The Translation of Father Torturo

by Connell, Brendan

  These words won Torturo general approval, but all those present were still by no means convinced. One old and much respected ecclesiastical scholar rose to his feet and spoke.

  “Though I do not for a single moment doubt the good father’s credibility and I admit his story sounds plausible when looked at from a purely Catholic point of view, I still feel some reservations in admitting this to be the authentic tongue of Saint Anthony. In the history of the church there have been many unfortunate occurrences where spurious relics have been introduced. Though I would like to believe that this is the genuine article, and have the right and proper tongue of Saint Anthony restored to its sanctified home, my conscious still cries out for proof. Where is the proof my friends?”

  There was a murmur throughout the room. All eyes were on the tongue. Many brows were furrowed. Minds were hesitant upon which way to turn. Zuccarelli, perplexed, bit his bottom lip and looked at Torturo, as if to say, “There, now the ball’s in your court.”

  Torturo bent forward and, with a rapid yet suave gesture grabbed up the tongue, turned around and cast it into the fire. Every man, as if attached to a single spring rose to their feet in an uproar. All bodies rushed towards the fire, all arms stretched towards the flames. Torturo, powerful, magnificent, with arms wide and legs spread barred the way.

  “No!” he cried. “Stand back you of miniature faith! If God cannot speak through your hearts, let him speak through the flames!”

  “But you’ll burn it!” Vivan cried.

  Most everyone in the room begged Torturo to step aside, a few even attempting to use physical force, but the priest, with an almost ecstatic look on his face, held them back. Many pulled their hair and wrung their hands in despair – for that the tongue was genuine the majority of the party had already been convinced. To have the relic once more in their possession only to be deprived of it, and this time without hope of ever seeing it returned, was horrible.

  Some suggested calling in the carabinieri and having the priest arrested.

  “You are a madman!” one cardinal sputtered, looking at Torturo with wild, bloodshot eyes.

  “I seem to have heard that comment before,” the other replied with just the slightest hint of a smile playing on his lips. “But, if I am a madman, than surely I am one who lives amongst maniacs.” He stooped over the fire and, with an iron poker, fished through the burning bits of timber and hot coals, which sent up sprays of gem-like sparks. Delicately, with two fingers, he pinched what appeared to be a live coal from the fire, and turned. “I simply have faith,” he said raising the tongue up high, unharmed, red and ripe as a strawberry. “It has fulfilled its just probation, has it not?”

  There was a murmur of general astonishment. The perfume of the supernatural struck every man’s nostrils. None dared contest such evidence. Torturo set the tongue back in its casket and strode out of the room, victorious.

  “I will break down the barriers,” he murmured to himself. “This body of flesh is all simply an instrument; let me fit it out properly. I myself must be as God, because God created me, as a spider does his web; – I cannot be denied my just inheritance. My desires are, after all, not evil; – I only wish to promote general and universal . . . welfare.”

  Four days later Cardinal Zuccarelli sat in his private office, filling out the paperwork required for Torturo’s nomination for cardinal.

  “Will Torturo be pliant?” O’Malley had asked him.

  “Pliant? – Possibly. – But one thing is certain: It is better to work with him than against him. I firmly believe he can help us forward our own aims.”

  “Then I will send you over the paperwork and we’ll see what we can do for the lad.”

  O’Malley had the complete confidence of the Vatican. He was the pronuncio, one of the key figures in the process of selecting new cardinals and continually strove to keep the balance of power tilted in his direction.

  “Please describe the nature of your association with the candidate and indicate the length of time that you have known him,” Zuccarelli read aloud from the questionnaire.

  He speedily scribbled out several paragraphs of well turned lies.

  Question: What human qualities does the candidate have?

  Answer: He is endowed with a remarkable degree of both speculative and practical intellectual capacity; his temperament and character are evenly balanced; he is serene of judgment; has an almost overpowering sense of responsibility.

  Question: What are the candidate’s human, Christian and priestly formations?

