by Morris West
Isabel Ortega is married. Her husband is a serving diplomat at the United Nations. She herself has pursued a successful career as a specialist in Hispanic American relations. Their daughter is an artist, working on restorations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Cardinal Rossini, on the other hand, stood high in favour with the late Pontiff, who sent him on many missions abroad. It is clear that Papal favour brought its own penalties. Some of his colleagues envy him. Others are prone to gossip about his early history, carefully planted from the earliest days by the military dictatorship through its Roman Embassy. But not even his most hostile judges have ever been able to challenge the integrity and fidelity of his clerical life in Rome.
There is a size and stature about Rossini which impresses one instantly. This, one knows, is a man who has paid his dues. This is a man whom I would believe if he talked or preached about love. I would guess that he unlocks his heart very rarely, but when he opens it, one sees the glowing coals inside. I know for a fact that he is now facing another tragedy. Señora Ortega is returning immediately to the United States for treatment of an illness already diagnosed as terminal.
How will Rossini be regarded in the conclave? He will perhaps be better known than he expects. He is recognised as a man who travels light, moves fast, sees and reports clearly. Such a one tends to underrate the impression he makes, because he does not concentrate on himself but on the matters in hand.
I have heard both sides of the Aquino story: from the Cardinal, whom I interviewed for this journal, and from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. There is no love lost between Aquino and Rossini, who are as different as chalk and cheese. They are curial colleagues but certainly not friends. I would say that Cardinal Aquino was fortunate to have found an advocate as strong – and let me say it – as generous, as his colleague, Rossini.
The affair of the disappeared ones, and of all the other thousands whose fate is known, will not go away. No silence is deep enough to engulf so many accusers. It will not go away for Cardinal Aquino. My guess is that the new Pontiff, whoever he may be, will not hand him over to a civil court – though more and more clerics are being handed to civil courts for criminal abuse of the young, a tragedy much smaller in scale than the brutalities of the dirty war. However, Aquino will still have to reckon with his own conscience, as Luca, Cardinal Rossini, will have to carry for the rest of his life the scars on his back and in his psyche.
Now comes the new paradox. Both Aquino and Rossini will enter the conclave to elect a new Pope. Both are, by definition, candidates for office. Given the climate of reaction which is already closing in, neither can be too readily dismissed. Aquino is mature timber, seasoned – some believe stained – by long diplomatic and curial service. Rossini, on the other hand, is the lone wolf, familiar with the outlands and uplands, nursing his love and slowly transmuting his griefs into service. Of the two, I prefer him as an outside bet for election. Why? Because I believe he could keep the coals of love alive, even if he were elected and the great freeze of absolute power came upon him.
There was more yet; but Rossini had read enough to know that his attachment for Isabel was no longer a secret. It would be picked up in some form or other by all the world media. He was glad that Isabel had made peace with her husband and that he had helped towards their reconciliation. The revelation of her illness to the media was an unexpected shock; but he had to admit that, by and large, Steffi Guillermin had kept her promise and that her commentary had been more than he expected. He wondered what comments the Camerlengo would have on the matter. He was still musing on the possible fallout from the article when the Secretary of State looked up from his own reading and said:
“I hope my translators can give a decent rendition of your text, Luca. There is much more passion in it than I expected.”
“Is that a bad thing, Turi?”
“No, I think it fits well with Mademoiselle Guillermin’s portrait of you as a very passionate man.”
“Does that trouble you?”
“Not at all! If there is no passion in this election, the chance of change will be lost. If we don’t vote ourselves the right man, we’re all in trouble. This is our one opportunity to make the barque of Peter ship-shape for a millennial journey.”
“I’ve always liked that metaphor,” said Rossini simply. “I used it in my interview with Guillermin.”
“I know. Your words impressed me, too. As you know, my father was a sea-captain,” said the Secretary of State. “He could read the stars and he loved the sea. I am told his crews always respected him because he ran a safe ship and cared for his men.”
“Is he still alive?”
“No. He died in the early fifties. My mother brought up two girls and two boys in her widowhood. I entered the Church. My brother became head of the family. He’s an executive with Italcable. Both my sisters are married. My mother is a nonna six times over …” He gave one of his rare smiles and made a gesture of surrender. “There! You have finally coaxed me into family talk. Anything else you’d like to know?”
“Yes. Why this meeting with the Camerlengo? I hate walking blind into a conference. Your father would have understood that, I think.”
“He would have understood very well. He used to say to me: ‘The wise men were given a star to lead them to the Christ child. Every sailor has to know the stars that lead him home.’ Let’s go, shall we? Baldassare hates to be kept waiting, and just now he’s carrying the whole Church on his shoulders. It makes him just a little irritable.”
The gathering in the Camerlengo’s office was larger than either man had expected. The Archbishop of Los Angeles was there, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, the Archbishops of Tokyo and Bangkok and the Archbishop of Ernakulam in India, who was of the Syro Malabar rite. Aquino was also there, with the Archbishop of Seoul. There were eleven people in all. Rossini wondered why and to what special pattern they had been co-opted. The Camerlengo explained with his usual blandness.
