by Morris West
Even though the observatory was perched high in the hills, on top of the castle itself, it was almost at the end of its usefulness, because the air above Rome and its environs was so polluted that the old-fashioned equipment could hardly function. Gates and his colleagues spent most of the year at the Astrophysical Institute in Huston, Texas. If the Pontiff was in residence at Castel Gandolfo Gates presented himself to pay his respects. After that he became a figure in the landscape, like the household staff and the farmhands.
He was a sturdy man in his late forties, with a ready smile and a quiet wit. His Italian was fluent and accurate. He had the easy confidence of a man secure in himself and in his scholarship. The Pontiff, hungry for company and eager for distraction from his own dark thoughts, plied him with questions, polite and casual at first, then more and more probing.
‘I’ve always wondered how the astronomer thinks of time, of eternity. How he conceives of the Godhead?’
Gates considered the question for a moment and then, like a good Jesuit, tried to define the terms.
‘If Your Holiness is asking whether I think differently from other believers, the answer has to be yes. In science we are faced always with new revelations about the universe. We are forced therefore to entertain new hypotheses and invent new terms to express them. We are always bumping our heads on the limitations of language and of mathematics. That was the last cry of Einstein: “I have run out of mathematics.” Goethe made the same plea in different words: “More light!” You ask me how I conceive of the Godhead. I can’t. I don’t try. I simply contemplate the immensity of the mystery. At the same time, I am aware that I myself am part of the mystery. My act of faith is an act of acceptance of my own unknowing.’
‘Are you saying that the traditional formulae of faith have no meaning for you?’
‘On the contrary. They mean much more than they can say. They are man-made definitions of the indefinable.’
‘Let’s take one formula then.’ The Pontiff pressed him. ‘That which is at the root of our Christian faith. “Etverbum caro factum est. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us”. God became man. What does that mean to you?’
‘What it says – but also much more than it says; otherwise we should be making human words a measure of God’s infinite mystery.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you, Father.’
‘I look at the heavens at night. I know that what I am witnessing is the birth and death of galaxies, light years away from ours. I look at this earth, these hills, that dark water down there. I see another aspect of the same mystery, God literally clothing himself with his own creation, working within it like yeast in a dough, renewing it every day and yet still transcending it. The Godhead clothing itself with human flesh is only part of that mystery. I find myself moving further and further away from the old dualist terms – body and soul, matter and spirit – in which much of our theology is expressed. The more the limits of knowledge recede from me, the more I experience myself as a oneness.’
The Pontiff gave him a long shrewd look and then lapsed for a while into silence. When finally he spoke, his words were mild, but there was a winter chill in his voice.
‘Why is it that when I hear these very personal formulations, I am uneasy? I ask myself whether our faithful recognise in them the simple gospel which we are called to preach.’ He tried to soften the blow. ‘That is not intended as a reproof, believe me. You are my guest. You honour me with your openness. I seek simply to understand.’
The Jesuit smiled, took out his pen and notebook and scribbled an equation. He passed it across to the Pontiff.
‘Can you tell me what that means, Holiness?’
‘No, I cannot. What is it?’
‘It’s a mathematical expression of the Doppler effect, the change of wavelength caused by any motion of a light source along a line of sight.’
The Pontiff smiled and spread his hands in despair.
‘Even that description means little to me!’
‘I could explain it to you; but since you have no mathematics, I would have to use metaphor. Which is exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t explain God. He described what God does, what God is, in the images of a rural people in an earlier age. You and I are people of another age. We have to speak and reason in the language of our own time, otherwise we make no sense. Look! It is part of my job in America to help train men to be astronauts, space travellers. Their imagery is quite different from yours or mine or that of Jesus himself. But why, for that reason, be suspicious of it? Why in this day and age try to put the human spirit in a straightjacket?’
‘Do you truly believe that is what we are trying to do?’
Father Gates shrugged and smiled.
‘I’m a guest at your table, Holiness.’
‘So you have the privilege of a guest. Speak freely. And remember that I am supposed to be the servant of the servants of God. If I am delinquent, I deserve reproof.’
‘Which I am not charged to administer,’ said the Jesuit with surprising firmness. ‘Let me try to approach the question differently. I’ve travelled a great deal. I’ve lived in Asia, in South America, in Africa, here in Europe. In the end, I find that all human experience is unitive. The tragic cycle – propagation, birth, death – is always completed by a metamorphosis. The graves are covered with flowers, wheat fields flourish over ancient battlefields. The techniques of modern storage and retrieval confer a continuity which is analogous to our notions of immortality, even of resurrection. Dead beauties come to life again on the television screen. I sometimes ask myself – I know this is a thorny subject right now – what might the television cameras have seen had they been trained all night on Jesus’s burial place?’
The Pontiff gave a small, relaxed chuckle.
‘A pity we’ll never know the answer.’
‘I take the opposite view. A lifetime of scientific exploration has made the act of faith much easier for me. I demand always to know more, but I am prepared to risk much more on creative ignorance.’
