The Third Revelation

by Ralph McInerny

  “Have you told Nate?”

  “He insists on it.” He rubbed the tip of his nose. “I told him I wanted to obtain a plenary indulgence.”

  “You’re awful.”

  “Count on it.”

  Raised a Catholic herself, Laura had long since felt the ties that bound her to her faith loosening, then slipping away entirely from her daily life. She did not feel as distant from her lost faith as Ray apparently did. Still, the thought of having days with him in Rome was exciting.

  Remorse for another fall from grace could wait.

  And she wouldn’t embarrass her brother with news of her relationship with Ray. Which is why she was coming to this meeting alone.

  She approached the gate and received a snappy salute from the Swiss Guard. She told him that she was having lunch at the Domus Sanctae Marthae with Father John Burke. A glance at a list and it was the open sesame. One of the guards walked with her until he could point to the clerical residence in which her brother lived. And then she saw John standing in front of the building, on the lookout for her. He recognized her and she ran to him, throwing her arms around him. In half a minute he stepped back.

  “Mustn’t give scandal.”

  “Oh John.” Laura laughed at the thought.

  “It’s a bad idea for a priest to be seen in the arms of a beautiful woman,” John said. “Even if she is his sister.”

  She hooked her arm in his. “Better?” she teased.

  “Much better. I’m so glad you’re here. Come inside. I can’t wait to show you this place.”

  When they entered the building, they were on a balcony that overlooked the main floor, which was reached by twin curved staircases to their left and right. Just below was the desk of the concierge. The exterior of the building had not called attention to itself, the better to fit in with its surroundings. From the front entrance one looked across the cobbled street to the vast bulk of San Pietro, a side view seldom seen by tourists. To the left was a little park in which a fountain whispered. Just up the street was a row of gas pumps where official vehicles were fueled. One caught a glimpse of the Vatican Observatory. The building that housed the Pontifical Academies, where John worked, was reached by circling the basilica, climbing a surprisingly steep hill—but after all, the Vatican was one of the seven hills of Rome—going through another park, and there it was.

  The Domus Sanctae Marthae had been built by John Paul II as a residence for priests and prelates who work in the Vatican as well as a residence for visiting bishops, far more convenient than the Casa del Clero near the Piazza Navona or one of the hotels. Of course American bishops also had the Villa Stritch. Most of the tables in the dining room were already occupied, and from them came the buzz of conversation. Laura was surprised at the number of bishops.

  “And archbishops,” John added, leading her to an unoccupied table. “It’s a bit like the Pentagon, filled with generals without armies. These men are titular heads of dioceses that are now in partibus infidelium. Obsolete, that is.”

  Food was brought by nuns: pasta, bread. Bottles of white and red wine were already on the table. But first came soup in a large, shallow bowl, ladled out by a cheerful little nun. John told her in Italian that this was his sister. A radiant smile of acknowledgment followed.

  “So what do you have, John, a room, an apartment, what?”

  “Two rooms, and a bath.”

  “And you can walk to your office?”

  “Yes. Thank God.” When he had lived at the Villa Stritch, which was outside the city, and had to drive back and forth through notorious Roman traffic, John had seriously wondered if he wanted to keep his assignment. Of course it was regarded as a plum—almost any Vatican assignment was—the unstated implication being that a man was then on a path that would lead to the episcopacy. But the ordeal by traffic that began and ended his day had cast a pall over his work. He’d thought of it as a penance, a spiritual test. And he wasn’t sure he could endure it indefinitely. With the move to the Domus, his life had been enormously simplified and something like serenity settled over him.

  “Of course I miss the company at the Villa. It’s nice to speak English when you’re off duty.”

  “You don’t here?”

  “Nope. Italian, mostly, but also German, French, sometimes Latin. Even Polish. It’s like the UN.” He sat back as the nun removed his bowl. “But what a delightful surprise that you’re here.”

  “One of the perks of my job.”

  “Instant vacations?”

  “Oh, this isn’t a vacation. I’ve come to pick your brain. Hope it’s big enough.”

  “Oh ha.” John had gone off to California to study at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, famous for its great books curriculum topped by theology. It was said that graduates of the college had to marry one another in order to be certain they had an intellectual peer. And many, like John, went on to the priesthood or religious life.

  “Seriously,” she said.

  He refilled her glass with white wine, and his own with red. “The Spanish have a saying. The worst red wine is better than the best white wine.” He added, “This isn’t the best.” It was a vino da tavola. “Not that I’m a wine snob. You’re not kidding? You came all this way to ask me a question?”

  She tasted her wine and found it good. “More than one.”

  “I don’t understand. Couldn’t you just search the Internet or ask a local authority?”

  “Of course, but my boss likes to go an extra mile. Or, in this case, a few thousand extra miles. To understand it, you’d have to meet Ignatius Hannan.”

  “And then?”

  “You’d understand. Great entrepreneurs are dreamers, romantics. They act on impulse. Later, when they’ve made their pile, some of them write books describing what they’ve done as a rational plan, carefully executed. But it’s all about gut instinct. Hannan’s got it and I don’t question it. Twenty-four hours ago I didn’t know I’d be here.”

