Dennis nodded.
“I was afraid of that,” Matthew Mahan said. “I’m so glad now that the Jesuits turned me down - and I made up my mind on my own. Those senior retreat vocations are always troublesome. You start thinking you’re the victim of a con job, right?”
Dennis tried to explain that his decision was a bit more complicated. It was an instinctive flight from Mother - but a flight that simultaneously had her approval. From there it became an ego epic, an intellectual-spiritual experiment. The Cardinal listened, but Dennis could see that he was finding it difficult to follow. They were so painfully different. But the difference did not diminish the intensity of his concern. Again, Dennis was engulfed by a wave of lacerating guilt.
The Cardinal wanted to know what Dennis planned to do with the rest of his life. He did not expect him to stay more than a year or two as his secretary. Did he want to be a full-time writer? Would he be interested in teaching at the seminary? Would he rather be a parish priest? Dennis had to confess that he didn’t know the answer.
“It’ll come, it’ll come,” Matthew Mahan said.
He told him more about his impromptu friendship with Pope John, the deep impression the man made on him, when he met him in France. “He knew every bishop in the country. In Belgium, too. He had them all sized up. Suenens, for instance. He would have spent the rest of his life as an auxiliary if it wasn’t for Papa Giovanni.”
They could see the car now, a glistening black toy on the white sand. In ten more minutes, they were putting on their clericals again and were racing back to Rome. Dennis said little. Matthew Mahan talked to Tullio about the social unrest that was tormenting Italy. Scarcely a day went by without a strike, or a week without a riot or a demonstration. Tullio pretended not to know the answer, but eventually admitted that he was a Communist and firmly believed that the time had come to get rid of capitalism. And the Church, too? Oh no, not the Church. He was a good Catholic. He saw no conflict between being a good Catholic and a good Communist. But the Vatican - they would have to change their ways. They would have to stop being capitalists. “Il Vaticano riceve - ma non da a nessuno!” Hearing the familiar canard on Tullio’s lips was almost as painful as it had been to hear Mary Shea repeating it. Perhaps because there was even less he could do about it.
Matthew Mahan gave up trying to understand the Italians and tried to begin a conversation with Dennis. But he was distracted, brooding, staring out the window. For a moment, the Cardinal wondered if he had helped or hurt his secretary today. Perhaps he had told him too much about himself, had disillusioned him even more than he was already disillusioned, if that was possible.
Who could judge? He could only hope and pray he had done the right thing. Musing on the day, he was stirred by another insight. He was saying goodbye forever to that confused, hysterical young chaplain who saw a sacrificial death as the only answer to his inner agony. They had lived together a long time with their backs turned, grotesque spiritual Siamese twins. Suddenly he remembered the dream in the Cathedral of the Dead - praying to the reversed statue. There was an element of unforgiveness in that stance - as if the statue were alive, and disdained to face its guilty worshiper. And shame - shame was there, too. Somehow he had failed that arrogant young priest. Now it was time to face each other, the haggard, sleepless thirty-year-old, and the man who had lived the twenty-five years that priest had tried to surrender. Was there just a faint ghost of a wish that the priest had had his way and he, too, would be forever young, forever unspoiled by the world of peace and profit, building and collecting, scheming and competing, judging and begrudging? No, no. But he would allow himself this one sentimental gesture. Goodbye, old friend, he whispered, goodbye.
“There it is,” Dennis McLaughlin said. He peered out Dennis’s window. They were well into Rome now. In the distance, St. Peter’s dome was visible, looming above the rest of the city, challenged only by a few high-rise luxury hotels.
“Old Davey says that Rome will never be able to stand up until we get that thing off its back.”
Matthew Mahan sighed. They were in the real world again. While Dennis narrated a compendium of old Davey’s outrageous remarks on their tour of St. Peter’s, they sped through the empty Sunday streets. In ten minutes, they were ascending in the hotel elevator to the fifth floor, Dennis still doing his utmost to shock him with the sayings of their eighty-year-old heretic. Matthew Mahan declined to take them seriously.