‘Creative ignorance!’ The Pontiff seemed to savour the phrase. ‘I like that. Because we are ignorant we seek to know. Because we are in darkness, we cry for light. Because we are lonely, we yearn for love … I confess to you, my friend, that, like Goethe, I have great need of light. I envy your starwalkers. It must be easy to pray up there.’
The Jesuit grinned happily.
‘When I was a boy, I couldn’t make any real sense of the Doxologies – Glory to God in the Highest, and so on. It sounded like people cheering at a football match, flattering the Creator by telling Him what a great fellow he was. But now, when I look through the telescopes and listen to the myriad signals that come to us from outer space, the prayer of praise is the only one I can utter. Even the wastage and the horror of the universe seem to make a kind of sense, though the haunting presence of evil rises always like a miasma from a swamp … I am talking too much. I should leave Your Holiness in peace. Thank you for the coffee.’
‘Thank you for coming, Father. Thank you for sharing yourself with me.’
When he had gone, Leo the Pontiff asked himself an almost childish question: why he had denied himself so long the pleasure of such men at his table. Why had he not given himself – stolen if need be – the leisure to learn from them? In the mood of depression that descended upon him, he found only a sad answer: he was a peasant who had never learned to be a prince.
Katrina Peters’s reading of the situation between Tove Lundberg and Sergio Salviati was very close to the truth. Each for a different reason was living under stress and the stress was evident even in that part of their lives which they shared most fully and intimately.
Salviati was deeply angered by the fact that, once again, in the country of his birth, he and those close to him were under threat simply because he was a Jew. Every time he stepped into the Mercedes, said good morning to the driver, checked the alarms on his house, monitored Tove’s comings and goings, he felt a fierce resentment. This wa
s no way for a man to live, haunted by another man he had never seen, who by all accounts lived like a pasha, doing big business under the protection of the Italian government.
His resentment was all the greater, because he knew it was beginning to affect his work. In the operating theatre he was still the cool technician, totally concentrated on the patient. Outside, on ward rounds and the ‘white glove’ inspections, he was edgy and impatient.
Tove Lundberg was worried enough to confront him over dinner.
‘You can’t go on like this, Sergio. You’re doing exactly what you tell your patients not to do – driving yourself, living on adrenalin. You’re alienating the staff, who would do anything for you. You’ve got to take a break.’
‘And tell me, pray, how do I do that?’
‘Invite James Morrison down from London. He’d come like a shot. Move young Gallico up beside him. He could use the experience with another man. The administration works pretty well anyway – and I can always keep an eye on things for you. I know how the place runs.’
‘You wouldn’t come on vacation with me?’
‘No.’ She was very definite. ‘I think you need to go alone, feel absolutely free. At this moment I’m part of your burden, precisely because I’m threatened and you feel you have to protect me. Well, I am protected, as much as I ever can be. If it would make things easier, I could take off and work full time at the colonia while you’re away … I’ve got some problems of my own to work out.’
‘Look, my love!’ Salviati was instantly penitent. ‘I know I’m hard to live with these days -’
‘It isn’t you. It’s Britte. She’s a young woman now. I have to work out what kind of a life I can make for her and with her. The colonia isn’t the final answer, you know that. It’s given her a wonderful start; but it’s a small, elitist group. Once Anton Drexel dies who’s going to develop it and hold it together? The property is mortgaged to the Church. I’m sure one could make some arrangement with them; but much more is needed: a plan, development funds, training of new teachers.’
‘Is that what you see yourself doing?’
‘It isn’t. That’s the point. I’m thinking of something much simpler – a home for Britte and myself, a career for her. It would be a limited one, but she is a good painter.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I don’t know yet. Just now I’m living from day to day.’ ‘But you’re putting me on notice there’s a change coming?’ ‘There has to be. You know that. Neither of us is a totally free agent.’
‘Then why don’t we do what I’ve suggested before – get married, join forces, make a family for Britte?’
‘Because I’d still be denying you the chance to make a family for yourself.’
‘Suppose I accept that.’
‘Then one day, sure as sunrise, you’ll hate me for it. Look, my love, we’re still friends, we still support each other. Let’s go on doing that. But let’s be honest. Things are out of our control. You got the most prominent man in the world as a patient in your clinic. It was a triumph. Everybody recognised it. Now we drive back and forth with an armed guard and pistols taped under the seats … Britte’s an adolescent. She can’t be managed like a child any longer. And you, my love, have spent so much of yourself that you’re wondering just what’s left … We have to make a change!’
Still he would not admit the need. It was as if, by admitting the process of evolution, he might suddenly call on the earthquake. There was no easy solace for either of them any more. The good taste of loving was gone, all that seemed to be left was the bitter aftertaste of lost illusions.
She tried to talk about it to Drexel, who for all his ripe wisdom had his own quirks and quiddities. He did not want to lose his little family. He did not want to consider any alienation of the villa property during his lifetime. He would happily work with Tove to extend and organise the colonia; but she would have to make a total commitment to it … All of which meant another set of barriers to what had once been open and affectionate communication.