  Answer: He is possessed of all human, Christian and priestly virtues, i.e. prudence, justice, moral uprightness, loyalty, sobriety, faith, hope, charity, obedience, humility, piety: daily celebration of the Eucharist and of the Liturgy of the Hours, Marian devotion.

  Question: What is the candidate’s behaviour?

  Answer: He conducts himself with moral exactitude; his comportment with people in general and in the exercise of the priestly ministry in particular is upright in the highest degree; he is endowed with the rare ability to establish friendships in the most diverse corners; he is respected by and in perfect rapport with civil authorities.

  Torturo was successfully appointed, along with twenty-eight other new cardinals. The ceremony was grand. Torturo showed himself to be modest and a man of commendable manners. At the Vatican he was well received. His days of obscurity appeared to be at an end.

  Chapter Twelve

  Upon the news that the tongue had been restored to its rightful place, in the Basilica del Santo, the world rejoiced. Pilgrims in unprecedented quantities came from every continent and country to view the miraculous bit of flesh, first filling the hotels beyond capacity and then spilling out onto the streets of Padua, where they milled and moved with bovine facility. Under the recommendation of the city fire department, special guards were set up at the doors of the basilica with instructions to only allow a specified number of visitors in at a time. The number of pilgrims rapidly multiplied and soon they were requested to call ahead for reservations. The lines of people levelled off onto the via Capelli, where traffic was blocked. On several occasions the police were called in to control the mob, which periodically threatened to become violent. At one point an American man, far from lean in his proportions and wielding a camera menacingly over his head, made statements to a priest, the purport of which could not be mistaken.

  “I have been here since eight o’clock this morning,” the man shouted (it was then eleven). “You sons of bitches have been ignoring my reservation! Is this how you treat American citizens!”

  A number of his compatriots joined in, raising their voices high above the noise of the crowd, and, from what could be understood, demanded either entrance or sacerdotal blood. In the weeks that followed, similar outbursts were heard from groups of Germans, English, Danish and Irish. It was decided that those visitors willing to make a moderate donation of twenty euros would be allowed carte blanche status. A considerable sum was thus gathered, only about sixty percent of which found its way into the pocket of Bishop Vivan and, in turn, Cardinal Torturo. It was, after all, his tongue the people were paying to see.

  Meanwhile the other relics, that is Torturo’s femurs, fibulas, tibias, etc, were transported to Rome, where they were to be specially exhibited in the Vatican before being returned to their rightful home in Milan. The responsibility for promoting the event was handed over to the Italian Board of Tourism who, with their usual skill in attracting attention to the most splendid country on earth, did a marvellous job. Full page ads were taken out in all the leading Catholic newspapers, as well as the travel sections of both the New York Times and the London Guardian. The Italian Prime Minister, perfectly aware of the percentage of the profits he would gain, loaned his vast media-conglomeration-network to the exploitation of the restored relics at home, taking the line that it was, more or less, every Italian’s duty to view these emblems of their nation’s spiritual and cultural heritage. The admission to this magnificent disp
lay was a mere ten euros.

  The Pope, who was to be the first to see the line up, arrived some three quarters of an hour late. He shuffled along the range of glass cases in which the relics were elaborately displayed, placed on gold-trimmed velvet and lit with a subtle, somewhat mysterious light placed in such a way as to give the impression that it exuded from the bones themselves. Over the cases were placed old master paintings by such artists as Botticelli, Signorelli and Raphael, which, due to the fact that they were put in a subordinate position, heightened the implied value of the human remains. The old man’s eyes, glassy and bespeaking an entire absence of strength, passed over the bones which were before him, his vague expression seeming to say: “Oh, you lucky dogs; look how you rest!”

  “The man is sublime,” Cardinal Gonzales, who was following close behind His Holiness in order to catch him if he fell, whispered to Di Quaglio.

  “The Pope wobbles,” Di Quaglio muttered to Cardinal O’Malley, who was close at hand.

  “Then let him wobble,” O’Malley replied, his thin Irish lips curling slightly.

