by Morris West
He broke off and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.
‘Forgive me, Holiness, if I speak more strongly still. We have all seen the progress that was made under your predecessor towards a growth of unity between the separated Christian communities. Our work in this field has only begun, but it seems to me that where we have been defensive, where we have retreated, holding the faith to ourselves as though it could be tarnished by contact with the world, there we have failed. Where we have held it up for a witness, where we have affirmed most boldly that the Gospel is relevant to every human act and every situation, there we have done well.’
‘You affirm it,’ said Kiril the Pontiff bluntly. ‘I affirm it, as do our brother bishops scattered across the world, but the affirmation does not reach the people with the same clearness and the same fruitfulness – it does not even reach my Romans here. Why?’
‘I think,’ said the Secretary of State brusquely, ‘the world is educating itself more quickly than the Church. Put it another way. The knowledge that is necessary to make an Act of Faith, and an Act of Repentance, is not enough to found a Christian society or create a religious climate. In the last twenty years men have been projected into a new and terrifying dimension of existence…The graph of human science from the invention of the wheel to the internal-combustion engine is a long, gradual slope. It covers – what? – five, ten, fifteen thousand years. From the internal combustion engine to this moment, the line leaps almost vertically, pointing to the moon…Tempora mutantur…’ He quoted wryly, ‘Times change and man changes with them. If our mission means anything, it means that each new enlargement of the human mind should be an enlargement of man’s capacity to know, love, and serve God.’
‘I think,’ said Kiril the Pontiff with a smile, ‘I should send you both out on a missionary journey…’ He crossed to his desk and sat down, facing them. He seemed to gather himself for a moment and then very quietly, almost humbly, he explained himself. ‘I am as you know an eager man. It has been my fear, since I have sat in the Chair of Peter, that I should act too hastily and damage the Church which is given into my hands…I have tried to be prudent and restrained; I have understood also that one man in his lifetime cannot change the world. The symbol of the Cross is a symbol of the apparent failure and folly of God Himself…But it is my office to teach and to direct, and I have decided now where I want to begin…What you have told me confirms me in the decision. I am grateful to you both. I want you both to pray for me.’
The two Cardinals sat silent, waiting for him to go on. To their surprise he shook his head. ‘Be patient with me. I need time and prayer before I declare myself. Go in the name of God.’
‘I suppose,’ said George Faber in his uncomfortable fashion, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this about Chiara and me.’
Ruth Lewin laughed and shrugged. ‘That’s the way it goes in Rome – everybody’s got a story. And a stranger’s usually the best listener.’
‘We’re not really strangers, though. How many times have we met? Half a dozen at least. At the Antonellis’ and at Herman Seidler’s and…’
‘So I’m convinced we’re not strangers. Take it from there.’
‘I was feeling low – and I was delighted to see you.’
‘Thank you, kind sir.’
‘And I don’t tell my life story to every girl I meet on a street corner.’
‘I don’t think it matters in Rome whether you tell it or not. People know it just the same – in different versions, of course!’
Faber grinned and looked for a moment like a self-conscious boy. ‘I’ve never heard your story, Ruth.’
She parried the probe with a smile. ‘I’ve never told it. And I don’t belong to the cocktail set.’
‘Where do you belong?’
‘I’ve often wondered that myself.’
‘Do you have many friends here?’
‘A few. They call me for dinner sometimes. I visit them when I feel inclined. I do a little work among some lame ducks in Old Rome. For the rest…Mi arrangio. I get along one way and another.’
‘Are you happy?’
Once again she hedged the answer. ‘Is anyone? You?’
‘I’m in a mess,’ said George Faber bluntly.
‘That’s not your reputation.’
Faber looked up sharply, wondering if she were mocking him. He had a small humour, and banter always made him suspicious. ‘What’s my reputation?’
‘You have the richest life in Rome…and a beautiful mistress to round it out.’
‘That’s not the way I see it. I want to get married. It seems the only way I can do it is to mix myself up with blackmail and backstairs politics, and a bunch of gay boys and lesbians.’
‘Don’t you think the risk is worth it?’
His heavy handsome face clouded and he ran a nervous hand through his grey hair. ‘I suppose it is. I haven’t really had time to think it out.’
‘That means you’re not sure.’
‘No, I’m not sure.’
As if to divert her attention he signalled the waiter to bring him another cup of coffee. Then he lit a cigarette and stared moodily at the shop-front on the other side of the pavement. For all her detachment, Ruth Lewin felt herself touched by a pang of pity for him. He was no longer young, though most women would find him attractive. He had built himself a comfortable career and a respectable name in his trade. Now he was being asked to risk them both for a girl who, once free, might grow tired of him and look for younger loving. She dropped her teasing tone, and questioned him more gently.
‘What does Chiara want?’
‘Freedom at any price.’
‘Even at the price of your career?’