  “And you got a ticket?”

  How to tell him that she and Ray had been sent off in the larger of the company’s Learjets? It all sounded impossibly indulgent and luxurious. Because it was. The real coup for Laura had been getting a room at the Hotel Columbus. “The trip was easy,” she said.

  “How long will you stay?”

  “We could fly back tomorrow morning.”

  “We?”

  Oops. What John didn’t know wouldn’t weigh on his spirit. She sipped her wine and said, with a smile, “The company pilot and I.”

  That was stupid. As if mentioning the colleague with whom she was traveling would immediately suggest something else. And, in this case, the truth of the matter. Sitting there with John in this clerical setting, with his cassock and Roman collar, still looking as young as a seminarian, she was almost filled with panic at the thought that he might learn that she was having an affair with Ray. She wondered if she could bring herself to go to confession. One didn’t go to confession to one’s brother, of course. In fact, she hadn’t been to confession for years. The practice had stopped, unable to compete with the pace of her life. When she stopped going to confession, it seemed that her faith had just slipped away, like sand in a glass. And so it had been with Ray.

  “Matthew Arnold,” Ray had said. “ ‘Dover Beach.’ ”

  “Delaware?”

  He winced at her feigned illiteracy and began to recite the lines in which Arnold had described the loss of faith as a “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear / And naked shingles of the world.”

  “Arnold knew that the faith was dying, but he also knew that he and the world would miss it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  Ray’s matter-of-fact assumption that Christianity, which had defined Western culture for two millennia, was dying seemed so odd here in the dining room of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where she was sitting with her brother the priest, who would doubtless have
smiled at such agnosticism. Possibly while recognizing its pervasiveness. The Vatican had to know what it was facing in the modern world.

  She leaned toward him.

  “John, do you ever wonder if all this,” she waved her hand at the room they sat in, and by inference taking in the whole grand and glorious enclave that was Vatican City, “is obsolete?”

  “This?” He looked around. “Why, it’s hardly twenty years old. You do realize that this is where the cardinals stayed during the conclave that elected Benedict? If I had lived here then I would have had to give up my rooms to a cardinal until the conclave was over.”

  She could have hugged him for not understanding. That was the best answer to her question. She found that she wanted her younger brother to go on believing, to say his Mass, recite his breviary, oblivious to the growing indifference out in the world to all his life represented.

  The other tables had begun to empty before they were half through with their meal, and priests and bishops began to leave.

  “Back to work?”

  He smiled. “First, a siesta. It’s an Italian necessity.”

  After they finished eating, they went down a flight to the bar for coffee. She was almost shocked when John lit a cigarette. She shook her head when he offered her one, trying not to show her horror. America might be turning its back on the Catholic faith, but new commandments took the place of the old, chief among them “Thou shalt not smoke.”

  “So what’s the question?” He blew a series of perfect smoke rings. “Do you know that joke of Henny Youngman’s? A man says to his lawyer, ‘Can I ask you two questions?’ and the lawyer says, ‘Certainly, what’s the second one?’ ”

  “I’ll get to the questions soon enough. First, I have to tell you a bit about the recent transformation in Ignatius Hannan.”

  “Do you call him Ignatius?”

  “Nate.”

  “Sounds like a hillbilly.”

  “Far from it. He’s a genius. An entrepreneur. And he has become very religious.”

  “What was he?”

  “He was born and raised Catholic, of course. He became caught up with building his business and, well, he was just too busy, I guess. A year ago, one night when he was unable to sleep, he turned on the television to EWTN and listened to Mother Angelica. Do you know her?”

  “I know who she is.”

  “She was talking about devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Fatima. She urged her listeners to say the rosary every day. The next morning he asked me to buy him a rosary. That was the beginning.”

  “Don’t tell me he wants a papal audience.”

  “Could you arrange one?”

  He made a face. “Is that why you’ve come?”

  “No. Not at all. It was an afterthought. Though it would be an important day in Nate’s life if he could meet the pope. But back to Nate’s conversion. He began to watch EWTN regularly and was struck by the works of art that were featured in the transitions from one program to the next.”

  John said nothing.

  “A couple of days ago he asked me to get him a list of the best and most famous paintings depicting the mysteries of the rosary. He was particularly interested in the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, and the finding of the Child Jesus in the temple.”

  “The joyful mysteries,” John said.

  “Yes. I told him it was out of my area of expertise but that my brother was a priest in the Vatican with a fine education in sacred art. He told me to hop in the plane and come see you.”

  “Just like that?” John said.

  “Just like that. And here I am. And I’m asking you.”

  John listened to this account, put out his cigarette, and said, “And what will he do when he has the list?”

  “Knowing Nate, he’ll buy them.”

  John’s laughter brought home to Laura that it was incredibly naive to think her boss, however incredibly rich and well connected he was, could just walk into wherever the paintings were and make an offer.

