by Morris West
‘High hopes? Very high and I must beware of them. Nevertheless, the logic makes sense. Once the rules are changed, once it is impossible to make secret denunciations of a man or a work, once an accused has the right to know in detail the charges against him, the name of the accuser, once he has the right to a competent defender and an open debate upon the issue and the free exercise of his functions until the issue is decided, then the whole picture changes and it will begin to change in other sectors.
‘The mediaeval traps will be taken out of juridical procedures. In marriage cases, the old principle of favouring the bond over the person is fundamentally inequitable; though I have to confess, time was when I judged otherwise. In issues which must sooner or later become urgent within the Church – a married clergy, women priests, the development of doctrine – it will be possible to have at least open discussion between competent scholars and competent authority, and an open forum even in the dicasteries of the Church.
‘This is where I believe I am being led: back to the path opened by Vatican II and by the man who convened it, John XXIII. Like him, I must expect contention – and even conspiracy – against the grand design. I must expect, too, that I myself may prove my own worst enemy. Even so, I must move forward. But not tonight, not even tomorrow …’
Matt Neylan’s evening at Il Mandolino turned out to be a pleasant experience. The setting was an old sixteenth-century house, with vaulted underpinnings from Roman times. The walls were decorated with antique musical instruments. The salone where the music was dispensed held no more than thirty people, who were comfortably settled in armchairs, cushioned alcoves and banquettes. The trio were talented and their music was a pleasant hour of tune-travel round the byways of the Italian peninsula.
Omar Asnan himself was an agreeable companion, good-humoured and unobtrusive. He talked vividly of the perils, pitfalls and occasional comedies of Middle Eastern trade. He explained to Matt Neylan the phenomenon of Islamic resurgence and the conflicts between Sunni and Shiite. He was interested to hear of Matt Neylan’s rejection of his natal faith and suggested, with appropriate deference, that one day he might be interested to begin a study of Islam.
Neylan for his part offered to arrange a tour of the Vatican through one of his own friends: Peter Tabni, a consultor to the Commission for Religious Relations with Islam. Omar Asnan seemed astonished that such an organisation even existed. He would be delighted to accept such an invitation whenever it was offered.
As he rode home in Asnan’s limousine, he felt a sense of well-being, of having assisted at one of the minor rites of civilisation in a city that was becoming more and more barbaric. He made a note on his desk pad to call Peter Tabni, laid Omar Asnan’s card beside it, and then made ready for bed. At least tonight he would not have to worry whether he had caught more than a cold. To which he added, as a last waking thought, that he really had been wasting a lot of time and money in some very sleazy hangouts.
The principal item which Monsignor Malachy O’Rahilly noted in the Pontiff’s diary was his appointment with Tove Lundberg, Britte and Cardinal Drexel. This was his cue to mention his dinner with Matt Neylan. The response was cordial and interested.
‘I’m glad you’re keeping in touch with him, Malachy. Cardinal Agostini spoke very highly of him, in spite of his defection.’
‘He’s bright, Holiness – and he’s generous. I asked him a big favour last night.’
‘Indeed?’
We were talking about Tove Lundberg and the threat she’s under. As it happens, he knows her. They met at the house of a journalist friend. Anyway, it seems he has a small farm property in Ireland. I asked him whether he’d have the Lundbergs there, if they wanted to go. It seemed to me at least a viable alternative to the offer Your Holiness made. He said he’d be happy to receive them.’
That was very thoughtful of you, Malachy – and most generous of Neylan. I’ll inform Tove Lundberg. If she’s interested, then she can discuss it directly with Neylan. Now, Malachy, you and I must talk.’
‘Holiness?’
‘Please, sit down. How long have you been with me, Malachy?’
‘Six years, Holiness; three years as junior, the last three as principal private secretary.’
‘You’ve served me well.’ ‘I’ve tried, Holiness.’
