Strange Gods

by Peter J. Daly

  “A lot of medieval silliness, if you ask me,” said Miriam. “The bishop parades around Bruges with a vial that they claim contains Christ’s blood. They keep it in a church off the town square in Bruges. It’s big for tourist business in Bruges.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Maria mentioned that,” said Brigid. “Has Bernard’s group ever been charged with anything serious?”

  “Not so far,” answered Miriam. “They have been arrested for nuisance things like the Holy Blood procession. However, I wouldn’t put it past them. In the past year, there were some Church arsons in parishes around Belgium and Ireland where there had been pedophile priests. Remember when we mentioned this to him? He said he was cleared of all charges.” Miriam paused for a second and continued. “Somebody even planted a bomb in the cathedral in Bruges, but it was found before it exploded. Bernard’s group is getting increasingly angry, and they’re funded by someone. Probably someone from outside Belgium. Bernard has many close ties to people in Italy. He comes here frequently. So, I wouldn’t say it was impossible that he would be violent.”

  Brigid nodded. “Maybe I can find out who is funding them,” she said.

  Miriam paused a moment and lowered her voice. “About a year ago, the old cardinal in Kinshasa, Patrice Musaku, who had transferred Bernard out of the Congo, died in a fire. Some people told me that Bernard seemed very pleased when he heard about it and that he seemed to know many details about the fire. Nothing was ever proven. I hate to even think such a thing, but I wouldn’t say it was beyond the realm of possibility.” Brigid nodded.

  The women sat in silence for a few seconds, contemplating the seriousness of the charge. They watched a school of ducks paddle past on the little pond nearby. The ducks swam out to the little island on which stood the faux temple of Aesculapius. The ducks ignored the sign forbidding their climb at the water’s edge, Vietato Salire, and hopped up on the shore of the little island.

  “Look at that,” said Miriam to Brigid. “Even mother birds know how to protect their young. It’s hard to believe that Holy Mother the Church didn’t protect her young.

  “Maybe if there were some women bishops or priests, the Church would have a different attitude about this,” said Miriam. “The fact is, the men who get to be bishops these days are more worried about protecting their careers and the Church, as an institution, than they are about protecting their people. For them it is all about career and power. It’s not about shepherding. And you know, Brigid, as strange as it may seem, Bernard has always been a shepherd. I think he has an almost pathological hatred for shepherds who have betrayed their people.

  “The scandal that started in America added fuel to the fire that has been burning inside Bernard for all these years.” Miriam paused in reflection.

  It was getting a little cool sitting in the shade. Brigid suggested they walk around the park. They headed in the direction of the great riding center called the Galoppatoio. The Italian national police were practicing for an equestrian show there, vested in their formal livery. The two women joined a small crowd watching the white horses, the policemen in their red plumed hats and their blue capes with scarlet lining. It was a mixture of color, elegance, and danger.

  Brigid remarked, “If this is typical of Rome, it is not hard to see where the Church gets its love of show. It seems ingrained pretty deep in the Italian culture. Look at these policemen.”

  “Have you been to Rome before?” asked Miriam.

  “No,” said Brigid.

  “Well, you should try to see some of the sights while you’re here. Not just the Church stuff, but the historical things like the Roman Forum and the Coliseum. See the catacombs and the churches of the early martyrs. When you study history, you find out that women have been central to the life of the Church all the way along. Many of the martyrs were women. The early house churches were dependent on women.”

  “What is this meeting that brings you to Rome?” asked Brigid.

  “It’s called a general chapter for my religious congregation,” said Miriam.

  “What does that mean?” asked Brigid.

  “Well, each province sends a representative to this meeting every few years to discuss our religious community.”

  “I thought you were a nun,” said Brigid.

  “I am,” said Miriam. “A religious nun.”

  “Aren’t all nuns religious?” asked Brigid.

  “Well, what we mean by religious is that we are women who live out in the world, but adopted a religious rule for our lives. We do many different jobs, but we all keep the rule of prayer and self-discipline. Strictly, a nun is someone who lives in a cloistered convent.”

  “Are there many women left in your religious community?” asked Brigid. Like any good lawyer, she picked up quickly on terminology.

  “Not so many anymore,” said Miriam. “Each year we are fewer and fewer. I guess we’ll die out soon. Some laywomen will have to carry on our witness and life. But something new will come along. There will always be women who want to live together and pray and do good work.

  “Shall we keep walking over to the Spanish Steps?” asked Miriam.

  “That would be wonderful,” said Brigid, who was enjoying her tour and just being with Miriam. “I read in a guidebook that Keats and Shelley used to go to a coffee bar at the foot of the Spanish Steps. We could get lunch there.”

  The two women wandered off into the street theater that is Rome.

