by Morris West
‘The man died in my arms. I should like to tell you that he died in a godly fashion, but I have no way of knowing. I could not penetrate through his pain to touch the springs of his will. He just died, and I had to commit him to God…That’s the only answer I can give you.’
‘It’s a leap into the dark,’ said Ruth Lewin gravely. ‘I’m not sure I make it.’
‘Is it any less hard to stay where you are?’
‘It’s harder, I think.’
‘But you have already made one step into the dark.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You could not condone this murder, even of a monstrous birth.’
‘Not wholly, no.’
‘And you have turned to me for help not for yourself, but for the children.’
‘I just felt so inadequate. I needed someone who could act…
‘Perhaps,’ said Kiril the Pontiff softly. ‘Perhaps that is part of the meaning of pain – that it challenges our arrogant possession of life; that it confronts us with our own frailty and makes us aware, however dimly, of the sustaining power of the Creator.’
‘I wish I could believe that. But how do you see God in a human child that looks like a fish?’
‘It’s not a new mystery, Ruth. It’s a very old one. How do you see God in a dying criminal nailed on a gallows tree?’
‘It isn’t enough to say that,’ said Ruth Lewin harshly. ‘There has to be some loving somewhere. There has to be.’
‘True…There has to be some loving. If the mystery of pain is not a mystery of love, then all this…’ His crooked hands embraced the ornate room and all the Sacred City beyond it. ‘Then all this is an historic nonsense. And my office is a role for a mountebank.’
His bluntness took her by surprise. For a moment she stared at him, caught by the contrast between his crooked, quizzical face and the religious formality of his dress. Then she said:
‘Your Holiness really believes that?’
‘I do.’
‘Then why can’t I?’
‘I think you do believe it,’ said Kiril the Pontiff gently. ‘That’s why you are here to see me. That’s why you act within a context of belief, although you are still wrestling with God.’
‘If I could only know that I was loved – that I was worth loving.’
‘You don’t ask that of someone you love – why should you ask it of yourself?’
‘Your Holiness is too clever for me.’
‘No! I am not a clever man. I understand you, Ruth Lewin, better than you know, because I have walked on the same road that you are walking now. I’m going to tell you another story, and then I’m going to send you away because there are lots of people waiting to see me…My escape from Russia was arranged, as you know. I was released from prison and sent to hospital because I had been very ill for some time. The doctors treated me well, and I was nursed solicitously. After seventeen years of endurance it was a strange experience. I did not have to fight any more. It was as if I became another human being overnight. I was clean, and well fed. I had books to read and leisure, and a kind of freedom. I enjoyed it. I was proud to be decent…It took a little time to understand that I was being submitted to a new temptation. I felt loved again. I wanted to be loved. I used to look forward to the coming of the nurse, to her smile and her service of me. Then came a moment when I understood that what Kamenev my tormentor had not been able to do to me I was doing to myself. I was demanding an experience of love. In spite of my priesthood and my bishopric. I was being tempted by this attraction of a simple human communion…Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’
‘Yes, I understand it. It’s what I feel every day.’
‘Then you will understand something else. That the taking and the demanding is only one side of the medal of love. The giving is the side that proves the true minting. If I took I should have nothing to give. If I gave, the giving renewed the resource and it was this that had kept me whole for seventeen years of imprisonment.’
‘And the return of love?’
‘You are part of it,’ said Kiril the Pontiff gently. ‘You and these children whom we shall love together, and those whom I shall reach here and there in the Church, because my voice echoes in their hearts…I am still lonely often, as you are. But to be lonely is not to be unloved, but only to learn the value of love – and that it takes many forms, and is sometimes hard to recognize.’ He rose and held out his hand. ‘Now I must send you away, but we shall see each other again.’
She had long since rejected the authority which he represented; yet she bowed her knee and laid her lips to the Fisherman’s ring on his finger, and listened with gratitude to the words of the blessing:
‘Benedictio dei omnipotentis descendat super te et maneat semper…’
For Kiril the Pontiff, it was a startling irony that his encyclical on Christian education made far less stir than his statement in the Osservatore Romano on the victims of the new drug. Every correspondent in Rome cabled the full text of the Osservatore release, which was interpreted in Europe and America as a clear papal command to place the medical and social resources of the Church at the disposal of mothers and offspring who were affected by the deadly medicine.
For a week afterwards, his desk was piled. with letters and telegrams from bishops and lay leaders, commending his action as a timely demonstration of the charity of the Church. Cardinal Platino wrote expansively:
‘…It seems to me that Your Holiness has shown in a very special fashion the relevance of the Church’s mission to every act and circumstance of human life. It may well be that Your Holiness’s pronouncement points the way to a missionary method of great importance – the reintroduction of the Church into private and public life through works of practical charity. Historically speaking, this method has been the beginning of the most permanent evangelical activity, and it is, in fact, a true copy of the work of the Master, who in the words of the Gospel, “Went about healing the sick and doing good…”’
Another man might have been flattered by so spontaneous a response to an executive action; but Kiril Lakota was preoccupied by those aspects of the problem which the press either ignored or built into a factitious drama.