‘And I have never been the easiest of masters … I know you’ve told me before, you were always happiest if you had to fight a little … However, I think the time has come for us both to make a change.’
‘You are dissatisfied with my work, Holiness?’
‘Your work is excellent, Malachy. It’s a pleasure to have you near me. You have an excellent sense of humour. However, you have two shortcomings, which unfortunately have become apparent to senior members of the Curia. You have a loose tongue and a low tolerance for liquor. Either of these is an impediment. Both together constitute a grave danger – to me and to you.’
Malachy O’Rahilly felt a small, cold finger probing at his heartstrings. He sat in silence, staring down at the backs of his big hands. Finally, with more calm than he had ever thought to command, he said: ‘I understand, Holiness. I regret that you have been put to the embarrassment of saying it. When do you want me to quit?’
‘Not until we have moved back to the Vatican, and you have had time to move your successor into place.’
‘And who will that be?’
‘Monsignor Gerard Hopgood.’
‘He’s a good man, an excellent linguist. He’s quite up to the job. I could hand over a week after we get back.’
‘I should like to find you a congenial posting.’
‘With great respect, Holiness, I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘You have something in mind?’
‘Yes, Holiness. I want to be suspended from all duties for three months. I’m going to put myself into a place I know in England to be detoxified. Then I want to see whether I’m fit for the priesthood and whether it’s a life I can endure from here to eternity. It’s a rough choice to make after all these years, and all its cost in time, money and work to turn me into a Papal Secretary. One thing I’m sure of, however; I don’t want to end up a whisky-priest with soup-stains down his cassock and no one to take him in but a convent of ageing nuns!’
‘I had no idea you felt like this, Malachy. Why didn’t you speak to me before? I am, after all, your pastor.’
‘No you’re not, Holiness! And with great respect, don’t believe that you are. You’re the successor to the Prince of the Apostles. I’m the prince’s minion. You’re the Supreme Shepherd, but you don’t see the sheep – only a vast carpet of woolly backs stretching to the horizon! It’s not your fault. It’s the way this institution has grown over the centuries. Talk about the Russians or the Chinese – we’re the biggest collective in the world! And until you got sick and were stripped down to the skin, that’s the way you thought about it and ran it. That’s why it’s in the parlous state it is … I’m sorry! I have no right to sound off like this; but it’s my life, my soul’s salvation that’s on the line!’
‘I don’t blame you, Malachy. God knows, I have enough guilts of my own. But please trust me if you can. Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Yes, there is one thing.’
‘Name it.’
‘If, at the end of my purgation – which I’m not looking forward to – I find I can’t take the life any more, I want you to let me go – you personally, because you’ve got the power. I don’t want to be besieged by compulsory counsellors, put through the meat-grinder of the tribunals. If I come in good conscience, I want a clean exit. Will Your Holiness give it to me?’
‘Why do you ask now?’
‘Your Holiness knows why.’
‘I want to hear you say it, Malachy.’
‘Because this time, I want to make the choice of a free man.’
For the first time the Pontiff was taken aback. He had not expected so curt an answer. He asked again: ‘Are you saying you were not fre
e when you entered the priesthood?’
‘That’s the root question, isn’t it? That’s what I’m going into the desert to answer. But given my background in Holy Ireland, given all the pressures and conditionings of my education since the nuns first got hold of me at four years old, I’m not sure at all. I know it’s not the sort of statement that will cut much ice with the tribunal, but it’s the truth; just the same as it’s the truth with a lot of marriages that turn into hell on earth because they were defective from day one. But what do we do? We turn the lawyers loose on ’em and not the compassion of Christ we’re supposed to dispense! I’m not sure any of this is making any sense to you. I hope it is; because I’m bleeding. You’ve just done what this blasted bureaucracy always does. You’ve fired me on an anonymous denunciation. I think I deserved better than that.’
