And Valli slowly shook his head in response. "Holiness, what I think is of utterly no importance. All that matters is what you think. I ask you to share your thoughts with us."
The room was silent. Would the pope think Valli was being impertinent? The pope continued to smile, staring at Valli with his large brown eyes, and finally he nodded, almost imperceptibly. "Of course, your Eminence," he said, so softly this time that Riccielli had to lean forward to hear. "I am not a philosopher, though. I am not a theologian. Some would even say that I am not an especially worldly man. I have spent too much time fighting minor battles in a faraway land. So I am not prepared to make any grand pronouncements. I do want to listen, and learn.
"But I will say this. I believe that the Church's problem is not that its members are insufficiently obedient to its teachings, but that the Church is insufficiently responsive to the needs of its members. We are in many respects a powerful and effective body, but too many people no longer listen to us; for too many people, we no longer matter. And if we do matter, it is because they believe we are an obstacle to the fulfillment of their humanity and the true expression of their faith.
"I believe this has happened because the Church has become too focused on matters that are not central to the truths we espouse: the reality of Our Lord's death and resurrection, and our witness to it in this world.
"I have had to counsel a young priest in tears as he petitioned to be laicized. He loved the Church, loved his vocation, but the burden of celibacy was just too great. He was sinning, and he did not want to sin. We have seen far too much of this lately.
"I have talked to young mothers terrified that they would become pregnant again and be forced to bear children they could not afford to feed.
"I have visited AIDS clinics and listened as doctors told me how many of those ravaged people I saw would have remained healthy if the Church had eased its prohibition against the use of condoms.
"We cannot be blind to the very real consequences of our actions and pronouncements. And we must try to find a way back into the hearts of our people. That is what I think I must do as pope."
Silence again. The uncomfortable silence, Riccielli realized, of people whose worst nightmares have just come true. Krajcek looked as if he were about to have a stroke. Valli stared at his hands and said nothing in response. Did he regret asking the question? No, they needed to hear this, even if most of them disagreed profoundly.
It was left to Rattner to break the silence—Rattner, the sallow, outspoken Austrian, whose resignation from his congregation had been tendered and accepted, and who therefore had nothing to lose. "The Church is not involved in a popularity contest, your Holiness," he observed. "We have a sacred obligation to protect the Deposit of Faith, and not to bend with every wind that blows."
Krajcek revived enough to add, "The Church's positions on contraception, abortion, clerical celibacy—they are long settled. If they cause some people pain—well, perhaps that is because God's law is not always easy, and people today are always looking for the easy way out."
Pope John shrugged. "As I said, I am making no grand pronouncements. I wish only to share some of my thoughts. I don't ask for your agreement, I ask only that you hear me out, and keep an open mind."
Keep an open mind. Did the pope think this was merely an abstract theological discussion? Riccielli wondered. Didn't he realize that his every utterance in this room would be dissected and interpreted like a passage from Revelation, that they would go flying to the far corners of Christendom, repeated and amplified and distorted? In his soft-spoken way he had all but declared war on most of these men, challenging their most basic beliefs, their views of themselves and their Church. They were not likely to keep an open mind.
No one seemed inclined to offer further challenges, however. Were they too shocked? Or too frightened of what he might say next? Rufio offered some pious babble in an attempt to improve the mood, but he didn't get much response. Finally the pope thanked everyone profusely and brought the meeting to a close.
Riccielli was on his way out of the room when he heard his name uttered softly, and his heart froze. The pope was looking at him with that small smile of his, his head tilted to one side, as if trying to get a better angle from which to view him. "A moment please, your Eminence?"
"Of course, Holiness," Riccielli managed to respond.
"You must pardon me. I have so much to learn, and I was impressed by your remarks in the meeting. You are, I understand, the head of the Vatican Bank?"
"That is correct, Holiness. Of course, I don't direct its day-to-day operations, but—"
"Yes, of course. Now, I must admit to extreme ignorance about the Church's finances, and I was hoping that you could help teach me."
The pope's eyes! Deep brown, warm but penetrating. One could almost be hypnotized them—and that would be a mistake, Riccielli suspected. "Whenever you like," he managed to respond. "You must understand, though, that the Church's finances are a very complex matter, of which the Vatican Bank is only one part."
The pope's smile widened. "And that is exactly the sort of thing I must learn, you see."
Riccielli managed a smile in return. "I will set up an appointment with your secretary."
"Thank you so much, your Eminence."
The pope moved swiftly out of the room. Riccielli exhaled as he watched the white cassock disappear around the corner. That's what he got for saying something sensible.
Now he had to figure out what to tell his new boss.
* * *
The pope met Cardinal Valli on the rooftop terrace of the Apostolic Palace. He was wearing a woolen sweater over his cassock. "I am told that Italian winters are not severe," he said, "but I must confess that it will take some time for my thin blood to get used to them."
"We can go insider if you desire, Holiness," Valli replied. He was speaking English, in deference to the pope's difficulty with Italian.
"No, no, I like the fresh air. The sense of confinement one feels in the papacy is something else I'll have to get used to."