  “Can you give me such a list?” Laura said.

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m not. Nate Hannan is.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not the one to do it, but I can have it done. I’ll ask Brendan Crowe.”

  “Who is he?”

  “An Irish priest who works in the Vatican Archives. He lives here.”

  “How long would it take to put together such a list?”

  “That depends. I think I won’t tell him why you want the list. He might drag his feet if he knew what it was for.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll ask your question. I’ll call you when I get the list.”

  “Thanks, John.”

  “How many pushy sisters do I have?”

  Laura couldn’t resist. She got up and went to hug her brother again, dropping a kiss on the top of his head.

  He blushed like a six-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “Laura . . .”

  “It’s just so good to see you.”

  “You better get going.”

  “Thanks, John.”

  And so they parted.

  Later, Laura would wonder what she would have done then if she had known the ripple effect such a simple question would have on the people she loved, and on the Church itself.

  On her way back to the hotel, Laura went through the basilica, telling herself it was a shortcut. Once inside the enormous church she found herself wandering about like any other tourist. And then she noticed the confessionals. The priest sat behind a little Dutch door and penitents knelt on either side. His head was tipped toward the person confessing. Above his little box was a sign indicating the languages in which he heard confessions. It seemed odd to think of sins as Spanish or Italian or English.

  Laura lingered in fascination, imagining what it would be like to wait her turn, to kneel there, and when the grill was opened, to pour out the sins of her life. The thought exercised a powerful attraction. Confession, absolution, pardon, and peace. But what was the point? She would have to have a firm purpose of amendment.

  She would have to change her sinful ways.

  She had no intention of doing so today.

  She went slowly down the nave and out the great doors, across the piazza, to the Hotel Columbus and Ray Sinclair.

  IV

  To pray is to put oneself in the presence of God.

  Heather Adams had known Laura when they were students at Boston College. Not well, but better than she knew most of her fellow students.

  “Nebraska?” Laura had sounded as if Heather had come from the farside of the moon.

  “Red Cloud, Nebraska. It’s where Willa Cather grew up.” Then she added, “The novelist.”

  “So why did you come to Boston?”

  “I wanted to come east. Willa Cather came to Pittsburgh. The city, not the university.”

  “Heather, I haven’t the faintest idea who Willa Cather is.”

  Heather told her, even though it was clear that Laura had little interest in fiction. Heather herself was a math major and not a great reader, but she had read all of Willa Cather, first as a matter of local pride and then because Death Comes for the Archbishop had been the beginning of what she supposed was her secret life. Shadows on the Rock was even more important to her. Those novels had brought her eventually to Catholicism, and it was a puzzle to her that Willa Cather herself had not made the same journey. Mathematics is abstract, but life is concrete, and Heather wasn’t the first mathematician who had found that the ethereal world of quantity opened her to something that changed her view of the concrete. Once she had thought that Pascal was simply a computer program; now she had a special devotion to the saintly mathematician.

  She was not yet a Catholic when she left Boston College—her timid overtures to a Jesuit on the subject had not been encouraged—to pursue her MBA in New Haven. The Yale drinking song had spoken to her almost as directly as the novels of Willa Cather. “God have mer
cy on such as we, damned from here to eternity, bah, bah, bah.” The plangent lyrics had the impact of a hymn. When she made up her mind to take instruction in Catholicism and had gone off campus to a city parish in Manchester, she felt like an imposter among the working-class parishioners. Not that they paid any attention to her as she stood and knelt and sat and looked around her and realized that Catholicism was all about the Mass. Others in her pew had to push past her into the aisle at Communion time, and she longed to go forward with them but knew that wouldn’t be right.

  The pastor’s name was Krucek. He was in his sixties and was very matter-of-fact when she showed up at the rectory and told him she wanted to become a Catholic.

  “What are you now?”

  “Protestant, I guess.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I was raised a Lutheran.”

  He was silent for a moment when she told him she was a graduate student at Yale. “What do you know about the Church?”

  “That I want to receive Holy Communion.”

  He gave her books to read, he met with her for half an hour every week for several months, and then said he would give her conditional baptism.

  “Conditional?”

  “Chances are you’re already validly baptized.” He quoted the creed to her. One baptism, for the forgiveness of sins.

  She made her First Communion at a weekday Mass, seven thirty in the morning at Saint Cyril’s, but only she and Father Krucek knew that it was her first. From then on, she went to Mass every day, sometimes on campus, usually at Saint Cyril’s. After she got her degree, she wrote to Laura and asked if there were any openings at Empedocles. There had been a write-up about Laura in the Boston College alumni magazine. Heather was asked down for an interview, she and Laura had a pleasant reunion, and she was offered a job in purchasing.

  That had been three years ago. However good it was to see Laura again, and however much Heather knew she owed her friend for her job, they just didn’t click the way they had in college. For one thing, Laura’s life was lived in a blur these days, always at the beck and call of Mr. Hannan, off on trips with no forewarning, busy, busy, busy. How could she call her soul her own?