  Di Quaglio slipped his arm through that of Gonzales, holding him back in order to point out his admiration for the thigh bone of Saint Satio. The Pope shuffled on ahead, trembling. There was a gathering in the red velvet rug. Naturally the Pope’s foot, which never rose above three eighths of an inch from floor level, contacted the said gathering. He tripped. His head collided with the side of the glass case and he fell to the ground. There was only a very small gash above his left eyebrow, but the man was dead.

  The sensation was tremendous. All the bells in Rome were rung. Merchants closed their shops; field workers lay down their tools and hurried home. The air was full of stories of mysticism and conspiracy. While the chroniclers mourned to have lost this gracious ruler who, though leaving the papacy unsullied, had let it descend into one of the least powerful forces in Europe, antagonistic parties slithered out from their holes like snakes.

  “My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me,” Cardinal Gonzales sighed, wiping a very large tear from his right eye. “Oh, it is so distressing. I was not there to catch him!”

  “No need to fret,” Di Quaglio smiled, putting his hand on the shaking shoulder of Gonzales. “Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.”

  “Aye,” O’Malley grinned. “But you have to be quick to catch them alive. At the present time we’d better be thinking about filling the office instead of whipping ourselves raw because an old fellow is enjoying a sweet bit of rest.”

  ***

  Dressed in the cardinalatial colours of red and black, like brightly wounded ravens they swept in on the Vatican City, important, each face encased in an austere mask, behind which swelled brains broiling with supra-mundane or mundane ambitions and plots. There were one-hundred and seventeen of them, Cardinals, conclavists under the age of eighty, and each took up lodging in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the accommodations being equivalent to those of any four star hotel.

  This group was particularly noteworthy for its large number of Latin Americans. Aside from Cardinal Gonzales from Mexico, who carried enormous weight, there was Cardinal Palafox from Argentina, Cardinal Velasco from Ecuador and Cardinal Nunez of Peru, as well as many others. It was thus widely expected that the next Pope would be from that part of the world, most likely in the person of one Cardinal Hernando Dominguez Hojeda, of Colombia, who the entire Latin American faction was backing.

  The following morning the Cardinal electors gathered in the Basilica of Saint Peter and took part in the solemn Eucharistic celebration with the Votive Mass Pro Eligendo Papa. They then met for an early lunch of beef steak and rice before re-congregating in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, where they appeared in choir dress, invoked the assistance of the Holy Spirit with the chant of the Veni Creator, and then solemnly proceeded to the Sistine Chapel.

  The conclave seated itself. The Cardinal Dean rose, cleared his throat and, in a voice swollen with importance, read: “We, the Cardinal electors present in this election of the Supreme Pontiff promise, pledge and swear to observe scrupulously the prescriptions contained in the Apostolic Constitution. We likewise promise, pledge and swear that whichever of us by divine disposition is elected Roman Pontiff will commit himself faithfully to carrying out the munus Petrinum of Pastor of the Universal Church and will not fail to affirm and defend strenuously the spiritual and temporal rights and the liberty of the Holy See. We promise and swear to observe with the greatest fidelity everything that in any way relates to the election of the Roman Pontiff and regarding what occurs in the place of the election, directly or indirectly related to the results of the voting, we promise and swear not to break this secret in any way, either during or after the election of the new Pontiff, unless explicit authorisation is granted by the same Pontiff; and never to lend support or favour to any interference, opposition or any other form of intervention, whereby secular authorities of whatever order and degree or any group of people or individuals might wish to intervene in the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

  Each Cardinal elector, placing his hand on the gospel, intoned: “This I do pledge and swear; so help me God and these Holy Gospels which I touch with my hand.”

  Four cardinals were nominated: Cardinal Hernando Dominguez Hojeda, of Colombia, Francois Villefort, of France, Mark Stewart of the United States, and Xaverio Torturo of Italy. Measures were taken, though surreptitiously, to verify the sex of the candidates. All were recognised as being admissible males.

