Lazarus

by Morris West

  ‘So there you have me, dear brothers, the paradigm of the perfect cleric, the way open before me to a bishopric, a Curial appointment, a place in the Sacred College. No scandal could be breathed about my private life. My teaching was as orthodox as Aquinas, of whom I was the most diligent copyist. Step by step, I was being initiated into the political life of the Church, the exercises that prepare a man for power and authority. Some of you here sponsored me through that initiation and finally elected me to the office which I now hold.

  ‘But something else was happening to me and I lacked the wit to see it. The small springs of compassion in my nature were drying up. The capacity for affection and tenderness was withering like the last leaves of autumn. Worse still, the desert climate of my own spiritual life was mirrored in the condition of the Church. I do not have to describe to you what has happened, what continued to happen. You read it every day in the reports which come to your desks.

  ‘Let me tell you how I judge my own part in the failure. I was, I thought, a good pastor. I enforced discipline among the clergy. I would not compromise with the libertine spirit of the times. I would not countenance any challenge by scholars or theologians to the traditional doctrines of the Church … I was elected to rule. A ruler must be master in his own house. So I thought. So I acted, as you all know. And therein was my great mistake. I had forgotten the words of our Lord: “I have made known to you all that my Father has told me and so I have called you my friends …” I had reversed the order of things laid down by Jesus. I had set myself up as a master, instead of a servant. I had tried to make the Church, not a home for the people of God, but an empire for the elect and, like many another empire builder, I had turned the green land into a dusty waste from which I myself could not escape.

  ‘What happened next, you all know. I was admitted to hospital for bypass surgery. This intervention, which is now very common, with a very high success rate, is known to have a profound psychological effect on the patient. This is the experience I wish and need to share with you. It reaches far back into my childhood and is connected with St John’s narrative of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. You all know the story by heart. Think, if you can, of the effect of that narrative on a small boy, brought up on the fireside ghost stories of country folk.

  ‘As I grew up, it raised more and more questions in my mind, all of them couched in the terms of the scholastic theology in which I had been trained. I asked myself had Lazarus been judged, as we should all be judged by God at the moment of death? Did he have to risk another life and another judgement? Had he seen God? How could he bear to be torn back from that beatific vision? How was the rest of his life coloured by the death experience?

  ‘You see where we are, my brothers? In all but the fact of dying, I went through the Lazarus experience. I want to explain it to you. Bear with me now, I beg you. If our minds and our hearts cannot meet on a matter of life and death, then we are truly lost and wandering.

  ‘I do not propose to weary you with sick-room reminiscences. I want to tell you simply that there comes a moment when you are aware that you are about to step out of light into darkness, out of knowing into unknowing, without guarantee of return. It is a moment of clearness and stillness, in which you know, with strange certainty, that whatever is waiting to receive you is good, beneficent, loving. You are aware that you have been prepared for this moment, not by any action of your own, but by the gift of life itself, by the nature of life itself.

  ‘Some in this room will remember the long process against the distinguished Jesuit, Father Telhard de Chardin, suspected of heresy and for a long time silenced within the Church. In my zeal as a young cleric, I approved what was done to him. But – here is the strange thing – in that still clear moment before the dark, I remembered a sentence de Chardin hand written: “God makes things make themselves.”

  ‘When, like Lazarus, I was recalled from the darkness, when I stood blinded by the light of a new day, I knew that my life could never be the same again.

  ‘Understand me, dear brothers, I am not talking miracles or private revelations or mystical experiences. I am talking about metanoia, that change in the self which takes place, not in contradiction to, but precisely because of, its genetic imprint, the graffito of God. We are born to die; therefore, in some mysterious way, we are being prepared for dying. In the same fashion, we grow towards an accommodation with the greatest mysteries of our existence. Whatever I am, I know that I am not an envelope of flesh with a soul inside it. I am not Pascal’s thinking reed with a ghostly wind whistling through me.

