by Morris West
“And what about the physical and emotional side of their lives?”
“The Church proclaims a Christian ideal of chastity. It cannot, and should not, intervene in the commerce of the double bed.”
“That sounds rather cynical.”
“It is not meant to be. Men and women are very complex creatures. I repeat, they need love more than they need legal prescription.”
“And moral prescription?”
“The Church points out the road. We are free to choose or refuse it. If we choose the wrong road, the Church holds out its hand to help us back to the right one. That’s what a family is for, is it not?”
“Do you have any thoughts on where you’d like to be, what you would like to do, at this stage of your life?”
“I’m not sure I can answer that question. The words that keep running through my head these days are those of Goethe on his deathbed: ‘Mehr Licht’ – more light.”
“We’re out of time, Mademoiselle,” said Angel-Novalis from the sidelines.
“We’re finished.” Steffi Guillermin switched off her tape recorder. She stood up and held out her hand. “Thank you for your time and trouble, Eminence. I hope I can do you justice.”
“When do you expect to publish?”
“Two days before the conclave begins.”
“Then you send me like Daniel into the lions’ den.” He said it with a laugh and Guillermin laughed with him.
“If I were a lion, Eminence, I’d try very hard to make friends with you.”
As he ushered her out of the room Angel-Novalis added his own postscript:
“I warned you. He’s a hard nut to crack.”
“He made me work for every damned line. He’s a formidable fellow. Just for the hell of it, I might have a small bet on him in the election stakes at the Press Club!”
Rossini’s next appointment was more daunting: a mid-morning coffee session with six of the most senior members of the College of Cardinals whose collective ages totalled half a millennium. They were all Italian, all veterans of pastoral or curial appointments, but still active enough and ambitious enough to lobby the electors before they went into conclave.
They were also openly resentful. In 1975 Pope Paul VI had excluded as electors all Cardinals over the age of eighty. The move was planned to stop the growth in the Church of a gerontocracy, a government of old men stubborn and jealous in their hold on power. Logically, it should have dealt with the tenure of the Papal office itself. It made no sense that the Pontiff alone should be elected for the term of his natural life, throwing the Church into possible disorder if he were crippled by age, infirmity or even dementia. However, the radical indecision of Paul VI’s nature had caused him to draw back, leaving this essential anomaly still to be confronted.
This deputation to Rossini was a lobby group of elders, addressing a junior with a dear complaint and a firm request. They were led by a sturdy eighty-five-year-old, the Archbishop emeritus of a major Italian city.
“We are all brothers in the same family, but we are disfranchised by the Apostolic Constitution of 1975. Whatever we possess of wisdom and experience is denied to the Church. We need you – and other colleagues – to convey our views to the voters in the conclave.”
“I’ve never been in a conclave.” Rossini was mild and accommodating. “So I’m rather at a disadvantage.”
“You’ll learn! Keep your eyes and ears open. Weigh your words and watch your back. Things can get rough in there.”
“Rough! I’m not sure I understand.”
“Sibling jealousy!” The old man broke into a wheezing laughter. “We’re all brothers in the Lord; but when we’re all locked up together, we’re like a sackful of cats, mewling and scratching. The longer the conclave goes on, the worse it gets.”
“Tell me, then, exactly what do you expect of me?”
“A voice to express our opinions.”
“An approving voice?”
“Not necessarily. We’d be content with an honest messenger.”
“Why me?”
“Oh, you’re not the only one we’re talking to; but you have a special interest for us. On the one hand, you’re a foreigner. On the other, your origins are here in Italy. We believe you have – how shall we call it? – a sympathetic position, a certain neutrality.”
“I’m not a neutral man,” said Rossini, “and with what or with whom am I deemed to be sympathetic?”
“With the notion of an Italian Pontiff.”
“There are certain merits in the idea.”
“How would you define them?”
“I would rather you defined them for me,” said Rossini mildly.
“Let me try, then, my friend.” This was a new and emphatic voice. Rossini glanced down at his list to identify an eighty-three-year-old former Chancellor of the Lateran University. “We start with a proposition, clearly stated by the Second Vatican Council, that the Church is a community always in need of reform, ‘ecclesia semper reformanda’. The process is sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but it does and it must continue. For some time now, the pace of reform has slowed almost to stasis, and this in spite of the fact that we have had all these years a globe-trotting Pontiff with a personal mission to unify and centralise the Church. He has succeeded to an astonishing degree. Radio, television, the Internet and fast travel have brought the world to Rome and Rome to the world in a fashion never even dreamed before! What we have now is a new imperial Church, united but deeply divided, policed by Vatican Congregations, monitored by Vatican Nuncios and delegates, doctrinally censored in secret by today’s version of the Inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
Rossini burst into laughter.
“I value your frankness, Eminence. So, how do you propose to change this imperial image?”
“I think we need an Italian Pope, and a total review by an ecumenical council of the role and the office.”
“How do you get the two things in one package?” Rossini’s puzzlement was genuine. “A Pontiff who is prepared to commit hara-kiri and an ecumenical council which will forge the weapons to help him do it.”
