No Greater Love

by William Kienzle

  Miter returned, the ceremony continued with the congregation still in the dark as to what had happened.

  Cardinal Boyle, now smiling broadly, placed the miter on Patty’s head. Then he handed her the crosier. It had all happened so rapidly and unexpectedly that Patty was near breathless.

  But there was no time to stop and put some order into the proceedings. Tradition called for her to process through the cathedral, carrying the shepherd’s crook and blessing the congregation.

  She was about to begin, when Cardinal Boyle touched her arm and beckoned her to follow him out the back way.

  In some futuristic manner, after the fashion of Star Trek, Boyle and Donnelly were beamed inside the Vatican, into the Sistine Chapel.

  Well over a hundred Cardinals were seated in the chapel. Bishop Donnelly was, indeed, the only non-Cardinal there. There was no mistaking it, they were present at a conclave, a meeting to elect a new Pope.

  There were two unoccupied chairs at the rear of the chapel. But they were tipped forward as if reserved for someone else. Just like the refectory and those rotten deacons. However, in this case, a gracious Cardinal, noticing them standing, invited them to be seated.

  She turned to Boyle. “What am I doing here? This is restricted to Cardinals.”

  Without turning his head, Boyle replied, “You won’t be permitted to vote.”

  Once again, an ecclesiastical figure was telling her what she couldn’t do, what she couldn’t be. Even though she had never wanted to be a Cardinal, she thought it discriminatory that she was blocked from that office.

  The Cardinals had just taken a vote. No candidate had won a simple majority. This had been their forty-first ballot. Prayers were said to the Holy Spirit for guidance and direction.

  Now another vote was begun. One by one, the Cardinals marched, wobbled, or waddled to the altar, where a silver chalice waited for their ballots. Again the ballots were counted. There was a majority for the first time in this conclave. The name of the nominee was …

  The silence was almost palpable. The nominee was Patty Donnelly.

  The Cardinals looked at one another. How could this be? Who here would dare vote for a mere bishop—an auxiliary bishop at that! Titular head of some presumably fictitious diocese—the Bronx! And a woman!

  “But I’m a woman!” she said to Cardinal Boyle.

  Boyle shrugged. “Anyone can be Pope, as long as the Cardinals vote for that person.”

  A Cardinal approached Patty, knelt before her, and asked if she would accept the office.

  “What do I say?” she asked Boyle.

  “Nolo means you refuse. Volo means you accept.”

  Patty gave it a brief moment’s thought. Then she cried in a loud voice, “Volo.” And she hugged herself.

  One by one, the Cardinals approached and offered her obeisance.

  She was ushered to an adjoining room and outfitted in white-on-white with scarlet trim. The Papal colors set off the highlights in her blond hair rather nicely, she thought.

  All the while, white smoke billowed from the special vent on the roof of the chapel. Hundreds of thousands of people crowded into St. Peter’s Square.

  The new Pope—Popess?—stayed just out of view. behind one corner of the balcony.

  A Cardinal came out on the balcony and read from an impressive scroll: ‘Annuntio vobis guadium magnum. Habemus Papam!’”

  The crowd went wild. Then it quieted to hear the most important part of that “great joy”—the name of the new Pope.

  “Patriciam …” The crowd became hushed. Was the Cardinal looped? He couldn’t be serious. It sounded for all the world as if he’d said Patriciam. Feminine for Patrick! Patricia? Impossible!

  But the Cardinal went on. “Patriciam,” he said again, as if even he didn’t believe what had happened. Then he read the parenthetical identification. ‘“Sanctae Romanae Eccksiae…’” Here he stumbled. He almost bowed to hundreds of years of tradition and said, “Cardinalem.” But after the brief pause, he read, “‘Episcopum, Donnelly.’”

  So there they had it. “I announce to you a great joy. We have a Pope. Patricia, bishop of the Holy Roman Church, Donnelly.”