Then she realised that, although he was scarcely aware of it, Drexel himself was dealing with another set of problems. Now that he was truly pensioned off, he was lonely. The rustic life for which he had longed so ardently was not nearly enough to satisfy his active mind and his secret yearning for the excitements of the power game in which he had played all his life. This was the meaning of the transparent little strategy which he proposed to Tove Lundberg.
‘Britte has finished her portrait of His Holiness. Why don’t I arrange for her to present it to him? I’m sure he would be happy to receive us together at Castel Gandolfo.’
As it turned out the strategy was unnecessary. Next morning he received by telephone a summons to wait upon the Pontiff before midday.
‘Read this!’ The Pontiff slammed the flat of his hand on the pages of Osservatore Romano laid open on his desk. ‘Read it very carefully!’
The article was headed ‘An Open Letter to the Signatories of the Tübingen Declaration’ and it was a blistering attack, in the most formal terms, on the content of the document and what it called the ‘arrogant and presumptuous attitudes of clerics who are entrusted with the highest duties of Christian education’. It ended with the flat pronouncement: ‘The luxury of academic argument cannot be allowed to undermine the loyalties which all Catholics owe to Peter’s successor or to obscure the clear outlines of Christ’s message of salvation.’ It was signed Roderigo Barbo.
Drexel’s first question was the obvious one: ‘Who is Roderigo Barbo?’
‘I have asked. I am informed that he is, and I quote: “A layman. One of our regular and most respected contributors.”’
‘One has to say,’ observed Drexel mildly, ‘he has a very good grasp of the official line.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No. If Your Holiness wants me to speculate …’
‘I do.’
‘Then I detect – or think I detect – the fine Gothic hand of Karl Clemens in this matter.’
‘I too. You know I met with him in the clinic. I told him there should be a cooling off period before any contact is made with the signatories of the Tübingen Declaration or any action taken against them. He disagreed. I overruled him. I believe he chose this method to sidestep my direct order.’
‘Can you prove that, Holiness?’
‘I am not required to prove it. I shall ask him the question direct. In your presence. He is already waiting to see me.’
‘And what does Your Holiness expect me to do?’
‘What good sense and equity tell you to do. Defend him if you think he merits it. I do not wish my judgement in this matter to be clouded by anger – and I have been very angry this morning.’
He pressed a buzzer on the desk. A few moments later, Monsignor O’Rahilly announced His Eminence, Karl Emil Cardinal Clemens. The ritual greetings were exchanged. The Pontiff made a curt explanation.
‘Anton is present at my behest.’
‘As Your Holiness pleases.’ Clemens was steady as a rock.
‘I presume you have seen this piece in Osservatore Romano, signed by Roderigo Barbo.’
‘I have seen it, yes.’
‘Do you have any comment on it?’
‘Yes. It is in line with other editorials published in Catholic papers around the world: in London, in New York, Sydney Australia and so on.’
‘Do you agree with it?’
‘Your Holiness knows that I do.’
‘Did you have any hand in its composition?’
‘Clearly, Holiness, I did not. It is signed by Roderigo Barbo, and would have been commissioned directly by the editor.’
‘Did you have any influence, directly or indirectly, by suggestion or comment, upon its commissioning or publication?’
‘Yes, I did. Given that Your Holiness was not in favour of official action at this moment, it seemed to me not inopportune to open the matter to public discussion by the faithful – which the authors of the original
document had done in any case. In short, I believed that the other side of the case should at least be heard. I believed also that the climate should be prepared for any action that might later be taken by the Congregation.’
‘And you did this in spite of our discussion at the clinic, and my clear directive on the matter.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you explain that?’
‘The discussions were too short to cover the whole range of issues. The directive was a limited one. I followed it to the letter – no official action or response.’
‘And Osservatore Romano is not official?’
‘No, Holiness. It is sometimes a vehicle for the publication of official announcements. Its opinions are not binding.’
The Pontiff was silent for a long moment. His strange predator’s face, lean now from illness and dieting, was tight and grim. He turned to Anton Drexel.
‘Does Your Eminence have any comment?’
‘Only this, Holiness. My colleague Karl has been very frank. He has taken a position which, though it may not be palatable to Your Holiness, is still understandable, given the temper of his mind and his concern for the maintenance of traditional authority. I believe also Your Holiness must credit him with the best of intentions in trying to spare you stress and anxiety.’
It was a lifeline and Clemens grasped it as eagerly as a drowning man.
‘Thank you, Anton. I should have been hard put to defend myself so eloquently. There is only one more point I should like to make, Holiness. You put me in this office. You gave me a clear commission to examine rigorously – and the word is yours – any persons or situations dangerous to the purity of the faith. You quoted to me the words of your distinguished predecessor Paul VI: “The best way to protect the faith is to promote the doctrine.” If you find my performance unsatisfactory, I shall be happy to offer you my resignation.’
‘We take note of the offer, Eminence. Meantime, you will refrain from further prompting of the Press – sacred or profane – and interpret our instructions broadly, according to their spirit and not narrowly, according to the letter. Do we understand each other?’