by Anne Emery
“In October 1971 the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, made a visit to Berlin. There was a young man, a seminarian named Lukas Vogel. He was a student and friend of Reinhold Schellenberg, and he was a dissident. We received information that Vogel was planning to disrupt the state visit. I travelled to Magdeburg to speak to Schellenberg. We had never met before. I did not speak about my father and his uncle at that time. I told him I knew of the planned protest, and I urged him to take Vogel in hand and make sure it did not happen. Schellenberg claimed he knew nothing about the demonstration, did not know where the seminarian was, and had nothing to tell the Volkspolizei. I warned him. If he could not guarantee the young man would drop his plans to disrupt the visit, I would have to inform the security apparatus. He would not agree. But I heard from sources that he did in fact try to warn Vogel and his group away from the visit. Obviously, they did not heed his advice.
“Reinhold Schellenberg came to the event himself. The Stasi were on the lookout for Vogel. They found him and closed in on him, but he broke away and ran towards the stage where Brezhnev was speaking. Schellenberg emerged from the crowd and moved to block Vogel. He threw himself in front of the young man just as the Stasi drew their weapons and fired. Schellenberg was hit and went down. He was taken into custody along with Vogel and two others. Schellenberg was treated for a bullet wound in his arm. All four were interrogated. Reinhold was made of the same stuff as his uncle, Johann. I admired him, but I let him down. If I had been more efficient, the whole thing could have been prevented.
“I have told you about the threats against him in later years. He cancelled a journey to the United States because of a threat years ago. But he was not out of danger. This is the first trip he ever made to North America. When I heard of it, I arranged for my wife to sign up for the schola cantorum. She is very musical, and agreed to the plan. I had notes of the threats — copies I wrote out — in the compartment of the chessboard, and I showed them to Reinhold. For the first time, I told him of my father and his uncle in the camp. We became friendly in the days before his death. I urged him to be careful. I asked him about his movements around the city here. He shrugged off my concerns. When he suddenly cancelled his lecture that Friday afternoon, I was worried. I tried to find him. But it was my failure. Again.”
There was somebody missing from the gathering. “Where’s Brennan?” I asked Mike O’Flaherty when I finished speaking with Kurt Bleier.
Glances were exchanged, then Mike said: “He doesn’t know any of this yet.”
“What? Where is he?”
“Come with me.”
He reached for a set of keys, went outside, and crossed to the church. I followed. Mike put his fingers to his lips for quiet, then worked some heavy-duty locks to get into the nave. Was Burke in the church, down on his knees giving thanks to God for letting him express the inexpressible in his music? Was he prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, the way I had seen him in Rome? We tiptoed in. The church was lit by the warm glow of candlelight. Burke was sitting in one of the pews, in his Roman collar and an ancient leather jacket. His head was resting on the back of the pew, his eyes were closed, his left arm was flung out to the side. Sleeping in heavenly peace. He looked about eleven years old. Curled up next to him, holding his right hand, was my daughter Normie. She too was sound asleep, and someone had covered her with a blanket.
“Your wife thought she’d be all right here,” Mike whispered.
I looked at her for a long moment. “Yes, she will.”
We left them, and Mike locked up.
“You know, Mike, she’s investigating him to see if he’s an angel! I suspect tonight tipped the scales in his favour. What are you going to say if she asks you?”
He smiled. “‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the foremost of sinners.’ That was either Brennan’s slurred speech to the Romans or Saint Paul’s first letter to Timothy. I expect our friend will go and sin no more!”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so. He’s a new man, Monty. A new man.”
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance: Dr. John MacPherson, Rhea McGarva, Joan Butcher, and Edna Barker. All characters and plots in the story are fictional, as are some of the locations. Other places are real. Any liberties taken in the interests of fiction, or any errors committed, are mine alone.
The following books and publications proved invaluable in the writing of Cecilian Vespers:
Benedict XVI. Summorum Pontificum. Apostolic letter issued motu proprio data, on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. July 7, 2007
Chesteron, G.K. St. Thomas Aquinas: “The Dumb Ox.” New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1956 (first published, 1933)
Day, Thomas. Why Catholics Can’t Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste. New York: Crossroad, 1990
Maritain, Jacques. St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Meridian Books, Inc., 1958 (first published, 1931)
Martin, Malachi. Hostage to the Devil. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992. This is the source of the passage about the “Montini experience”, to which I refer in the last chapter.
Reese, Thomas J., SJ. Inside the Vatican. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998
Rose, Michael S. Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces – and How We Can Change Them Back Again. Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 2001
Saint Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae
Second Vatican Council. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1963
Walsh, James J. The Thirteenth: the Greatest of Centuries. New York: Catholic Summer School Press, 1924 (first published, 1907). This is the source of the comments on the “Great Latin Hymns” in the first chapter. The quotation on the “Dies Irae” is from Prof. George Saintsbury, cited in Walsh at page 197.
Wiltgen, Rev. Ralph M., S.V.D. The Rhine Flows Into The Tiber: The Unknown Council. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967
I am grateful for permission to reprint lyrics from the following:
“Hallelujah”
Written by Leonard Cohen
Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing
1670 Bayview Avenue, Suite 408, Toronto, ON, M4G 3C2
All rights reserved. Used by Permission.
Anne Emery is a graduate of St. F.X. University and Dalhousie Law School. She has worked as a lawyer, legal affairs reporter, and researcher. She lives in Halifax with her husband and daughter. Her earlier novels were Sign of the Cross, winner of the 2007 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, Obit (2007), Barrington Street Blues (2008), Children in the Morning (2010), and Death at Christy Burke's (2011).