  ‘After the change I have described, I was still myself, whole and entire, but self renewed and changed, as the desert is changed by irrigation, as a seed is changed into a green plant in the dark earth. I had forgotten what it was like to weep. I had forgotten what it was like to surrender oneself into caring hands, to rejoice at the sight of a child, to be grateful for the shared experience of age, for the comforting voice of a woman in the dark, painful hours.

  ‘It was then – so late in life! – I began to understand what the people need from us, their pastors, and what I, who am the Shepherd over all, had so rigidly denied them. They do not need more laws, more prohibitions, more caveats. They act most normally and most morally by the reasons of the heart. They are already imprinted with the graffito of God. They need a climate of love and compassion and understanding in which they can grow to their full promise – which, my dear brothers, is the true meaning of salvation.

  ‘Let me tell you, without rancour, the sad reproach addressed to me by a priest who is fighting a lonely battle to remain in the ministry. “You’re the Supreme Shepherd, but you don’t see the sheep – only a vast carpet of woolly backs stretching to the horizon!”

  ‘I laughed, as you are laughing now. He was and is a very amusing man; but he was telling me a bitter truth. I was not a shepherd. I was an overseer, a herder, a judge of meat or wool, anything but what I was called to be. One night before I went to sleep I read again the first letter of St Peter, in whose shoes I stand today:

  ‘Be shepherds to the flock God has given you. Do it, as God wishes it to be done, not by constraint, but willingly, not for sordid gain, but generously, not as a tyrant, but setting an example to the flock.”

  ‘The lesson was clear, but how I should apply it was not clear at all. Look at me! I sit here, a prisoner in one square mile of territory, shackled by history, barred by protocol, hedged by cautionary counsellors, surrounded by all the creaking machinery of government which we have constructed over the centuries. I cannot escape. So, I must work from inside my prison-house.

  ‘After much prayer and searching of conscience, I have decided to embark on a programme to reform the Curia itself. I want to make it an instrument truly serviceable to the people of God. The appointments I announced today are the first step in that programme. The next is to set the norms by which we shall be guided. I will state them for you now. The Church is the family of believers. In a more profound symbolism, it is a body of which we are all members and of which our Lord Jesus Christ is head. Our care must be for one another in the Lord. Whatever does not contribute to that care, whatever inhibits it, must be and will be abolished.

  ‘I propose to begin with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose high and holy charge is to keep pure the teaching transmitted to us from Apostolic times. The Congregation has been reformed and renamed several times by recent pontiffs. However, I am forced to conclude that it is tainted beyond remedy by its own history. It is perceived still as an inquisition, an instrument of repression, a tribunal of denunciation within the Church. Its procedures are seen to be secretive and some of them are fundamentally unjust. So long as that image exists, the Congregation does more harm than good. We have been given, all of us at baptism, the liberty of the children of God. In this family, therefore, there should be no question which it is forbidden to ask, no debate which it is forbidden to hold so be it with love and respect, because in the en
d we all bow ourselves under the outstretched hand of the same Lord who bade the raging seas be still, and they became quiet.

  ‘There have been too many occasions in our history, dear brothers – too many in mine! – when we have claimed to establish a certainty where no certainty existed or indeed exists now. The last word has not been spoken by our venerable predecessor on birth control. We cannot contemplate with equanimity the explosion of human population on the earth and man’s ravaging of the limited resources of the planet. It is idle and hypocritical to urge sexual control as a remedy on people living at the farthest edge of survival. We must not attempt to fabricate revelations which we do not have. We must not impose, for the sake of expediency or seeming moral order, solutions to human problems which raise more questions than they answer.

  ‘Especially we must be deeply respectful and careful of our entry into that sacrament from which we have – for good or ill – disqualified ourselves, the sacrament of matrimony and all that pertains to it in the commerce of men and women. Often it seems to me we should rather seek counsel than give it in human sexual relations.