"There is much that you will find new and, perhaps, frustrating," Valli said. "And even here there is confinement," he added, gesturing at the bulletproof glass atop the walls, apparently installed to protect the pontiff from distant snipers.
"Indeed." The pope began to walk through the gardens, with Valli at his side. Valli was a head taller than he, with a saturnine aristocratic Italian face. He doubted that he could ever be friends with the man; he found it difficult to believe that Valli actually had any friends. But he didn't need friendship from Valli; he needed loyalty. Could he get it? The hardest part of his job, he was beginning to realize, would be making judgments like this. A hearty laugh at your jokes and voluble agreement with your opinions did not necessarily mean you had an ally. Valli was cold, but he was conscientious. He had been a rival in the conclave, but he hadn't said or done anything dishonorable, that the pope was aware of. He had been loyal to John's predecessor, but that scarcely meant he would be disloyal to John himself. He was a man of the Church. And Gurdani needed him, or someone much like him.
"You had nothing to say in the meeting today," the pope pointed out. "But I still want your opinion. If you were me, what would you do first? What would be your highest priority?"
Valli nodded, as if this had been the correct question, and the pope had passed some kind of undeclared test. "Holiness, I will answer the question as asked," he replied. "I don't want to talk about what I would do, but about what you should do. There are some challenges anyone would have to face as pope. But some are uniquely your own. In my opinion, your principal challenge must be to capture the American church."
The pope stopped walking for a moment. In the distance, a car horn sounded, a Roman driver impatient with the traffic. A cold wind stirred the leaves. "America," he murmured.
"America. Of course, you are not without support there. Liberal Catholics like the idea of a black pope, and your struggle for the freedom of your hom
eland resonates with the American sensibility. Many call you, not without reason, a second Mandela. These things are very much in your favor. But your public utterances in the past have not been kind to America, to put it mildly."
"America was not kind to my homeland when it was struggling for its freedom," the pope said.
Valli nodded in agreement. "I'm sure you're correct. But what you said in frustration and despair has not been unsaid—in fact, you have been a persistent critic of American policy to the Third World, and to Africa in particular, for over twenty years. That is long enough to make an impression. American Catholics are Americans first, Catholics second. And Americans like to think of themselves as generous and kind-hearted, always on the side of the angels. They do not like to be accused of the kind of things you have accused them of."
Pope John recalled the darkest days of the Terror, when Tokomi's insane rampages were at their worst—recalled risking his life to sneak into the American embassy and petition the ambassador for assistance. He never got to see the man. He was met instead by a young aide with horn-rimmed glasses and a barely concealed distaste for the savages he had to deal with in this wretched land. Yes, America would do all it could, the aide promised as he escorted the troublesome priest out the door. Yes, of course we deplore violence and abuses of human rights. We will act forcefully if they are proved.
If they are proved... While outside the embassy walls the city reeked with the stench of corpses, while the alleys echoed with the howls of grieving widows and mothers. Tokomi, of course, was America's client, staunchly anti-Soviet, in an area and at a time when this mattered. America was not about to concern itself with some internal excesses of his security forces. Tokomi had no one to fear but his own people.
The pope shook his head. "I never criticized Americans, only the policies of their government. But I expect that distinction is rather subtle."
"Entirely too subtle, Holiness. Now I don't think you have to recant your previous positions. In fact, it might be better not to, lest you appear to be pandering to the Americans. But you must get the relationship on a new footing as soon as possible. The American Church is, of course, the richest in the world. We can't allow it to be needlessly antagonistic to the papacy. And, needless to say, the scandals there have left many bitter and disillusioned with Catholicism."
"What is your suggestion, then?"
"It is simple enough, Holiness. Your first foreign trip must be to America, and you must make it as soon as possible. The symbolism in and of itself will do much to solve the problem." Valli's mouth twitched into a smile. "Put on a baseball cap. Eat pizza. They will love you."
The pope sat down on a bench next to a small fountain and considered. He liked the advice; it seemed disinterested and relevant. He wasn't eager to go to America, but Valli was right, after all. What he'd had to say as an African bishop might have been true, but it wasn't the whole truth. As pope he had to learn to think differently, think bigger. Valli's job as secretary of state was to help him keep this in mind.
But there was a way to think bigger still, the pope realized. Not that Valli was likely to approve. But if he was truly loyal his approval wouldn't matter—he would do the right thing in any case.
"Perhaps," he said, "America would be the right place to begin a discussion of the issues I brought up at the meeting this morning."
Valli stared at the pope for a moment, and John could feel the power in that gaze. Then the cardinal lowered his eyes to the gravel path. Was he now going to get the response from Valli that he had expected this morning? The denunciation, the repudiation, the resignation...
But when Valli finally looked up, his response was astonishingly mild. "You understand, I know, that simply raising these topics, even without expressing an opinion on them, will be dangerous—dangerous to discipline within the Church, dangerous even to Church unity. You will make implacable enemies, even as you make great friends. You will overshadow and perhaps thwart anything else you may try to do in your papacy."
The pope nodded. "The issues must be raised. We must try to reconnect with the faithful. And this may be exactly what they want to hear their pope talking about."