At the end of the hall, Dennis suddenly grew solemn. “That was quite a trip,” he said. “I can’t tell you which I appreciate more - what happened at the grave or what you told me on the way to the beach.”
Matthew Mahan nodded. “It was good for me, too, Dennis.”
In his own room, Matthew Mahan knelt beside his bed and thanked God for his guidance, for giving him the words that had - hopefully - healed. How strange the life of the spirit was. By letting go, by giving up the old idols, the old guardians, by venturing forth fearful and alone, you discovered after traveling in the anxious void that new, different communions awaited you. My yoke is sweet, my burden light.
The next morning, Dennis McLaughlin arose at seven and joined Bishop Cronin, Monsignors Petrie and Malone, and two busloads of pilgrims to journey to the Church of St. Peter in Chains, where the priests concelebrated mass with their Cardinal-to-be. They then returned to the hotel, had a light breakfast, and Dennis helped Matthew Mahan put on his Cardinal’s robes. It was a simpler outfit, thanks to a directive that Pope Paul had issued on April 5. The Pontiff had banned the mantelletta (the knee-length cape), the cappa magna (the huge red cloak), and the galero (the flat hat with thirty tassels). Also banished were the red shoes with silver buckles. Matthew Mahan had been delighted to forgo most of these archaic ornaments, especially the shoes. But the loss of the galero caused a momentary pang. He remembered his first visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, gazing up at the ceiling above the high altar, where the galeros of dead Cardinals dangled. It had pleased him to think that his hat would be the first to hang in his cathedral. But Roma locuta est causa finita est.
Earnestly and efficiently Dennis helped him into his red rabat, the sleeveless, backless garment worn beneath the red wool cassock, then the red cassock itself with trimmings, lining, buttons, and thread of red silk, then the mozetta, the small cape worn over his shoulders. Around his waist, went the red watered silk ribbon sash with silk fringes at both ends. On his head, he put the red watered silk skullcap. “Well, that does it. How do I look?”
“Fine,” said Dennis, circling him and adjusting the sash, which was a bit low. “Have you got your red socks on?”
“Oh no,” said Matthew Mahan. The red socks were not in the dresser drawer where he could have sworn he had put them. A hasty search of his luggage discovered them in a corner of his flight bag. “Now I remember. I almost forgot them and stuffed them in there at the last minute,” he said.
He quickly changed socks and regarded himself in the full-length mirror on the closet door.
“You’re sure we don’t wear the rochet now?”
“I checked three times with our Vatican monsignor. He says no. But I think I’ll take it along in my briefcase.”
Another Vatican monsignor had replaced the anti-capitalist who had greeted them at the airport. His name was Giovanni Tonti. He was a stocky, boyish man from Naples, with a hearty southern Italian sense of humor. Dennis took the long-sleeved white linen rochet from the top of the Cardinal’s dresser and went into his room to get his briefcase.
When he came back, he found Matthew Mahan kneeling beside his bed. “Would you let me have five minutes alone, Dennis? I’d like to collect my thoughts. I’ll see you in the lobby.”
The lobby was jammed with their pilgrims, all eager to get a first look at Cardinal Mahan in his red robes. They cheered and clapped like rock fans when he emerged from the elevator. He had no time to do more than wave to them, like a candidate on his way to the next meeting. Outside the hotel, Monsignor Tonti w
as waiting for them, smiling tensely. “We have only five minutes,” he said. “We must hurry.”
“Baloney,” said Matthew Mahan as he got into the hired limousine. “The Vatican’s just like the Army, hurry up and wait. I bet we stand around for at least a half hour before anything happens.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” agreed Monsignor Tonti. “Where is Bishop Cronin? He is also supposed to be in this car.” They peered out the window. No sign of him.
“Go look for him, Dennis,” said Matthew Mahan.
He found Davey in the coffee shop, lecturing Mike Furia over a cup of tea. “He’s trying to talk me into giving $1 million to the IRA,” Mike said.
“My argument is simple,” said Cronin. “If those guys ever got their hands on that much money, they’d turn respectable and that would be the end of them.”
“The Cardinal is waiting in the car.”