  It was perhaps not totally applicable to apply the age-old cliché to an arena as vast as St. Peter’s Square with hundreds of thousands in attendance, but you could hear a pin drop.

  The Cardinal went on to announce, in Latin, “She has selected the name Toots the First!”

  Still there was silence. As if the crowd, comprising hundreds of thousands of mainly Italians with a few thousand visitors, held its collective breath.

  Then Patty stepped onto the balcony all dressed up in her white and gold and crimson vestments. From the distance of the crowd to the balcony, she looked like a doll. A Pope doll—uh, a Popess doll. That would have to be worked on.

  Then one man, who must have had lungs of iron, since he could be heard clearly throughout the square, shouted, “Vive la Papa!”

  Suddenly the crowd realized that it was foolish to be dumbstruck by this event. This was a unique occasion. They would be able to boast of this, to tell their offspring that they had been present at a priceless moment of history. The shout was taken up by every throat. “Vive la Papa!” They were careful to use the correct article: “la” instead of “il.”

  Pope Toots I was unsure what should happen next. The shouts crescendoed, peaked, echoed, and reechoed.

  She had seen scenes like this on television and in movies. As she recalled, in similar situations, the Pope usually gestured with both arms. The gesture that suggests, “Get off my lawn, you crazy people!” She tried the gesture. It must have been correct because no one left the square, and the shouts wishing long life to the Pope continued unabated.

  She should say something. But what? She was, of course, totally unprepared. She prayed to the Holy Spirit for the exact words and thoughts that would be perfect for this unique opportunity. She had some time to commune with the Spirit as the chant continued.

  Finally, out of sheer fatigue, the crowd quieted and the acclamations virtually ceased.

  She began by noting the obvious: that her election to the Papacy was so completely out of the question that this could only be the result of divine intervention. So everyone should, in utter humility, consider this a primal act of God.

  She told them—and the world, by satellite television—of her principal concerns.

  The first of these was ecumenism. There would be no more pussyfooting with the challenge of religious unification of the peoples of the world.

  As a gesture of sincerity on her part, at her earliest opportunity she would seat herself on the Papal throne and using the unmistakable language of infallibility she would proclaim that she was not infallible.

  Let the theologians wrestle with that one!

  Next, she would abrogate Church or Canon Law. She was certain that no one, with the possible exception of hierarchical bureaucrats, would miss it. Instead, Catholics would be urged and taught to observe the Law of Love, the Law of Christ.

  It was, as G. K. Chesterton had observed, not that the Christian ideal had been tried and found wanting; rather it was that genuine Christianity had been found difficult and thus not tried.

  Well, by God, she said, we are going to give it a whirl!

  At this, there seemed a shouted groundswell of affirmation for what she proposed. However, some of the Cardinals standing on the balcony with her began to slink back into the building. Lip-readers in the television viewing audience were able to discern that some of the Cardinals were mouthing variations of “What in hell have we done!?”

  Furthermore, Toots I added, to move this genuine effort toward ecumenism, she would forgo the grandiose titles that contributed to the stumbling blocks against unity. Such titles as Vicar of Christ on Earth. She would concede that she was successor of Peter. But everyone should know that Peter was not God, he was not Jesus, he was not lord of the other Apostles, he was not a dictator, and he most certainly was no
t infallible.

  He was first among equals. And that is precisely what Pope Toots I wanted for herself. Something that most other Christians, of whatever persuasion, would be happy to acknowledge. She would be the unifying factor in a global effort to live Christ’s one and only law. The Law of Love.

  She would be first among equals. And that equality would extend to gender as well as to theological principles. No more mealy mouthed policies that demanded dignity and equality for women all the while denying equality at the core—the priesthood.

  Her support from the crowd wavered a bit at that.

  She was conscious that she had lost a few thousand with her determination to extend equality where it was needed—to everyone.