  The factions were clear and obvious:

  It was known that Cardinal Villefort had once made a statement, albeit at a private gathering, that Italian food was poison. Though this is a not an uncommon opinion amongst the French, it was an opinion he would have been wiser to keep to himself. Cardinals, like school girls, are prone to gossip. Villefort’s words reached the ears of O’Malley, who made sure to bandy them about to his Italian brethren. There are three things which every Italian holds sacred: Their religion, their mother, and their pasta. Needless to say Villefort’s culinary prejudice won him no points with the Italians. As they gathered for the conclave, there was not a one who did not swear they would be damned before they would place their vote with Villefort. Thanks to a number of behind the curtains meetings held by Zuccarelli, as well as a natural propensity to stand by their own, they were unanimously in favour of Torturo.

  The American, Cardinal Stewart, was much heralded as the best candidate for ‘the Pope of the new millennium;’ all the technological, financial and military advantages of his country being taken as the personal attributes of his character. The French particularly objected to Stewart on the grounds that his knowledge of scriptural matters was but rudimentary, the fellow not rightly understanding Latin liturgy, let alone Greek. The Germans and English however were all for the American, who they saw as one of their own. They defended him, saying that knowledge of Greek was hardly a requirement for the Supreme seat, taking the unfortunate example of Pope Alexander VI, who did not know a word of the language.

  “Furthermore,” Cardinal Hans Grünwald of Germany pointed out. “If we are going to be picky on these matters, let us not overlook the fact that the much respected South American candidate Cardinal Hojeda also does not have adept knowledge of the Greek tongue. It does not seem to me that a dead language should be a requirement for a living office.”

  As these arguments were being flung about, it naturally occurred that the qualifications of the fourth candidate, Cardinal Xaverio Torturo should be put under scrutiny. That he played a vital role in the reinstatement of the most holy relics of the holy saints was known by all, but, as he was somewhat of a new comer to the cardinalature, his history was vague. When it became known that, not only could he speak Latin like Tacitus and Greek like the Archangel Gabriel, but knew the good book in either language by rote, many undecided members of the conclave could not help but murmur their approval. The French were hus
hed; the Germans could hardly object.

  But, though the French had been bettered on matters of scholarship, the Americans, both South and North, had not been met with on the matter of spiritual qualifications.

  Stewart was a stupid man who lived his life according to a more or less fundamentalist agenda. His stupidity was often haled as saintly simplicity while his cringing sycophancy was easily labelled ‘moral fortitude.’ He had the utmost difficulty in stringing together ten words for a speech without making a gross blunder, but his round, childlike face and heinous accent lent him a naïvete that charmed as often as it repelled.

  Cardinal Hojeda, in his own slick, oily way, smiled a great deal and often talked excitedly of poverty relief. His advocates took this as a spiritual stance, conveniently closing their eyes to the fact Hojeda was a two-faced liar who lived in a sumptuous fashion off the gifts of the cartel while large numbers of his people starved in unhygienic slums.

  “Cardinal Hojeda is a man of the most pure heart,” Gonzales said.

  “There is no one more pious than Stewart,” was Grünwald’s blunt comment.

  O’Malley, though part of the English faction, had a personal antipathy towards the North American candidate. He had met him once on a trip to New York, at an outdoor lawn party on Long Island. The two men were introduced. They shook hands and exchanged a few seemingly polite banalities. O’Malley, under the pretext of needing to get a glass of water, stepped behind a hedge to smoke a cigarette. However, while applying a match to a Lucky Strike, he overheard Stewart, stationed on the opposite side of the hedge, conversing with the third party who had introduced the two men. He made a few uncouth comments on O’Malley’s appearance, and complained of an unpleasant odour which the Irishman emitted. As if that were not enough, the American proceeded to give a very unjust imitation of O’Malley’s accent, a thing which the latter could hardly tolerate, particularly from an illiterate American. No man likes to hear that he smells and no man likes to be secretly mocked. Stewart was not only stupid, but it seemed that he was mean as well. It was no wonder that O’Malley did not want Cardinal Stewart to be the next Vicar of Christ upon Earth.