Leo the Pontiff was at first stunned by the vigour of the attack, then overwhelmed by shame and guilt. He had done exactly that: damned a faithful servant on hearsay. And, remembering his own childhood, remembering how early and how rigidly his own mindset had been formed, he knew that O’Rahilly was right. He groped for the words to express his confused emotions.
‘I understand what you’re telling me, Malachy. I’ve handled this badly. I hope you will be able to forgive me. I shall pray every day that you may be able to live in peace in your vocation. If not, then I shall release you by my own rescript. One thing I have learned the hard way: there should be no slaves in the City of God.’
‘Thank you, Holiness. Is there anything else?’
‘No, Malachy. You may go.’
It was a melancholy moment and it called up memories of Lorenzo de Rosa, the defection of Matt Neylan and, beyond these local images, the large and distant ones of empty seminaries, convents without postulants, churches with aged priests and ageing congregations, men and women of ardour and goodwill frustrated by clericalism, creating small, self-protective cells within an assembly they did not trust any more because it was ruled by fiat and not by faith.
His mood was not lightened, either, by the visit of Tove Lundberg and Britte. The portrait pleased him very much. The girl was pleased that he was pleased, but communication was difficult and he was glad when Drexel took her out to show her the pleasances of the castle. Tove herself was trying hard to turn her problems into a piece of black humour:
‘Except for the fact that I’m being hunted by some mad mullahs, I’m the luckiest girl in the world. One man wants to marry me. Another wants to set me up on a farm in Ireland. Nonno Drexel wants to send me to study in America. Your Holiness wants to give me money. My daughter thinks she’s ready to live away from home. I wonder why I’m not happy?’
‘You’re really very angry, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Why?’
‘Because everyone has a private purpose for me. No one seems to have given a thought to mine.’
‘Do you think that’s quite fair? All of us are deeply concerned for you and Britte!’
‘I know that, Holiness. I am grateful for it. But my life is my own. Britte is my daughter. I have to decide what is best for us both. At this moment I’m being tugged this way and that like a rag doll. I can’t take that any more. I just can’t.’
Suddenly she was weeping and Leo the Pontiff stood beside her, stroking her hair, comforting her as she had comforted him, with small soothing talk.
‘There now! It’s not nearly as bad as you think! But you mustn’t shut out the people who love you. You told me that, right at the beginning. I trusted you. Can you not trust me, even a little? Why not think about this house in Ireland – even as a holiday?’
Through the tears a small uncertain smile dawned and, as she dried her eyes, she told him: ‘I’m not sure I should risk it.’
‘What’s the risk?’
‘Didn’t you know, Holiness? The Vikings burned Dublin, centuries ago. The Irish have never forgotten it!’
There was one more visitor listed in his appointment book: the Abbot of the Byzantine monastery of St Neilus, which lay only a few kilometres away at Grottaferrata. The Abbot Alexis, who functioned as bishop of the surrounding countryside, was an old man, still vigorous, still witty, but radiating an air of extraordinary calm and spiritual ease. His visit to Castel Gandolfo was an annual affair, made always in a private and neighbourly fashion.
The monastery had existed for a thousand years and traced its origins back to the early Hellenic communities of Calabria and Apulia. The original Greek stock was mixed with Albanian and other races from ancient Illyria who, in spite of constant difficulties and frictions, managed to preserve their rites, customs and privileges, and their union with Rome, even after the Great Schism.
The present monks were mostly Italo-Albanians; but their rite was Greek. They had a library of valuable manuscripts. They conducted a seminary for priests of the Byzantine rite. They ran a school of palaeography, illumination and restoration. For Leo the Pontiff, the place had always had a special significance, as a possible stepping stone on the long river of time back to reunion with the Orthodox churches of the East. But somehow he had never found the inspiration to make use of its resources. Too late perhaps, he was now prepared to admit that, at his first encounter, he had found the Abbot’s humour a trifle too barbed.