Valli gave a half-shrug with his broad shoulders, then sat down on a bench opposite the pope, as if giving up his last vestiges of opposition. "If this is the course you want to take," he said, "then by all means, start it in America. The American laity will respond enthusiastically, as you suggest, even if the American hierarchy does not. People will forget the past in the excitement of contemplating the future. You will become a hero instead of an enemy. Start the dialogue, let the genie out of the bottle. But be prepared for the consequences."
The wind blew colder, and Rome seemed a long way from home. Good advice as usual, the pope thought. But it did not warm him, and it left him lonelier than ever. His back was starting to hurt. Time to go inside, he decided, rising from the bench. He had been with cardinals long enough; now he needed to talk to God. "Thank you, your Eminence," he said to his secretary of state. "I will reflect on your wise suggestions."
Valli crossed the path, knelt, and kissed the pope's ring. "I am here whenever you need me, Holiness," he murmured.
* * *
Cardinal Riccielli sat in his office and relayed the pope's request to Andrea Donato. Donato was the managing director of the Vatican Bank, a portly man with glistening black hair and a perpetually worried look. Riccielli's news did nothing to make the look disappear. "This is not good," he said. "Not good at all."
Riccielli spent far more time than he cared to trying to keep Donato calm. "I don't see why there should be a problem," the cardinal responded. "He's not an accountant, he's a man of God. He doesn't want to study our books, he wants to learn from us."
"Do you think he'll be satisfied with summary data?" Donato asked hopefully.
"Why should he care about anything more? The bank is in solid shape fiscally. We've made good investments. We have done our duty. There's nothing else to be said."
Donato nodded energetically, liking the sound of that, but then the worry crept back into his face. "Before we talk to the pope we need to talk to—to him," he said, whispering the final word. "He must be told that we need to stop everything. We need to clean it all up."
"Andrea," Riccielli said, "really, you must—"
But Donato was shaking his head violently. "It can't go on. It's simply impossible. We stop it now. Then, if anything does come out, we can simply say—" He gestured feebly, as if realizing that there still wouldn't be much to say.
Riccielli realized that he had to be very careful now. "We can meet, of course," he agreed, "but I don't think you can expect him to be persuaded by your fears."
"Doesn't matter. We just stop. New pope, new circumstances. What can he do, after all?"
Riccielli didn't want to think about what he could do. They tried never to speak his name. Riccielli tried never to think about him. "Very well," he said. "I'll see if he wants to talk. But I don't think the conversation will make you happy."
"I don't care about happiness anymore," Donato said, shaking his head. "I just want to survive."
As do we all, Riccielli thought. As do we all.
* * *
"Will there be anything else, Holiness?"
"No, thank you, Thomas."
Thomas, his long-time aide, had laid out the pope's nightclothes and poured his evening glass of milk. It still seemed unutterably strange for the two of them to be here. "Are you scared, Thomas?" the pope asked.
Thomas shook his head and grinned. "What's to be scared of?"
"Well, I'm scared," the pope admitted. "This is a scary place."
"Then I've changed my mind. I thought you were going to protect me."
The pope grinned in turn and then became serious. "You know that you can return home if you want. You mustn't stay here just because of me, if it gets to be too much."
"But if I go home, who will protect you, Holiness?"
"I suppose we could
protect each other," the pope suggested.
"Yes. Let's do that. Good night, Holiness."
"Good night, Thomas."
Thomas left, and the pope sat on the edge of his bed and drank his milk. His bedroom was on the fourth floor of the Apostolic Palace. A palace! Still, this room was smaller than his bedroom back home, a room he was unlikely to ever see again.
Back home. He had to stop thinking like that. This was home now, for as long as he lived. And the transition had been as instantaneous and complete as any could possibly be. One moment you are an obscure cleric from an obscure country, scarcely recognized as you walk down a Roman street; the next, you are on the throne of Saint Peter, your every word, your every glance reported and interpreted and, of course, criticized. And you are no longer allowed to walk down the street.
Some thrived on the change; others, it killed. John recalled John Paul I, who, he was told, had died in this room, in this very four-poster bed, after only a month in office. It had all been too much for him, and his heart had proved unequal to the strain.
Morbid thoughts. There is the one constant to keep in mind when your spirit needs refreshing. God is with you, no matter where you are, no matter what your role. It was to God that Pope John turned now.
There was an elegant carved-wood prie-dieu in a corner of the room, and the pope knelt on it. He could have gone to the small chapel adjoining his bedroom in the papal apartments, but the location made no difference. All he required was silence, and a spirit ready for prayer.
His back ached when he knelt for more than a few minutes, but when his spirit was truly ready he never noticed. How can your body matter, when you are talking to God?
Today, as always, he prayed for guidance. Someone had described him as a study in black and white—his skin black, his papal clothing totally white. But the world he confronted was anything but black and white. There were so many issues, each with infinite gradations of possible responses, and each of those responses had passionate adherents convinced that you are destroying the Church if you do not share their beliefs. Which issues to focus on? Which responses to support? How to make progress toward a solution without simultaneously making enemies of all those who disagree with you?
Pontiff (A Thriller) Page 5