.”
Pope Bill smiled broadly at the laughter from the audience, warming to this totally unexpected and already historic first papal audience by the new pope. “And now let me introduce my beautiful daughter Colleen, sitting to my right. She is twenty years old, majoring in Renaissance art and literature at her college back in America, and already a habitué of the Vatican museums and library.” He reached out his right hand to her. Colleen took it and stood beside her father a few moments, again revealing her statuesque beauty to the admiring audience. In any other milieu appreciative whistles would have sounded forth, but in this Vatican setting sensitive sighs and murmurs emanated from an already enraptured crowd.
“Colleen has an older brother by one year, Ryan Kelly. But my son Ryan, like the son of Peter I, is obliged to remain far from Rome, tending to the family fishing business.”
Allowing the audience to absorb the charm of the papal family a few moments, Bill Kelly seated Colleen and once again looked out over the now thoroughly enchanted holiday congregation. He paused meaningfully, eliciting an expectant silence from the rapt crowd.
“I would be negligent and thoughtless at this moment if I failed to tell you about the mother of my four children, my wife of eighteen years, Mary Kelly. She was visiting her uncle, the pastor of the Church where I was serving as curate. Priest or pagan, I fell in love with her, and she with me. I applied for a release from my vows. In due course I was laicized, eight years after my ordination. Mary and I were married by my seminary classmate, now Brian Cardinal Comiskey of Ireland. I took up the family business, fishing while Mary and I brought up the children, all but one of whom is here before you.”
Bill gestured at his children, seated on either side of him and staring up at their father adoringly.
“Then, just three years ago, Mary was tragically taken from us. But the entire Kelly family has worked hard to keep the household together, and we will continue that tradition here at the Vatican as our first Christmas season in our new home comes around.”
The pope cleared his throat, looked down at the prepared statement on the table in front of him, and began to read.
“I am humbled by the fact that your love for God and your deep faith brings you here to the resting place of the apostle Peter. Your sincerity convinces me more than ever that our faith is far from dying. Over the years pictures I have seen of so many coming to Rome to pay their respects to the pope, or the office he holds, have awed me. I know, of course, that you are really now paying your respects to Jesus Christ and His family, whom we honor always, but especially at the time of His birthday and the Sunday after Christmas, the feast of the Holy Family.”
The pope looked up from his prepared talk and put the typed sheets down.
“Since you are all here to see the new pope and his children, it is my belief that rather than hear me read a canned speech, you must all harbor concerns and questions you are hoping will be answered. To make sure that this happens I am going to turn over the meeting to you who have come from afar to partake of the Christmas spirit in the place where, for two thousand years, it has been fostered, kept alive, and celebrated. Therefore, my daughters and son will devote this first audience to you of the laity, for whose benefit and spiritual guidance the Vatican, the pope, and all the cardinals, bishops, monsignors, priests, nuns, and clergy are presumed to exist.”
From the corner of his eye Bill noticed Bellotti shaking his head slightly. At first the audience of several thousand sat stunned, but in a few moments, as Bill cast his eyes around the throng, he sensed the wave of new interest this extemporaneous approach to his first papal audience was generating.
“So now, if you like, the children and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have,” he concluded.
Hands soon shot up all over the room. Monsignor Cippolini, playing his role of the man for all occasions, stationed himself at the base of the podium. He strolled toward one woman conveniently sitting on the aisle close to the front of the auditorium. She seemed eager for the opportunity to have her question answered. He handed her the wireless microphone he was carrying. She smiled triumphantly at being selected to ask the first question. Pope Bill sighed silently. He had learned to recognize newspaper reporters instinctively.
Standing up, she held the microphone close to her mouth so that her words resounded throughout the hall. “As a fellow American, Miss Colleen Kelly, I have seen you on television back home on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. You first mentioned that you thought it would be very hard for you, and the other children, to make the adjustment of being uprooted and moved to Rome. I also believe that on more than one occasion you forthrightly told people interviewing you that you did not attend Mass, nor have you been a practicing Catholic since your mother died. I believe you have been described as feeling that God, if he exists, deserted you and your family. May I ask how you are feeling about that now?”
Pope Bill immediately took the initiative. “Before Colleen answers that,” he said into his microphone, “let me say I am glad you asked that question right off the bat, so to speak. Allow me first to make a brief point.”