This was the man who, asked to compare the Greek practice of married clergy with the Roman one of clerical celibacy, had remarked: ‘We think ours works better. After all, if you want labourers in the vineyard, why stop them bringing their lunch?’ Speaking of the Roman passion for legislation, he coined the aphorism: ‘It is not the Church which leads people to God. It is God who draws them to Himself, sometimes through the visible witness of his Church – and sometimes in spite of it!’
In his later years, however, the old man had become a contemplative, and there were tales abroad about his power of divining human hearts and endowing them with the gift of peace. After the stress of his recent encounter, the Pontiff found him a very easy guest. He had brought a gift – a facsimile edition of the monastery’s greatest treasure, a typikon, or liturgical compendium of the eleventh century. With the gift was a graceful dedicatory note quoting from the Epistle of John: ‘Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health.’
They walked together in the garden and, as Tove Lundberg had taught him to do, the Pontiff talked without embarrassment of the problems that loomed up before him.
‘There’s a great irony in my situation. I see all the mistakes I have made. I see even more clearly how little time I have to make them good.’
The old man laughed, a light silvery sound like the laughter of a child.
‘God’s people are God’s business. Why don’t you trust Him?’
‘Would it be so simple!’
‘It is. That’s the point. What else do the parables tell us? “Consider the lilies of the field. They labour not, neither do they spin …” It is the passion for action that destroys us all. We are so busy organising and engineering and legislating that we lose sight of God’s own purposes for us and for this planet of ours. You are still frail – frailer than I, who have fifteen years on you. Give yourself more time before you start work again. Don’t let them bury you under a mountain of detail, as they try to do. A word from you at the right moment will do more good than a week of flurry in the Congregations.’
‘The problem is that I’m having difficulty with the words. The simpler they need to be, the harder it is for me to say them.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the Abbot mildly, ‘perhaps because you are trying to speak two languages at once: that of the heart and that of authority.’
‘And which one would you have me use, my Lord Abbot?’
‘May I presume a little, Holiness?’
‘Please!’
‘In a way which you do not and, indeed, cannot experience, I face this question every day that I am in office. I am an old man now. My strength is limited. Consider a moment. We are, like our sister m
onasteries in Lungro, San Demetrio, Terra d’Otranto and other places, a small group of ethnic survivors – from Greek colonies and from scattered Balkan tribes. As priests and monks, we are custodians of the cultural identity of our peoples, what is left of their language, their traditions, their iconography. In the eyes of Rome – in the old days at least – this was granted as a privilege. We held it then, and hold it now, as a right. To maintain that right we have to demonstrate that we deserve it. So I as Abbot have to keep in our community a discipline that puts us beyond criticism or challenge from the Vatican. It is not always easy for my people or for me. But I have found over the years that it is better to persuade than to impose. The difference between you and me is that I can have, all the time, a face to face dialogue. Except in your own household, that is impossible for you. You are interpreted by rhetors and officials and translated by journalists. Your authentic voice is never heard. Look at the pair of us! Except for this one day of the year, this one brief hour, you and I might be on separate planets …’
‘One advice which has been given me,’ said the Pontiff slowly, ‘is that I should begin to decentralise, give back to local bishops their authentic apostolic authority. What do you think of that?’
‘In theory it’s possible and desirable. We Byzantines are a case in point. We acknowledge the authority of the Pontiff, yes. We preserve our identity and our authority as an apostolic church. It works because the barriers of language and custom save us from too much interference. But if you try to do the same thing with the Germans, the British, the French, you will find opposition from the most unexpected quarters. Look what happened in Holland all those years ago! The Dutch claimed the freedoms affirmed in the decrees of Vatican II. Immediately the prophets of doom were crying from the roof-tops. Reaction set in, Rome applied the thumbscrews. The Dutch Church was split and nearly ended in schism … But slowly, slowly, yes, it will work, it must work. I say to my monks: “Before you stage a revolution, think what you have to put in its place – otherwise you are left with a vacuum and seven devils rush in to take possession!’