“Simple! Muster enough votes for the right man, and he’ll agree to it.”
“Why should he? You know that no pre-election promise is binding in law, and even simony itself does not invalidate an election. One more question: why does an Italian candidate offer you better prospects for change than a non-Italian?”
“It’s a question of attitude.”
“Can you explain that, please?”
“Easily. The biggest problem we’ve had during the recent pontificate has been old-fashioned absolutism, the fear of ‘moral relativism’. It was and always has been the talent of the Italians to arrive at a workable concordance between the two notions: We make horrendous laws about everything. We accept that the principle of law is immutable and its perfect practice impossible. That’s where ‘tolleranza’ comes in. That’s where we differ from the Germans and the Anglo-Saxons …”
In principle Rossini was sympathetic to the idea. The Italians had a singular talent for dealing with impossible situations, and somehow co-existing with the perennial criminalities of human nature. Their family life was firmly rooted in the matriarchal system, in which, provided she could survive infidelity, male tyrannies and multiple child-bearing, every woman must arrive at sovereignty – the respect of the whole tribal family with whom her word was law. It was one of the great strategic errors of his late master, that he had alienated the women of the world. Faced with the ill-fated decision of his predecessor to rule against artificial birth-control, he had mitigated nothing of woman’s burden and, in a hungry and over-populated world, had opened the gates to more grievous problems while closing the door to open discussion of them by Catholic theologians.
Rossini had no illusions about the complexity of the issues involved in the primitive process of survival. He understood also that most individual human decisions were made in moments of crisis and often
without support or counsel. He had learned painfully in his own life that to preach against sin was one thing, to offer compassion and forgiveness to the sinner was quite another. His answer was simple and pragmatic.
“I agree that we have to elect a Pontiff who will embrace a mission of reconciliation. That’s the heart of the matter. Whom do you have in mind?”
This time the answer came from a Cardinal who had in former times headed the Congregation for Bishops. He was frail and white-haired, but clearly this was his brief and he was ready to speak on it.
“We have three candidates. Two are pastors of important Italian cities, one is a curial prefect with long diplomatic experience.”
Rossini waited in silence for the rest of it. This was the old Roman treatment: keep the man in suspense, dole out information like pearls. Finally, it was delivered.
“Our first candidate is the Cardinal Archbishop of Genoa. You know him, I believe?”
“We’ve met, yes.”
“No other comment?”
“For the moment, no.”
“The second candidate is the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.”
“I know him also, a little better than Genoa.”
“The third is your curial colleague, Aquino.”
“He is well known to me.”
“Would you be prepared to give your vote to any or all of these?”
“I’d be prepared to consider each one on his merits – and in the changing climate of each ballot, presuming that multiple ballots are required.”
“Is there any one you would reject out of hand?”
“You mean here and now, outside the frame of the electoral process?”
“Here and now, yes.”
“I don’t think it would be appropriate to pre-empt the electoral situation.”
“As you wish, of course.”
“Did you have any advice to the contrary?”
“We were led to believe by our colleague, Aquino, that you were a man with positive opinions.”
“Did he give any examples of my opinions?”
“Not specifically. In fact, it seemed to me he was paying you a compliment. He said ‘Talk to Rossini. He gets about a lot. He knows how to read the wind. If I were Pontiff, I’d make sure to keep him very close to me.’”
“That was most kind of him,” said Rossini. “Did either of the others offer a comment?”
“Let me think now. Genoa simply shrugged and said you were a good man who kept his own counsel and probably would make little impact on the conclave.”
“And Milan?”
“That one’s a Jesuit, of course, and a biblical scholar of high reputation. Both are, or could be, handicaps for a Pontiff. How did he describe you? Oh yes, he said, ‘Rossini? Interesting fellow. I’d like to think we could learn from each other.’ So, there you see! If you helped to elect him, he’d probably become a good patron. Two prospects in one batch. That isn’t bad, is it?”
It was a bad joke and it fell flat. An awkward moment followed. Rossini sat tight-lipped and silent. The others in the meeting studied the backs of their hands. Then the Angelus bells began to toll all over the city. Like the well-drilled soldiers they were, the old men stood and looked to Rossini as the host to make the ritual prayer: “Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae.” Their old voices responded in a ragged chorus: “Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.” When the prayer was ended, there was a moment’s silence as each one remembered that this day, and for more days yet, there would be no familiar white-dad figure at the window of the Papal apartment, reciting the Angelus with the pilgrims in the square. The See of Peter was vacant. Those who stood together in Rossini’s office were members of a trusteeship whose powers were limited by the decree of a dead man. When the Angelus prayer was ended, Rossini seemed suddenly withdrawn. Out of the silence, the Archbishop Emeritus prompted him tactfully.
“It would help greatly if you could give us some immediate reaction to the ideas we have proposed to you.”
Rossini was momentarily nonplussed; but his answer was firm.