  ‘These are only a few of the reasons why I wish to begin our reforms with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, because it is there that the necessary debate is inhibited and arguments taken out of the public forum and buried in a private one.

  ‘Let me tell you, in this meeting of brothers, I hold with an iron grip to the ancient symbols of faith, those credal truths for which our martyrs died. I hold also to another certainty – the certainty of doubt, the certainty of not knowing, because the most insidious of all heresies was that of the gnostics who claimed a special pathway into the mind of God. We do not have that knowledge. We seek it in the life and teachings of the Lord, in the traditions of the Fathers and – let us be very clear on this – in our own expanding experience which we, please God, will hand down to other generations.

  ‘We are not a fortress Church. We are a Church of witness. What we do and say must be done in the light. I know what you will tell me: that life today is lived under the scrutiny of television cameras and enquiring journalists and commentators eager for sensation. We are therefore vulnerable to misquotation and misinterpretation. So, I remind you, was our Lord and Master. It is in this spirit of openness and charity and with prudent care, that I propose to examine all the functions of the dicasteries. The process will be set in motion by motu proprio, which will be issued before the end of the year.

  ‘However, there is one matter which must be settled now. It is not mentioned specifically in the Ordo, but time has been allowed for it. You will remember that the day before I left for the hospital, I told you that my abdication was already written and that you, the members of the Sacred College, would be free to judge whether I were competent to serve any longer as Pontiff. You have seen me. You have heard me. What I offer you is not a challenge, but a choice which you must make in good conscience. If you believe I am unfit, then you must accept my abdication. There will be no drama. I will step down at the time and in the manner you deem appropriate.’

  He held above his head a folded document, so that everyone could see the large pendant seal attached to it.

  ‘This, written in my own hand, is the instrument of abdication. Placetne fratres? Do you accept it?’

  There was a long moment of dead silence, then Cardinal Agostini gave the first answer: ‘Non placet. I do not accept.’

  After that there were no voices, only a long, continuous clapping; but in so large a room and so mixed a gathering, it was hard to know who was applauding and who was consenting to the inevitable.

  The applause was still going on when the door opened and a prelate from the Secretariat of State summoned Agostini to the telephone.

  Anton, Cardinal Drexel was calling from Castelli. His message was curt.

  ‘Neylan called me from Ireland. In the small hours of this morning there was a terrorist attack on his farmhouse. Two men, two women, believed to be Japanese. Neylan and his manager killed them. He believes that there may be an attempt today on the Holy Father’s life.’

  ‘Thank you, Anton. I’ll talk immediately with the Holy Father and the Vigilanza. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. My Britte is dying. I’ve been trying to contact Professor Salviati. I’m told he’s attending the Pontiff’s Mass.’

  ‘I’ll try to get a message to him. Also I’ll tell His Holiness. Where can Neylan be contacted?’

  ‘At the Mercy Hospital, Cork. I’ll give you the number…’

  But there was no time left for courtesy calls. The Vigilanza had to be put on red alert and the Pontiff informed. The chief of security shrugged helplessly and pointed to the swelling crowd in the Basilica.

  ‘What do you expect me to do, Eminence? We’ve got fifty men here; twenty down the nave, ten in the transept, fifteen around the high altar, five on the walkway around the dome.’

  ‘There are four camera teams on scaffolding, all aiming their cameras at the High Altar. What about them?’

  ‘All their papers are in order. They’ve been cleared by Social Communications. The Japanese have also been cleared by your people at the Secretariat of State. We’ve checked all the equipment. What more can we do?’

  ‘Pray,’ said the Secretary of State. ‘But if anything happens don’t, for God’s sake, close the doors. Let ’em out; let ’em run free, otherwise this place will become a slaughter yard. Meantime, call your colleagues at the Intelligence centre and tell them the news.’

  ‘What about the Israelis?’

  ‘They’re out of the picture. The Ambassador will be here this morning as a personal guest of the Pontiff. For the rest, they’ll be no help any more. Their number one Mossad man here has been shipped home.’