“It was not possible – nor even desirable – to have a full consistory of Cardinals before the conclave. This is the last of a long series of small gatherings, at which talks have taken place and our senior brethren, excluded from the conclave, have been able to share their views and their experiences with us. Tomorrow, between four and five in the afternoon, you will repair to Saint Martha’s House where you will be lodged – I hope more comfortably than conclavists in other times. On your arrival, your rooms will be allocated and you will be provided with all necessary documents: the timetables, the orders of rituals, the oaths of secrecy, the rules of the conclave, the names of the various persons who will be there to assist you: secretaries, confessors, a doctor, a surgeon, nursing orders, and so on. If any of you have special dietary problems, the kitchen staff will do their best to accommodate you. There will be room-to-room communication by telephone, but no outside contacts at all, except in cases of extreme urgency and then only with permission of the Marshal of the conclave. There is, however, one matter on which a special briefing seemed necessary. Certain of our brothers have requested me to make known, quite formally, that, if by any chance they were elected, they would decline the honour. They made the point that by abdicating the candidacy in advance, they could save the electors time and trouble. I have pointed out to them, of course, that all electors must be free to cast their votes as they choose, even if they know the candidate has abdicated in advance. This may suggest an imperfection in the system. However, the electors are free to use the system in any way they choose to bring about the valid election of their own candidate. I raise the matter now, informally, because when you enter the conclave, you will find a final complete list which falls under the oath of secrecy and which applies to all conclavists. However, certain of our brethren have already made their intentions plain and public. Our brother from Westminster has already announced his intention of retiring to his monastery to go fishing. Matteo Aquino, who is here with us thi
s morning, has abdicated his candidacy so that there may be no fallout in the new pontificate from long ago events in Argentina.”
“One asks,” the intervention was made by Gottfried Gruber, “one is compelled to ask, whether, in the same context and for the same good reason, our eminent colleague Rossini might consider a public withdrawal of his candidacy?”
There was a sudden deathly silence in the room. Rossini rose slowly in his place. Ignoring Gruber, he turned to face the Camerlengo. Very quietly, very deliberately, he asked:
“We have known each other a long time, Baldassare. Did you have any knowledge that this challenge was to be put to me in this meeting?”
“No, Luca.”
He waited for more. The Camerlengo did not offer another word.
Rossini turned to Aquino. “And you, Matteo, did you prompt the question?”
Aquino shrugged off the challenge.
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose I did. After I had read the report of your interview in Le Monde I made a jocular remark to Gruber here: something to the effect that we lived in less tolerant and more scandalous times, and the press dominated our lives much more than we were prepared to admit. On the other hand, I said that you had survived the scandal better than I.”
“What scandal?”
“Your relationship, brief as it was, with Señora Ortega: a priest with a married woman. That’s what it was, that’s what it will become again. Once we are in the history books, we can’t step off the pages.”
Rossini turned slowly to face Gruber.
“And you, Gottfried? You’re the watchdog of the Church, master of the hounds of God. You feel I should make a public abdication of my candidacy, because of this episode in my young life?”
“In today’s climate, yes.”
“And you, Turi, you are my immediate superior. What do you have to say?”
“I have no comment,” said the Secretary of State.
Rossini turned away from him and addressed himself once more to the Camerlengo.
“With your permission, Baldassare, and with the consent of our brethren, I should like to deal with this matter now.”
The Camerlengo frowned but put the formal question: “Placetne fratres?”
The answer was unanimous: “Placet.”
Rossini stood for a long moment in silence, gathering himself, settling his turbulent emotions, searching for the appropriate words.
“My brothers. We have all met before. Sometimes I came to you as personal emissary of His late Holiness. Sometimes I received you in Rome in my own house. We have celebrated the Eucharist together. Now you sit silent, while I am urged to abdicate rights and privileges conferred upon me by our late Pontiff. Why so? Am I on trial here? Or simply under challenge? I will not defend myself to you because I have nothing to defend. I will not plead with you because I have no cause to justify. I did not plead when they strung me up on a cartwheel and flayed me and violated me with a riding crop in front of my own church and my own people. I screamed, I shouted, I prayed – yes, I cursed my tormentors – but I did not plead. But when Isabel Ortega killed a man to save me, then took me into her care and fled with me into hiding, then I pleaded! I pleaded man-child to mother, man to woman, whom I had renounced unknowingly, make me whole! Make a man out of this wreckage. She did that. She did it by the gift of herself and all her womanhood. She did it in daily risk of capture, torture and death. Do you find this scandalous? I have never been able to see it as anything but an act of love and of healing.
“How my brother Gottfried Gruber judges me, how his assessors might rate my acts and my attitudes, is irrelevant to me. I came to Rome under no pretence. I was brought here under a deal made by our brother Aquino with the military dictatorship in Argentina. I was delivered, a package of damaged goods, to the Pontiff. There was a price-tag attached to the package, and the price was silence. Isabel Ortega and her family were held hostage to that silence. I was held, too, a bonded servant to Mother Church, whom I have served, not always with joy or love, but fidelity and punctuality until this day. I have made myself a public advocate for our brother Aquino, who is still vulnerable to the consequences of his service in Argentina. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have a case against him. I have tried to mitigate their rage against him, although he now sits silent.