“To be frank, they puzzle me. Your trio of candidates is interesting, but I can’t believe it’s exhaustive. Your policy – if it can be so described – lacks substance and detail. I should have expected a more reasoned exposition of the needs of the Church.”
“We presumed that you were aware of them. We hoped you had already some remedies in mind.”
“I fear, gentlemen, that you are asking too much of me. Let me speak plainly. My service as a pastor was very short. It was given in a primitive corner of South America. It ended abruptly. For the rest of the time – by the personal disposition of the late Pontiff – I was trained, if you like to express it so, to a vagrant mission. I reported from places as far apart as Tokyo and Tulsa. His Holiness saw, or thought he saw, a certain value in my reviews of local situations, in my contacts with politicians and with leaders of other religions who would not, or could not, have received me formally and openly. I used to think often that what I was seeing was the underside of a carpet and what I was losing was the grand design on the other side. I developed insights, yes. I had friends and acquaintances who could give me backstairs access to people in power but, remember, my reports were delivered on the basis of that fragmentary knowledge and my instinctive reaction to unexpected circumstances. My judgments acquired value because of the man to whom they were delivered. He gave me confidence. He added his own insights to mine. Now, I have to tell you, I am much less confident. I am not at all sure that my opinions have any value for you.”
“Be assured, Rossini, they do, and remember, whether our opinions are right or wrong, we need your voice to offer them to the voters in conclave. We are old and only sometimes wise, but we have been rendered dumb by decree.”
Rossini made a gesture of resignation.
“So be it, then. I promised you an honest voice in the conclave. You shall have it. Now, do you all have transport? If not, it will be my pleasure to arrange it.”
And so it was done, if not successfully, at least in traditional style. Soundings had been taken. Plans had been drawn in a fine Italian hand, then magically erased as if they had never existed. There had even been the muffled chink of those most precious currencies of all – position, preferment, patronage – none of which was truly the gift of those offering it. And yet, Rossini knew there were kernels of truth among the husks of fallacy.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, the office of the Roman Papacy had been inflated beyond any one man’s capacity to fill it. The late Pontiff had travelled the world with the Good News in his briefcase – even though half of it was rewritten for him by local advisers. Modern media had given him a pervasive presence, a degree of exposure unthinkable in olden times. The aura which surrounded him now was no longer of mystery but of familiarity and idiosyncrasy. Too many of his texts were written by other hands. They had begun to smell of the lamp, of stale incense and stale argument.
No man, even one filled with the Spirit, was large enough, wise enough, durable enough to bring off the illusion of universality: a universal pastor of a universal Church. There was much more reason, much more appeal perhaps, in the image of a Roman Pontiff, Bishop of his own See, subsuming in himself, as indeed his city did, the long history of Christendom, the fundamental unity of its sacraments and beliefs. His primacy would be one of millennial tradition among the churches. He would be the final arbiter of their disputes, the ultimate censor of their conduct. He would rule, not by the devious exercise of bureaucratic power, but by collegial consent to a common Gospel and a common apostolic tradition.
This, too, perhaps was an illusion, because power once gained was not readily relinquished, yet the notion of authority based on service, validated by apostolic tradition was in the end the only authentic one. This was the true mustard tree of the parable, sprung from a single root, spreading its branches so that all the birds of the air could rest therein. If the Good News of a universal Gospel was to be heard above the babble
of tongues and the clangour of discordant temple bells, it must be delivered with the simplicity of morning bird-song: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who do harm to you.”
It was the easiest of all prescriptions to preach, the hardest to practise. Rossini was coming painfully to understand that this was the core of his own problem. Ever since he had come to Rome, he had been building a fortress for his fragmented self. The fortress was founded not on firm level ground, but on a granite outcrop of anger and resentment. At the heart of it was a shrine where a silent God dwelt but where a lamp burned always to a miraculous image of an absent woman, Isabel Ortega. It was she who mediated between him and the silent God, whose existence he acknowledged with all formality, but who, in his unconscious mind, was always associated with the harshest presumption of magistracy. “There is no power but from God – and the powers that be are ordained by God.”
It was the visible lover who had kept him alive and sane. After her, he had lived celibate, he had refrained from acts of retribution or revenge; yet the very punctuality of his service was an act of exclusion against the memories of abuse. “I don’t expect you to love me, gentlemen, but respect me you will!” Now, Isabel was here in Rome. He had kissed her and held her in his arms. She had displayed to him the fruit of their love, a girl-child grown into a woman. He had embraced his child and she had embraced him. All three had found a measure of joy in the encounter.
But the silent God had presented them with an exquisite irony. Isabel was under a death sentence. It might be deferred, but it could not be rescinded. He himself was one of two fathers to Luisa – the one who could offer her least in terms of love, care and heritage. The silent God had hidden his face – perhaps forever – so that the public liturgies he offered, the duties he performed in high and public places became a sterile mockery. Soon the shrine would be empty. The foundations of his fortress were cracking. The walls were crumbling about him. One fine day he would be standing amid ruins, staring up at an empty sky, deprived even of the gift of tears.