  Nevertheless, she went on to her final—at least for this beginning—statement. She wasn’t altogether sure this one came from the Spirit. But it was something she wanted. And it wasn’t all that great a demand.

  She announced that, with all deliberate speed, the seat of Catholicism—and hopefully of all Christianity—would be moved from the Vatican to Hawaii, specifically to Maui.

  She realized this would be a jolt to the lifestyle of Italy, and particularly to Rome. But the people must remember—and here she was grateful that she had paid attention in Ecclesiology class—that, Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia (Where Peter—in this case, Petra—is, there is the Church).

  Well, Petra, in the person of Toots I, was headed for those sunny beaches of Maui. And the Church would simply have to hurry and catch up.

  At this, there was no applause whatsoever. The Italians in attendance knew that without the Pope, Italy, Rome, the Vatican especially, would be a second-or third-class tourist spot.

  Well, thought Patty, tough.

  To deafening silence, she left the balcony.

  No sooner was she inside than the Cardinal who seemed to be running things approached her. “Holiness—”

  “Toots will be okay,” she corrected.

  “Holiness …” he repeated. He could not bring himself to use the adopted name of the new pontiff. “… there is a room full of news media types. Will it please you to see them?”

  “Why not? I am pleased.”

  He led her into a room that could only be called a hall, so large was it. As she entered, everyone stood. She waved them back into their seats. Hands were raised all over the room, begging for recognition. She pointed at a reporter in the first row. “Al Neuhause,” he identified himself, “of USA Today, winner of a Pulitzer Prize paragraph. Your Holiness—”

  “Toots will do.”

  “Fine. Toots, we journalists will be covering your pontificate on a day-to-day basis. It looks as if it’s going to be an exciting ride. Have you anything to tell us right off the bat?”

  “Sure. Kiss my ring!”

  She woke gradually, chuckling.

  She’d had similar dreams before—but never in such rich detail.

  She groped around her nightstand for the clock. It wasn’t even midnight. She’d been overly tired and had gone to bed much earlier than usual. That must have brought on such a detailed dream.

  She lay on her back, hands beneath her head, thinking.

  It was a crazy dream, a home for her subconscious to play in. And a playpen for her stream-of-subconscious thoughts. Toots I—really!

  And yet, getting down to the manifest content of her dream, these were the directions she’d hoped and prayed the Church would take.

  Moving the seat of the Church to Hawaii was, of course, patently ridiculous. But the rest …?

  So far, ecumenism had been largely talk. With rare exception, the Catholic approach to Church unity had been a demand that the Protestant, Orthodox, and other sectarian Churches unite themselves with the Catholic faith by agreeing with the principal tenets of Roman Catholicism—all couched in carefully formulated diplomatic language.

  To many mostly traditional Catholics, compromise and concession were two impossible words when referring to the True Faith.

  John XXIII, the patron saint of the progressive wing of the Church, realized that he, his office, and all it stood for, constituted the major obstacle to reunion. But notwithstanding the wide range of Church changes for which he was responsible, he could not bring himself to modify his job description to “first among equals.”

  And John was as close to making this leap as the progressives had gotten. After him, the ship of Peter veered in the other direction.

  So much of the reality behind her dream was utterly beyond her wide-awake power to do anything about.

  She was not Toots I. She couldn’t bring everyone of faith into one fold. She could not erase infallibility. She wasn’t going to move the Vatican—literally or even figuratively—one inch.

  But she could, just maybe, do something about the equality the Church liked to run on about.

  She thought of her idol, Jeannette Piccard. If Patty were married and her husband wanted to accomplish an important experiment that was dangerous as well, she’d assist him, as had Jean Piccard’s wife, piloting a hot air balloon and setting a world’s record.

  But this assistance had been rendered by an equal. Perhaps even more than equal, since piloting the balloon may well have required more skill than merely conducting experiments at a great altitude.

  At any rate, neither husband nor wife had played an inferior role.