“His late Holiness befriended me. I made my first confession in this city to him personally. I told him I repented whatever guilts resided in my own acts, and that I would accept whatever penance he chose to lay upon me, but I could not accept his absolution if it involved a condemnation or a censure of the love and gratitude which I bore, and still bear, to Isabel Ortega. He did not exact that. But the penance he gave me was harsh enough: a lifetime of separation – in honourable exile, yes, but as a hostage nonetheless. I have performed the penance. I have paid the debt. Isabel Ortega came to Rome for a few days to bid me goodbye. She is terminally ill. Her presence helped you also, Matteo. It softened the attitude of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in your regard. I trust you will remember her in your prayers. Now, let me ask you all: are we still crying scandal here? I will not tolerate it from you, my brothers! If you want a Church of the perfect, I see no place in it for me. Peter betrayed his master, Paul raised no hand or voice at the execution of Stephen, the first martyr, Mary of Magdala, was beloved of the Master because she had loved much, Augustine was both a libertine and heretic before he came to belief. Tertullian separated himself because he could not forgive those who had quailed under persecution.
“At this moment, you are custodians of this our Church. You do not own it: you are responsible to God for the People of God. Finally, I answer our brother Gottfried here. The office I hold was conferred upon me, legally, with all its rights and privileges. I will surrender none of them to a false charge of scandal. God forbid you should think of making me Pope! God forbid that any here should abridge my right of candidacy. I thank you, Eminences, for your patient hearing. I beg you to excuse me.”
He was halfway to the door when the Camerlengo called him back.
“Wait, Luca! Please resume your seat. We have more business to transact.”
Rossini hesitated for a second, then turned back to the Camerlengo, bowed and sat down. The Camerlengo looked around at his audience and asked formally:
“Does anyone wish to comment on the remarks of our brother Luca?”
No one answered. Rossini knew he had won a victory: he had faced down the Grand Electors, but the taste of triumph was like gall in his gullet. Aquino he could understand and Gottfried Gruber, but Baldassare the Chamberlain and Turi, these were his friends, yet they would not raise a voice to defend him. Then the Camerlengo gave the floor to the Cardinal Archbishop of Tokyo, a small, smooth man who looked younger than his sixty-eight years. He spoke perfect Italian, coloured only by the Japanese lilt to the phrases. His tone was deprecating and gentle.
“I have to say that I am troubled by what I have heard here this morning and by what I have heard in other gatherings since my arrival. There is a friction between brethren which I find alien and upsetting. There is pressure to impose viewpoints and disciplines as if we were an army and not a family joined in love. Let me try to explain something. We Christians in Asia live as exotics in huge communities who have their own beliefs, much older than ours; but they are still our people, our friends, our relatives. We are forced, therefore, to carry out our mission of spreading the Gospel with humility, discretion and great charity. To use the words of Pope John XXIII: ‘We seek always that which unites us instead of that which divides.’ This means that in our teaching, we have to work through a large number of semantic barriers. We have to cast our Christian thinking in the terms of other languages and other cultures. We have to examine, with an open mind, the religious propositions of other great religions, always in the conviction that whatever is true by whomsoever said, is an authentic revelation of the Spirit. We need great care and great discernment to put ourselves in this attitude of mind. We have to
concede emotionally what we admit intellectually, that even the most refined perceptions of theologians, the most precise prescriptions of canon law, will be a barrier to religious understanding if they are not expressed in the language of the heart. The knowledge of God and of the truths of salvation is offered to all; therefore it must be available in all the modes of human communication.
“There is a great mystery here: the mystery of God’s own secret wordless working in every human life, which the Divinity itself sustains in being. It is always a dangerous enterprise to impose a verbal definition on this mystery, or to condemn those who seek to explore it with new tools or by unfamiliar paths. Our faith is not a series of propositions which we impose on people as a kind of entry fee into the Kingdom. Faith is an illumination which lights everything and every happening in the world. It is like a candle in a room full of mirrors, repeating and reflecting itself to infinity. We do not define Christ in our creeds. We proclaim him: ‘Light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made of one substance with the Father.’ That proclamation was put together by Mediterranean people. How do I, a Japanese Christian, explain it to my people? I do it the only way I can, by making myself the mirror which reflects the light, however imperfectly. We are met here to elect ourselves a Bishop of Rome. He will by tradition become the successor of Peter the Fisherman, who was the first to deny his master but who was named by him as the foundation-stone upon which he would build his Church. We have to find ourselves another Peter, sensible of his own frailty, sensible of the needs of a vast scattered flock. We must not create myths about him. We must not claim that all creation will be made plain to him the moment he is elected. We must choose a man careful of his people, open to them, not seeking always to direct them in all the acts of their lives, not using against them the powerful bureaucracies of the Church, but trying to learn from them, through the daily parables of their human experience. Once we elect him, we cannot depose him. We should not, therefore, indulge in personal jealousies, but seek that one among us whom we can trust to guide the flock towards new and more open pastures.”