“Oh, it’s time for the inevitable, is it?” Cronin said. Dennis was relieved to see that he had left his tam-o’-shanter in his room, but he still had his blackthorn stick.
“Between us, lad,” he said as they made their way through the crowded lobby, “I fear we’ll rue this day. But let’s put on our bravest smiles nonetheless.”
“Why should we rue it?” Dennis asked.
“Wait till you hear the oath he takes before the Papal Throne. This year they’ve added a vow of silence as total as that taken by any Carthusian monk.”
Cronin dropped the subject when they reached the car and began telling funny stories about his days as a seminarian in the Irish College. Traffic forced them to detour down some side streets off the Campo dei Fiori market. One street seemed dedicated to junk: beakless vases, unattached telephones, staggering numbers of rusty keys, lifeless watches, abandoned medals. On the walls of the houses were scrawled numerous political messages, which Dennis asked Monsignor Tonti to translate. “It is Communist propaganda,” he said. “Calls for demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. This is a very Communist district.”
“And there,” said Father Cronin, pointing to a plaque on the corner building, “is where Pope Alexander VI tore down enough buildings to open this street. It gave him quicker access to his beloved Vanozza, who ran an inn called the Cow - named after her no doubt - out on the Campo.”
A small boy, not more than ten, raced out of an alley to shout something at their limousine. He ran along beside them, repeating it for almost a block. “What’s he saying?” Dennis asked.
“He’s making fun of our license plates,” Monsignor Tonti said, casually pointing out the window to the limousine behind them. “SCV. It stands for Stato Cittal del Vaticano. But the Romans say it should mean: Se Cristo vedesse. If Christ could only see this.”
Finally, they arrived at the apostolic chancery, or cancelleria, on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Around them in the courtyard rose forty-four superb granite columns, supposedly taken from the ruins of Pompeii. The facade of the building, which occupied one whole side of the piazza, was unbelievably delicate. “I remember some English writer,” said Bishop Cronin, “who said it reminded him of an ancient casket of mellowed ivory.”
“It was built, you know, by Raffaele Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV,” said Monsignor Tonti, “with money he won in a single night - 60,000 scudi, I think - from the nephew of another pope. These Romans! And they sneer at us Neapolitans.”
“Does it look familiar, Dennis?” Matthew Mahan asked. “The chancery office in New York is a copy.”
“Another bad omen,” muttered Bishop Cronin.
“What’s in here now?”
“The chancery for the diocese of Rome. And the Sacred Rota,” Monsignor Tonti said.
Inwardly, Matthew Mahan twisted away from the answer to Dennis’s question. Somehow he had managed not to think about the fact that he was receiving his official nomination as a Cardinal in the building where Mary Shea had sought in vain the annulment of her marriage.
Inside, they were led down crowded corridors to a large hall which was even more crowded. It was known as the Hall of a Hundred Days, Monsignor Tonti explained, because it took the painter Vasari and two assistants only that long to paint the rather garish frescoes on the walls and ceiling. “Vasari boasted about his speed to Michelangelo, who said: ‘Si vede - it shows.’”
There were cheers and claps from some of their pilgrims as they pushed their way to the far end of the hall, where the other new Cardinals were waiting. Matthew Mahan exchanged handshakes with his four fellow Americans, Cooke of New York, Dearden of Detroit, Carberry of St. Louis, and Wright of Pittsburgh. Standing a few feet away were eight more Cardinals-to-be from other parts of the world. Cronin ticked off their names for him. Hoffner of Cologne. Tarancon of Toledo, Spain. Marty, Archbishop of Paris. McKeefry of Wellington, New Zealand. And an impressive-looking black man, Rakotomalala, Archbishop of Tananarive, Madagascar. “And old Derrieux of no place in particular,” Cronin concluded.
It was the first foreign name that meant anything to Dennis. “Jean Derrieux, the Jesuit theologian?”
“In or out of the order, you’re still part of the club,” said Cronin sardonically.
“Which one is he?”
“Standing next to Cooke. There, the boss is discovering him now. He’s a great fan of his. Fussed over him like he was the Holy Spirit incarnate during the council. They met in Paris during the war.”