Day and night he was haunted by the picture of a woman, waiting through nine months of fear and uncertainty to give birth to a deformity, of a doctor urged to intervene before the tragic moment, of the child itself, and what might happen to it when it grew to maturity. For all these, the charity of the Church was at best a postscript, at worst an unwelcome prolongation of grief and despair.
The mission of the Church to all these people was far other than a dispensation of kindness. It was to confront them with the naked fact of their existence, with all its risks and all its terror, and the other fact that their existence set them in a precise relationship with the Creator, who had called them into being. The Church could not change the relationship. It could not eliminate one single consequence of it. Its sole functions were to interpret it in the light of reason and revelation and to dispense the grace by which alone the relationship was made workable.
In theory, every one of the thousands of priests who trotted about the streets of Rome, in platter hats and black skirts, was an official interpreter of doctrine, an official dispenser of grace, and a shepherd with a sackful of compassion for his flock. In fact, there were all too few with the talent or the understanding to participate truly in these intimate tragedies of humankind.
It was as if the symbiosis of the Church failed at a certain point and the lives of its people diverged thenceforward from the lives of its clergy. It was as if the interpretation of God to man became a didactic exercise, and the realities of God’s grace were blotted out by the realities of pain and loss.
In the methodology of the Church, the priest was always available to the people of his parish. If they did not turn to him, it was because of their own negligence and want of faith. This at least was the text of many a Sunday sermon, but, in truth, the breakdow
n came because the cleric no longer shared the tragedy of his people, was even protected from it by his cloth and by his education.
…Education! He came back to it again by a round turn, seeing more clearly than he had ever done before that the fruit of his mission to the world must never be judged by spectacle or acclamation, but only by its flowering in the secret heart of the individual.
Buried under the pile of congratulations there were other and more disquieting letters. Like the one from Cardinal Pallenberg in Germany:
‘…With the greatest respect, therefore, I would beg Your Holiness to undertake an examination of the present constitution and method of working of the Holy Roman Rota. Your Holiness is well aware that, because of our special circumstances in Germany, a large number of marital cases are being referred each year to Rome. Many of these have been delayed for three and four years, with consequent hardship and grave spiritual danger to the parties concerned. It seems to me and my brother bishops that there is need of swift reform in this matter, either by way of fuller reference of powers to provincial courts or by an increase in the number of Rota officials and the institution of a speedier method of examination. It is suggested that instead of all documents being translated into Latin – a slow and expensive progress – they might be presented and examined in their original vernacular…’
On the face of it the Holy Roman Rota was a far shout away from an act of infanticide in a third-floor slum. Yet the causes which found their way into the slow files of this august body were no less dramas of love and passion. The Holy Roman Rota was the last court of appeal for marital cases within the Church, and every marital case was a history of love or the lack of it, and of a human relationship – defective or not – which had to be measured beside the divine one.
To the theologian and the canonist, the function of the Rota was very simple. It had to render a decision as to whether or no a marriage was valid according to the moral law and the prescriptions of the canons. To many inside the Church, it seemed that this view was altogether too simple. The Rota was meticulously careful that justice should be done. It cared not one whit that it should seem to be done. Its methods were antique and often dilatory. Every document and every deposition had to be translated into Latin. The number of personnel, both clerical and lay, was hopelessly inadequate to handle the volume of business with any degree of speed. The least sympathetic of men could not fail to guess at the hardship which such slowness inflicted on those who had appealed to the tribunal.
Kiril the Pontiff understood the problem more clearly than others, but he had already learned that to accomplish a reform in Rome, one had to prepare slowly and act strongly at the right moment; otherwise one ended fighting the bureaucracy, which was tantamount to fighting oneself.
He pencilled a note on his calendar to discuss the question with Valerio Rinaldi, who, having retired from the politics of the Church, might give him good advice about how to beat them.
From Ragambwe, the black Cardinal in Kenya, came a note of even great urgency:
‘…Events in Africa are moving much more swiftly than would have seemed possible two years ago. Within the next twelve months I believe we may see a bloody uprising of black against white in South Africa. This is an almost inevitable consequence of the brutal repressive measures exercised by the South African government under the banner of Apartheid, and by the archaic, feudal and often brutal methods of the Portuguese. If this revolution is successful – and with the support of other African nations there is reason to believe it will be – then it may well be the end of Christianity for a hundred years in the southern continent of Africa. We are training catechists as fast as we can, but we cannot hope to train even a minimal number of native priests in the time at our disposal. I know that this may well seem a revolutionary suggestion, but I ask myself whether we should not consider very seriously a new programme of training in which the local language, and not Latin, will be the basis of instruction, and in which the whole liturgy will be celebrated in the vernacular. If this course were approved it might be possible to train a native clergy in about half the time it takes now to train them under the system laid down by the Council of Trent.