‘I’m not sure of that either.’
‘Don’t you think you should ask her?’
‘That’s what bothers me…I’m not even clear myself what the risks are. All I know is that, on the one hand, there’s an element of blackmail, and I’m to be the blackmailer…Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve been in this game a long time. I know that every newsman is tempted at some time or another to use his position for his own profit. My experience is that those who do it always lose in the end. I’ve never been a muckraker, and I’m rather proud of it…On the other hand, I’m fighting for something and someone very precious to me.’
‘If you start a fight with Corrado Calitri,’ said Ruth Lewin soberly, ‘I can promise you it will be a very rough one.’
He stared at her, surprised. ‘Do you know Calitri then?’
‘I know some of the people he knows. They play very dirty when their feelings are hurt.’
He hesitated a moment and then faced her with the question, ‘Could you help me to meet some of them?’
‘No.’ She was very definite about it.
‘Why not?’
‘I lived in that little Arcady for a while. I didn’t like it. I don’t want to go back. Besides, you’re a newsman. You have your own contacts.’
‘Not too many I can trust. Would you be willing to give me names…information?’
To his surprise she burst out laughing and then, seeing his discomfiture, she laid an apologetic hand on his wrist. ‘Poor George! I shouldn’t laugh at you. But I wonder…I really wonder…’
‘What?’
‘About you and Chiara. Are you both so sure you can go through with this fight – win or lose? If you lose, you know, they’ll tear you into little pieces and feed you to the lions like early Christians. The Church won’t have either of you. You’ll never be welcome again at the Vatican or on the Quirinale. Are you both ready for that? Do you have enough love for Chiara? Does she have enough for you?’
He shrugged and spread his hands in a Roman gesture of puzzlement. ‘Beh! Everybody in Rome talks about love. Everybody plays at it in his own fashion. I’ve played, too, but now it’s late in the day for me. I don’t want to make a mistake.’
‘I’d like to help you,’ she told him quietly, ‘but it’
s your life and your girl…I should go now, it’s getting late.’
‘Would you let me take you home?’
‘Better not. I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Could I see you again?’
‘Why, George?’
He flushed unhappily. ‘I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I hope you’ll decide to help me. And if I go ahead with this Calitri business, I’ll need to talk to someone I can trust.’
‘What makes you think you can trust me?’
‘You said yourself you don’t belong to the gossip circuit. I’d like to add that you’re a very grown-up girl.’
‘Is that the best recommendation you can give me?’
Once again his rare humour asserted itself. ‘Give me time and I may think of others.’
‘If and when you do, you can call me. I’m in the telephone book.’
On which indecisive note they parted. As she rode home through the clamour of the afternoon traffic, she remembered that it was late in the day for her, too, and she felt again the pang of treacherous pity for George Faber and his puzzled, middle-aged heart.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SECRET MEMORIALS OF KIRIL I PONT. MAX.
…It is an hour after midnight – the beginning of a new day. An important day for me because for the first time I shall begin to address myself to the whole Church. Late last evening I asked my confessor to come to me so that I might purge myself from the sins of the day, and purify myself for the task I am about to undertake.
Afterwards I begged him to stay with me a little while and serve the Mass which I wanted to celebrate immediately after midnight…It is strange how much variety there can be for a priest in the offering of the Sacrifice. Sometimes one is dry and unmoved, one has to make an effort of will to concentrate on the familiar ritual and on the staggering significance of the Act of Consecration. At other times it is as if one is caught out of oneself and ‘into the spirit’, as Saint John puts it. One is aware of God. One is at the same moment humbled and exalted, afraid and rapturously glad…
Tonight it was different again. I began to understand in a new fashion the nature of my office. When, at the moment of elevation, I lifted the Host above my head I saw the real meaning of the ‘We’ with which the Pontiffs have addressed themselves customarily to the world. It is not ‘I’ who am to speak or to write, it is the Church through me and Christ through me and the Church.
I am myself, yes. But if I speak only of myself and for myself, I am nothing. I am like the wind bells whose sound changes with every breeze…But the Word cannot change. The Word is immutable…‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’…Yet in another sense the Word must renew itself in me as the redemptive act of the crucifixion renews itself at the hands of every priest when he says Mass. I am the reed through which the voice of the spirit must be blown so that men may hear it in the mode of their own times…
The paper is blank before me, the pens are ready. Is Kiril ready? I pray that he may be. What must he write? And how and to whom?
My subject is education, the preparation of a man to take his place in this world and in the next. My letter will be a discussion of the educative office of the Church – its mission to ‘lead out’ the soul of man, from the darkness of ignorance, from the bondage of the flesh, into the light and the freedom of the Sons of God…
How shall I write? As simply as I can because the deepest truth is the most simply stated. I must write from the heart – cor ad cor loquitur. And I must write in my own tongue because this is the best fashion for every man to talk of God, and to Him. Later the Latinists will take my words and harden them into the antique form which will preserve them for a permanent record in the Church. After them will come the translators who will turn them into a hundred other tongues in which the Word of God must be preached…The world is a Babel Tower of conflicting voices, but inside the Church there is and must always be ‘the unity of the spirit in the bond of Faith’.