“A little professional jealousy in those remarks?” Dennis asked, as Matthew Mahan began talking jovially to Derrieux.
“No, no. No, no. I acknowledge his superiority,” said Cronin. “He’s got a mind of pure crystal while mine is nothing more than Irish peat. But he’s a cold one, too cold for my taste.”
Dennis nodded, studying Derrieux. The face was almost classically intellectual, deep-socketed eyes, a thin, bloodless mouth, a rather weak chin, and a sharp, somewhat feminine nose. He was smiling at Matthew Mahan now. But the smile was empty, formal, compared to Mahan’s warm grin. Derrieux’s name still stirred Dennis’s mind. He had been one of the lonely intellectual heroes of the fifties, calling again and again for more freedom in the Church.
Bishop Cronin began telling him how he and several other Americans had persuaded Derrieux to join them in a scorching attack on Vatican II’s schema on the communications media. “They had a clause in there that Joe Stalin himself would have applauded. I can still remember it. ‘The civil authority has the duty of seeing to it in a just and vigilant manner that serious danger to public morals and social progress do not result from a perverted use of the media.’ It was nothing less than the sign of the cross over state censorship. In spite of all we could do, they passed it by three to one. But we decided not to quit. We got Matt into the act, and the next thing you know, we had a circular signed by twenty-five Eminences and Excellencies from fourteen countries. Matt himself stood on the steps of St. Peter’s handing it out.
“Along came that big ox Pericle Felici, the secretary-general. Believe it or not, he tried to grab the circulars away from Matt. It looked for a minute like there’d be a wrestling match right there in St. Peter’s Square. Matt would have taken him two falls out of three, I’m sure. I was about to make a fortune selling tickets when up rushed Derrieux to play the peacemaker. He talked Matt into giving up the circulars and spent a lot more time assuring old Felici that no offense against the authority of the council was intended. I took a dislike to the fellow from that moment.”
The hall of the chancellery was not very well ventilated. In fact, no one even seemed to have bothered to open the narrow fifteenth-century windows. More and more people continued to arrive, adding to the humidity and diminishing the supply of oxygen. Dennis felt claustrophobia stirring in his chest and began urgently wishing for the papal messenger to arrive.
In the Sistine Chapel, Pope Paul was meeting in a secret consistory with the present Cardinals. To get his mind off his breathing difficulties, Dennis asked Bishop Cronin what happened at that ceremony.
“Nothing much,” said Cronin.
“The Great Man sits on his throne and reads out the names of the neo porporati. The assembled yes-men in red raise their zucchettos and give him a little bow of assent. Then the messengers take the official letters - the biglietti - and head for us here and wherever else the new boys are gathered. Il Papa also often uses the occasion to announce some new appointments. Some of the old guard at the Irish College tell me that there’s a new Secretary of State in the wind. Not even pusillanimous Paolo can put up with Cicognani any longer. He’s only eighty-six, and it’s a shame to retire him.”
“Who’s in the wind?”
“Villot, so they say. He’s a mere lad, sixty-three. But let us thank God for small favors. At least he isn’t Italian.”
Suddenly, Dennis thought he saw a face in the crowd that could not be here. A hallucination. You are still high on antihistamine. There it was again. Disembodied, peering over the shoulders of short monsignors and around the elbows of tall laymen: Helen, Sister Helen Reed. She was wearing her gray and black modernized nun’s habit, with the small silver cross dangling between her breasts. Her gamin face had that solemn, earnest little-girl look that had stirred his soul (or was it just those great legs?) the first time he saw her. There was something childlike, something irreducibly innocent about her. But here? She was 4,000 miles away, turning moderates into militants in the scabby side streets of St. Sebastian’s parish. Then his staring eyes caught hers, and her mouth became a radiant smile. She was real. He edged away from Bishop Cronin and squirmed and elbowed past the several hundred loyal followers pressing around the waiting Cardinals-to-be to end his disbelief once and for all by taking her hand.
“What are you doing here?”
“I talked Sister Agnes Marie into it. Somebody had to be over here to defend our position against your friend with the red hat.”
The Good Shepherd Page 30