‘I understand very well that this would mean a clergy less well educated than that in other lands, but the question is whether we shall have such a clergy, preaching the Word and dispensing the Sacraments validly and religiously, or whether we shall have no clergy at all. Your Holiness will understand that I speak of desperate measures for a desperate time, and that…’
Once again he was brought back to the subject of his letter, the education of the ministers of the Word. Once again he was faced with the intangible x that dominated the whole thinking of the Church – the infusion of the Holy Spirit supplying what was defective in man, so that the Mystical Body was kept always alive. How far, therefore, could one go in entrusting the Church to this dominating influence of the Spirit? How far was it lawful to risk the Word and the Sacraments to men partly instructed, trusting to the Paraclete to supply the rest? And yet who but himself was to say what was a partial and what was a sufficient instruction? Did the Holy Ghost work less strongly now in the twentieth century than in the primitive Church, when twelve fishermen were entrusted with the deposit of faith and the mission to preach it to all nations…?
Outside, the summer day was dying. The bells of the city were tolling their vain cry for recollection and withdrawal. But the city was full of other sounds, and it was left to Kiril the Pontiff to gather his household about him for vespers and a remembrance of the hidden God.
‘You’ve done a very thorough job, my friend.’ Campeggio laid down the typescript and looked at George Faber with a new respect. ‘That’s the most complete dossier I’ve ever seen on Corrado Calitri and his friends.’
Faber shrugged unhappily. ‘I was trained as a crime reporter.
I have a talent for this sort of thing…But I can’t say that I’m very proud of it.’
‘Love’s an expensive business, isn’t it?’ Campeggio smiled as he said it, but there was no humour in his shrewd dark eyes.
‘I was going to talk to you about that. The information in that document cost me a thousand dollars. I may have to spend a lot more.’
‘On what?’
‘To get a signed statement out of one or more of the people mentioned in the dossier.’
‘Have you any idea how much it will cost?’
‘No. But from what I’ve gathered so far, several of them are short of money. The most I can afford is another thousand dollars. I want to know if you’re prepared to put up any more.’
Campeggio sat silent a while, staring down at Faber’s littered desk. Finally he said deliberately, ‘I’m not sure that I should discuss the proposition in those terms.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘From the point of view of the Rota, and of civil law, it could amount to a subornation of witnesses.’
‘I’ve thought of that myself.’
‘I know you have. You’re an honest man – too honest for your own comfort, or mine. Let’s look at it from another angle. How do you propose to approach your prospective witnesses?’
‘I’ve marked three names in the document. Each one of them has open animosity to Calitri. One is an actor who hasn’t had a good part for twelve months. One is a painter. Calitri financed one exhibition for him, and then dropped him. The third is a woman. I’m told she’s a writer though I’ve never seen anything she’s published. The two men always spend the summer at Positano. The woman has a house on Ischia. I propose to go south during the summer holidays and try to make contact with each one.’
‘Are you taking Chiara with you?’
‘No. She wants to come, but I don’t think it’s good diplomacy. Besides I…I need to test myself away from her.’
‘You may be wise at that.’ Campeggio’s shrewd eyes searched his face. ‘I wonder if any of us knows himself before his middle years?…Now tell me something else. Why do you think
your witnesses will ask for money?’
‘It’s the way of the world,’ said George Faber wryly. ‘Nobody really wants to be persecuted for justice’s sake. Everybody wants to make a profit on the process.’
‘You’re a Catholic, Faber. How do you feel in conscience about this transaction?’
Faber flushed. ‘My conscience is compromised already. I’m committed to Chiara, I can’t afford the luxury of scruples.’
Campeggio agreed sourly. ‘It’s a very Nordic point of view. It’s probably more honest than mine.’
‘And what is your point of view?’
‘About the money? I’m prepared to give you another thousand dollars. But I don’t want to know what you do with it.’
Faber’s rare wintry humour asserted itself for a moment. ‘And that leaves your conscience clear?’
‘I’m a casuist,’ said Campeggio with a thin smile. ‘I can split hairs as well as the Jesuits. It suits me to be in doubt. But if you want the truth…’ He stood up and began to pace up and down Faber’s office. ‘If you want the truth, I’m in deep confusion. I think Chiara has justice on her side. I think you have a right to try to get it for her. I think there is justice on my side too, when I want to remove my son from Calitri’s influence. I’m doubtful about the means; so I don’t want to question them too closely. That’s why I’m co-operating with you, while leaving you to carry the burden of moral and legal decision…It’s a very Latin trick…’
‘At least you’re open with us,’ said Faber with odd simplicity. ‘I’m grateful for that.’
Campeggio stopped his pacing and looked down at Faber, who sat slumped and vaguely shrunken behind his desk. ‘You’re a soft man, my friend. You deserve a simpler loving.’
‘It’s my fault more than Chiara’s…I have to work double time to be free for the vacation. I’m worried about money. I’m scared that I may not be able to control the consequences of what we are doing.’
‘And Chiara?’
‘She’s young. She’s been hurt. She’s in an uncomfortable position for a woman…So she wants to be diverted…I don’t blame her. But I don’t have the stamina for five nights a week at the Cabala or the Papagallo.’