Outside the Church, too, there is a unity which we neglect too often. It is the unity of men who suffer together a common existence, delight in common joys, and share the same confusions, regrets, and temptations…
I am reminded of something forgotten too often by us the shepherds, Tertullian’s ‘Testimony of the Soul’…‘Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul through many tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.’
There is another reason why I want to write in Russian. I want Kamenev to see my letter as it came from my own hand. I want him to hear through it the tones of my voice so that he may know that I love him and the people among whom I was born. If it were possible I should like him to have my manuscript, but it may be difficult to get it into his hands, and I could not risk compromising him.
To whom shall I write?…To the whole Church – to my brother bishops, to all priests and monks and nuns, to all the faithful, without whom our office is meaningless. I must show them how their mission is not merely to teach but to educate one another with love and forbearance, each lending of his own strength to the weak, of his own knowledge to the ignorant, of his charity to all…
And when I have written, what then? I must begin to act through the administration of the Church to see that reforms are made where they are needed and that the inertia of a large and scattered organization does not stand in the way of God’s intention. I must have patience, too, and tolerance, understanding that I have no right to demand of God a visible success in all I attempt. I am the gardener. I plant the seed and water it, knowing that death may take me before I see the bud or the flower. It is late and I must begin…
‘Kiril, the servant of the Servants of God, to the Bishops and Brethren of all the Churches, peace and apostolic benediction…’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE HOMECOMING of Jean Télémond, SJ, was a drab little affair that belied the warmth of his superior’s welcome.
The headquarters of the Society, at No 5 Borgo Santo Spirito, was a large grey building, bleak as a barracks, that nestled under the shadow of St Peter’s Dome. Its furnishings were sparse, functional, and without discernible beauty. The only man to greet him was the brother porter, a grey and crusty veteran who had seen so many members come and go that one more made no matter.
The whole aspect of the place was cheerless and temporary, a shelter for men whose training was to divest themselves of comfort and human attachment and make themselves soldiers of Christ. Even the religious emblems were ugly and mass-produced, reminders only of the interior life which no symbol could properly convey.
After they had prayed together, the Father General led him to his room, a small, whitewashed box, furnished with a bed, a priedieu, a crucifix, a desk, and a set of bookshelves. Its dusty windows looked out on a courtyard, chill and deserted even under the summer sun. Jean Télémond had lived more harshly than most and in less friendly places, but this first look at the Mother House plunged him into a deep depression of spirit. He felt solitary and naked and strangely afraid. The Father General gave him the timetable of the House, promised to introduce him to his colleagues at supper-time, and then left him to his own devices.
It took him only a few moments to unpack his meagre personal belongings, and then he set about the task of laying out the mass of notes, manuscripts, and bulky folders which represented his lifework. Now, when the time had come to make the tally of it and present it to the world, it seemed small and insignificant.
For twenty years he had worked as a palaeontologist, in China, in Africa, in America, and the Far Indies, plotting the geography of change, the history of life recorded in the crust of the earth. The best scientific minds had been his colleagues and co-workers. He had survived war and revolution and disease and loneliness. He had endured the perilous dichotomy between his function as a scientist and his life as a religious priest. To what end?
For years the conviction had been growing in him th
at the only intelligible purpose of so much effort and sacrifice was to display the vast concordance of creation, the ultimate convergence of the spiritual and physical which would mark the eternal completion of an eternal creative Impulse. Many times he had pondered the significance of the old proverb, ‘God writes straight with crooked lines’, and he was convinced to the marrow of his bone that the final vector of all the diverse forces of creation was an arrow pointing straight to a personal divinity.
Many another before him had attempted this justification of God to men. Their achievements and their failures were the milestones of human thought – Plato, Saint Augustine, Albertus Magnus, Thomas of Aquin…Each had used the knowledge of his own time to build a theology or a philosophy or a cosmology…Each had added another stage to the journey of unaided reason; each had elevated man thus much above the jungle that spawned him.
For Télémond the project presented itself in another form; to trace, from the text of the living earth, the journey from unlife to life, from life to consciousness, from consciousness to the final unity of Creation with its Creator.
The study of the past, he believed, was the key to the pattern of the future. The justification of the past and of the present lay in the tomorrow that would thrust out of them. He could not believe in a wasteful Creator or in a diffuse, accidental, purposeless Creation. At the root of all his thought and, he believed, at the root of every human aspiration was an instinctive desire for a unity and a harmony in the cosmos. Once men abandoned their hope for it, they condemned themselves to suicide or madness.