He smiled and nodded in friendly fashion to the questioner, looking her in the eyes as she seated herself. “The death of a parent at a young age is always a shock to a child and particularly grievous for a young adult who has just be
come best friends with her mother. Mary, when she died, was thirty-nine, Colleen was seventeen. But I’ll let Colleen explain her relationship with God for herself.”
The pope handed the microphone to Colleen with his left hand, patting her on the shoulder with his right.
Colleen, holding the microphone well below her chin, showing off her regular, clear-cut features, stood up and faced the huge audience in the Vatican’s largest auditorium.
She paused a moment, as if savoring the spectacle. Then, “Yes, I expect I do owe the Christian world an explanation for some of my remarks immediately after my father’s elevation to pope from laicized priest and fisherman.”
A natural performer, Colleen moved gracefully from behind the table to the front of the dais. Standing alone, yet with all the presence of a diva completing the lead aria in the first act of a grand opera, she smiled broadly and began.
“I have heard whispers from Vatican sources comparing me to another highly visible daughter of a famous pope.”
She smiled as the audience, mostly tourists and Italian residents, gasped. Almost all were conventional Catholics with little knowledge of Church history beyond what they were told by their parish priest and read in their Bibles. The thought of a married pope shocked them; indeed a widower pope with children was almost beyond the pale—one reason for the standing-room-only turnout today.
“That particular pope,” she continued, “born Rodrigo Borgia near Valencia, Spain, became Alexander the VI. His claim to fame, beyond total political corruption, was dividing up the New World discovered by Christopher Columbus between Spain and Portugal. His daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, lived and did her thing right here at the Vatican from 1492, when her dad became pope and she was married for the first time at age thirteen, until her father died in 1503. Despite Lucrezia’s reputation, until her death at thirty-nine she conducted the greatest court in Italy for artists, writers, and musicians at Ferrara, the dukedom of her third husband. That, by the way, is the name of the car I hope to acquire over here. And let me add, there is no proof that Lucrezia poisoned anyone. History has greatly maligned her.”
Colleen smiled. “Not that I am adopting her, or any other papal progeny, as a role model. But Lucrezia did the Vatican proud artistically, although there is little or no history of her being devout or even religious. Lucrezia, one of several daughters of popes, did more than any woman to promote the artistic wealth of the Renaissance, and it was her initiative that jump-started the sixteenth-century aesthetic revolution.”
Colleen smiled coquettishly. “I expect to spend much of my time here in the libraries and museums, and it is unlikely that you will hear any more about my religious convictions or lack of them in the coming years.”
Unaccountably she caught the bright gleam in Cardinal Belloti’s eyes as he stared at her from his stance to her right beyond the pope’s table. She allowed two or three silent beats in her locution before going on. “Unless,” she continued, “some sort of religious epiphany seizes me by the shoulders, shakes me to the core, and instills the fear and love of God within me.” Colleen’s smile became an insouciant grin. “Which event is highly unlikely to occur.” She turned to her father. “OK, Daddy?”
Pope Bill stood up and, taking her hand, guided his scintillating daughter around the table and back to her place beside him. “We will keep you posted on Colleen’s artistic and ecclesiastic endeavors. I suspect it will be the former we will hear the most about.” There was good-natured laughter throughout the hall. Colleen had successfully made her religious life a nonissue.
Another questioner, a middle-aged woman whose clothing and bearing suggested that she was Italian, confirmed the pope’s hunch when in Italian she asked her question, which was translated over the headsets the children placed over their ears.
“I would like to ask the younger daughter, Meghan, this question. We saw you on television the day it was announced that your father would be our next pope. You mentioned that you thought it would be very hard for you and the other children to make the adjustment of being uprooted and moved to Rome. May I ask how you are feeling about that now?”
When the translation was completed, Meghan glanced at her father, swallowed hard, and then drew the microphone on the table in front of her closer. “To be perfectly honest, at first I did feel as if we had been uprooted, but very soon, with the help and understanding of the people here at the Vatican, both lay and clergy, we soon began to feel welcome and at home.”
The ice seemed broken as a mixture of feminine understanding and muted applause greeted this reserved response. She went on. “Naturally, it has been very difficult for us. But I am grateful to the staff at the Vatican for their kindness. They have bent over backward to make things as easy as possible. Dad—” She hesitated. “Pope Peter II and I are both aware that it has been uncomfortable for so many other people as well.”