  ‘In that case, the Vigilanza will do its best; but you should pray very hard, Eminence! And we’d better have an ambulance standing by.’

  The Pontiff himself was rather more relaxed.

  ‘At Mass I am the perfect target. Most of the time I am in the centre of the altar. But before we begin I shall tell the Master of Ceremonies that my deacons and sub-deacons must stand as far from me as possible. We can literally conduct the ceremony at two arms’ length from each other. No one will notice.’

  ‘We could cancel, Holiness. There is still thirty minutes before Mass. We could begin now to clear the Basilica.’

  To what purpose, Matteo? Ut Deus vult. It is as God wills. By the way, I have not thanked you for your vote of confidence at the Consistory.’

  ‘It was a vote for the man, Holiness; not necessarily for the policies. They still have to be tested.’

  ‘And you think they will not be? My friend, we shall be ground like wheat between the millstones; but it will be as God wills it to be.’

  It was only then that Agostini remembered to deliver the second part of Drexel’s message.

  ‘The child, Britte Lundberg, Anton’s adopted granddaughter, is dying. We are told she will not last the day.’

  The Pontiff was visibly shaken. His eyes filled with tears. He reached out to Agostini and held his arm to steady himself.

  ‘All of this, all of it, comes back to me. My life was bought with all these other lives. It’s too much Matteo! Too much!’

  It was mid-morning on the Feast of All Saints when Britte Lundberg died in the Mercy Hospital in Cork. Her mother’s outburst of grief was terrible to see. All her controls seemed to snap at once, and she threw herself on the bed, sobbing and weeping and babbling endearments to coax the child back to life. When the nurse and one of the Sisters came in and tried to calm her, Matt Neylan waved them away.

  ‘Leave her be! She’ll work through it. I’ll look after her.’

  Then, quite suddenly, it seemed all her grief was spent. She kissed Britte on the lips, arranged the body decently on the bed and drew the covers over it. Then she went into the bathroom. A long time later she came out, pale but composed, with her hair combed and her make-up repaired. Only her eyes betrayed her. Th
ey were unfocused, staring into desert distances. Matt Neylan held her for a long time and she seemed to be glad of the comfort, but there was no passion left in her. She asked vaguely: ‘What do we do now?’

  We call an undertaker,’ said Matt Neylan. ‘If you like we can bury her in the cemetery at Clonakilty. We have a family plot there. She would lie next to my mother.’

  ‘That would be nice. I think she’d like that. She loved you, Matt.’

  ‘I loved her.’

  ‘I know. Could we go for a walk?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll just stop by the desk and make a couple of phone calls. Then we’ll stroll in the town.’

  ‘Another thing, Matt.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Could we have a priest to bury her? Not for me, not for you, of course; but I think Nonno Drexel would like it.’

  ‘It’ll be done. Let’s go now. She doesn’t need us any more.’ Their walk took them past the post office, where they sent separate telegrams to Cardinal Drexel. Tove’s read: ‘Dearest Nonno Drexel. Your beloved granddaughter died this morning. Her illness was mercifully short, her passing peaceful. Do not grieve too much. She would not want it. I will write later. Much, much love, Tove.’

  Matt Neylan’s message was more formal.

  ‘Your Eminence will wish to know that Tove is working through her grief. Britte had a happy life and her last conscious words were of her Nonno. She will be buried according to the rites of the Roman Church in my family plot at Clonakilty. If I have any problems with the parish priest, which I doubt, I shall invoke the name and rank of Your Eminence. If you would like to propose an epitaph for her headstone, I shall commission a good carver to execute it. My deepest sympathies in your sad loss. Matt Neylan.’

  When he had written the telegram, he turned to Tove and said: ‘I called the Vatican and asked them to pass on a message to Salviati, who is attending the Pope’s Mass. Don’t you think you should send him a personal message?’