  When Mrs. Piccard achieved her life’s goal, she was not in a begging posture. She was invited to be among the first women ordained in either the Episcopal or Anglican sects. She set the standard for equality in her Church.

  Because of her courage in embracing holy orders, other Episcopal women achieved their dreams God only knows how many years earlier than they might have had to wait.

  Mrs. Piccard died less than ten years after her ordination. But she died in greater peace than she might have because of what she had accomplished in the cause of equality.

  And that was a thought.

  How dedicated was Patty to her own goal?

  She realized fully that she was in much the same situation as Jeannette Piccard had been. Of course, no figure appeared who would invite Patty to ordination. She would have to break through that glass ceiling on her own. But once she did, other Catholic women would enjoy the promise of genuine equality.

  And, if this might require her life—remembering that Mrs. Piccard had survived less than ten years after her triumph—Patty was certain she herself was willing and ready to die for her cause.

  Realistically she could not foresee how her ordination might cost her her life. But if it did, so be it.

  Nineteen

  Andrea Zawalich propped the book against a statue of the Blessed Mother on her desk. At the base of the statue were the words Sedes Sapientiae—Seat of Wisdom.

  She had been trying to study, but she was preoccupied.

  She kept thinking of her friend, perhaps her best friend, Patty Donnelly. As far as Andrea could see, Patty was on a treadmill to oblivion.

  It wasn’t that Andrea could not understand, empathize, sympathize with her friend’s desire and goal. At one time, many years ago as a small child, Andrea had dreamed of one day leading a congregation in prayer. Of preaching. What’s more, she knew she could do better than most of the priests she’d seen and heard.

  She had a natural love of the liturgy, the vestments, the pageantry. And, to be frank, she knew she would appreciate the deference and respect shown to the clergy. It would be nice to be treated with respect and called … what? Not Father. Not Mother. Reverend?

  In any case, she wouldn’t wait around for people to honor her. Her preference would be her given name. Just plain Andrea.

  She would wear clerical clothing just about all the time. She could help people in so many ways. Get them jobs. Give them money. Soothe troubled consciences. And on and on. Life would be good.

  Those had been her dreams when she was very young. Now they were not even daydreams.

  If one is going to be a priest in the Catholic Church, one ou
ght at least to be able to be an altar server.

  That thought returned her to the moment she had been labeled “unworthy” to serve at the altar. Unworthy not because she had committed some heinous sin, not because of anything her parents had done. Unworthy simply because she was female.

  Sometime after she had been unilaterally rejected, someone told her the story of Branch Rickey and how he had integrated professional baseball by signing the uniquely talented Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson was baseball’s version of Sydney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It helps the cause if one integrates with the very best of any race, color, or creed.

  Andrea was particularly impressed by the preamble to the story of Rickey and Robinson. How deeply moved Rickey had been one day when he observed an earlier black athlete, qualified in every way to play in the major leagues, sitting by himself, endlessly rubbing his hands. Trying to erase the dark color from his skin. The color that was the only thing that kept him from competing in the all-white majors. And there was nothing the athlete could do about it.

  Not until Jackie Robinson came along and heroically broke the color line.

  Andrea could not get over how similar the plight of women was to the prejudice against African-Americans.

  No matter how long or how hard that young athlete rubbed his skin, he could not blot out the color. Black was the inescapable and incidental hue of his skin.

  Color had nothing to do with his ability to do what he wanted to accomplish. Yet color alone prevented him from accomplishing it.

  So it was with Andrea. And Patty. And so many others whom Andrea would one day meet.

  Their sex was what clothed their souls, their personalities, their bones. Their sex was what kept them from becoming what they wanted to be. And there was nothing they could do about it.

  The athlete could not become white. Andrea could not become male.

  There was, however, a difference that proved to be decisive. No one could sanely or reasonably argue that black men could not play at least as well as, if not far better than white men. Barring black men from baseball, football, basketball, whatever, was sheer, naked prejudice, flat-out racism.