She looked at her father as if he might now lend some help. But he nodded encouragingly and motioned with a wave of his hand for her to continue. Meghan took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing a bit more. “I can assure all of you there was no one in the world more stunned, maybe even frightened at first, by the idea of my father being elected pope than I. Except for my dad, of course.” Some further laughter and titters came from the ladies in the audience.
“It was, to be frank, the most unusual experience any of us ever went through in our lives or could imagine any American family with kids our age experiencing. We all decided for ourselves and also as a family that the Holy Spirit somehow had decided this.” Meghan paused and stared out at individuals in the audience one by one and then continued.
“And yet we know that many people will always feel we—my father, myself, and my brother and sister—do not belong here.” Meghan paused as though searching for a phrase she had decided to use when she had planned her talk. “I will say honestly that we find no comfort in those who mention, even jokingly, that the new pope won’t be any worse than some who have held this office in the past and that the Church will survive and thrive as always. All that I have wanted to be is Bill Kelly’s daughter and someone he could be proud of. But most of all, I want my mom to look down from heaven and be proud of how we have made her feel.”
Meghan’s apparently unrehearsed speech left the room wrapped in silence. Bodies began to shift, uneasily, in their seats. Total honesty seemed to have disarmed most of those present.
An Italian woman asked about how the other children were doing. A few more polite questions, difficult to understand even with the help of the interpreters, were asked and answered by Meghan and Colleen Kelly.
Young Roger replied with warmth and charm to the question directed at him. “What are you going to do about the Swiss guard who cracked your head, young man? Have him sent home?” The not-so-jocular question was put to the pope’s youngest son.
“I have apologized to him for being the first skateboard artist to cruise the Vatican’s marble hallways and not warning the commander of the Guard,” Roger replied. “I offered to change places. He could take the skateboard, I’d hold the battle-ax. But Eric said no, he’d feel safer with his halberd.” Roger’s zest charmed the audence.
At a signal from Monsignor Cippolini a young man midway back in the crowd was next to be recognized. The youthful questioner took the microphone somewhat nervously. He was tall, with long blond hair neatly brushed back, stylishly attired in a dark suit, a white shirt with a button-down collar, and a conservative tie. “Pope Peter, I’m not sure I belong here or should even be speaking, but because of all the background news we have heard of you back in the States I feel compelled to ask you this question. You are very aware of the sexual urges in most people. I am conversant with the Church’s position on homosexuality. Do you foresee those teachings changing to accommodate people like me?”
From the corner of an eye Bill saw Bellotti’s hands rise and cover his face. Cippolini, supervising the microphone handlers, seemed to blanch and speculate on how to get the
microphone away from the lanky youth. Hundreds of heads in the crowd turned to the questioner, many with evident disgust.
Bill Kelly shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced at Meghan for support. Her eyes were closed, head bowed. Slowly Bellotti’s fingers opened as his black eyes focused on Bill’s reaction.
The pope cleared his throat sharply and, half smiling, tried to answer the question. “I confess, my friend, that I have not had much time to review the subject myself or with the bishops of the curia since I arrived here. I am aware that homosexuality is and has been a matter of deep concern with the Church. The Church has always held that the union between man and woman and the procreation and education of children was the primary responsibility of marriage. The importance of that relationship in the eyes of God cannot be overemphasized. So I can’t at this time give any additional statement as to what further instructions may be coming from Rome.”
Cardinal Bellotti seemed to draw a more relaxed breath and his hands uncovered his face. Cippolini could do nothing but stand in the aisle close to where the youth was listening to the pope’s discourse.
The pope gave his questioner a forgiving smile. “This probably seems just my official way of avoiding the issue, so if I may I would like to offer you the feelings that Bill Kelly had on the subject of sex before he came to Rome. But as a Catholic one can hate the sin, but love the sinner.”
He waited a moment before proceeding, noticing a sudden wave of interest sweeping through the several thousand people in the audience. “I had the distinct feeling when I was in the seminary that sex was a very uncomfortable subject in the Church. I guess it is common knowledge that sex is accepted as necessary to keep the human race going, but that those who live a life of chastity are more ‘pure’ than married laypeople. It was my own dear wife who pointed this out to me sometime in the sixth month of our marriage. She told me that somehow she got the feeling that when we made love I acted like I was doing this dirty thing called sex, but smugly I could get away with it because I was married now.”