  25

  NEW PENTECOST

  ASKED TO DESCRIBE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, JAMES JOYCE answered, “Here comes everybody.”

  Pope Thomas’s funeral was on a Saturday, the ninth day after his death. It was a collection of everybody. Heads of state, diplomats, and monarchy were all mixed in with pickpockets, gypsies, street sweepers, and journalists. Just about everybody found a place in St. Peter’s Square, even the unbeliever. Whatever one’s faith, it was a great spectacle. Romans love the circus.

  Nate had received tickets from Cardinal O’Toole’s office for the funeral, but their passes only got Nate, Brigid, and Sister Miriam up to the first row of barricades at the foot of the steps leading into St. Peter’s Basilica. They squeezed their way up to a spot along one of the wooden barriers in the front of the piazza. Behind them, a crush of humanity sandwiched them all together, leading the nun to remark, “It’s certainly nice to meet you, Nate, but I didn’t expect it to be this intimate.”

  Their little pied-a-terre was just to the right of the main entrance of St. Peter’s Basilica, in front of the statue of St. Paul. If they looked up at the façade of the great church, they could see one of the giant clocks that faced the square. Apart from mere symmetrical balance, there is really no reason the façade of the Church should have two clocks. Ironically, they never show the same time. One is usually ten minutes ahead of the other. They show that the Church is completely unconcerned with the correct time. Just like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, the time is whatever time they say it is. If you asked the cardinals and bishops processing into the funeral, they would say the correct time was the twelfth century.

  Nate had promised to hold a spot for the Tracys, who had just arrived in Rome the night before, but finding it impossible to keep his promise, Nate called Tracy on his cell phone. “Bill, we’re in front of the statue of St. Paul, but I don’t know how you will find us in this crowd. We’ll connect with you later at the hotel.”

  “OK,” said Tracy. “We’re too tired to push our way to the front. See you later.”

  Papal funerals are held in St. Peter’s Square to allow half a million people to attend. While everyone may be physically present in the square, they do not all have the same experience. Some can see and hear virtually nothing, while others are caught up in the details of the liturgy.

  A pope’s funeral, while gigantic in scale, is basically the same funeral that any Catholic receives. There are, however, a few odd wrinkles.

  For one thing, the cardinals vest themselves in red. At most funerals
, the priest wears white or purple or, in days gone by, black. The red signifies the blood of the martyrs, an irony that escapes most cardinals.

  Oddly, there is no pall placed on the papal casket as there would be at most Catholic funerals, where the casket is draped with a white cloth intended to signify Christian baptism. Papal caskets are bare, following a much more ancient tradition, intended as a sign of simplicity.

  On top of the pope’s casket, the presiding cardinal places an open book of the gospels, a reminder that the pope was called to preach the gospel.

  Customarily, the pope often gets three coffins. First, a simple wooden coffin, made of cypress, is used at the funeral. Then, just before the interment in the crypt under St. Peter’s, the wooden coffin is placed inside another made of zinc, meant to prevent tampering. Finally, both coffins are placed into a third casket made of walnut, which is engraved with the deceased pope’s coat of arms.

  The simple cypress casket is meant to show that at least in death, if not in life, the pope was a poor man. When Catholics stand before their maker, they would much rather that God think of them as poor than rich. After all, as the Bible states, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

  Just about the last prayer said at every Catholic funeral recalls the story of the poor man, Lazarus, who starved to death at the gate of the rich man. In the story told by Jesus, Lazarus went like a shot to the bosom of Abraham in heaven, while the rich man suffered the torments of hell. In the mind of Jesus, poor was better than rich.

  * * *

  The funeral for Pope Thomas took place on a splendid June morning, with hardly a puff of cloud in the sky. A breeze cooled the crowd standing in the bright sunshine. It was a perfect Roman morning.

  Brigid, Nate, and Miriam could hardly make out the words coming from the loudspeakers, but they did have the benefit of little booklets with the prayers and readings, distributed by the Vatican Press. Readings were in French, Portuguese, or Swahili, as well as Italian, English, and Greek. One thing about the Catholic Church; it really is catholic.

  Once Mass began, the crowd settled down, but communion time was chaos.

  Up on the platform, where the royalty and heads of state were seated with the cardinals, people lined up in orderly queues to receive communion. But down in the “mosh pit” of St. Peter’s Square, the crowd was much more Italian, every man for himself. Nuns in habits were the most dangerous. Under their skirts, they carried concealed umbrellas, which they wielded like weapons as they approached the body of Christ.

  Observing the scramble, Brigid said to Sister Miriam, “I thought papal Masses would be more reverent.”

  Miriam smiled. “Reverence at a papal liturgy is more an aspiration than a fact.”

  Hundreds of priests fanned out into the crowd to distribute the Eucharist. Like those around her, Brigid went for communion. Nate was surprised to see her receive the host. But then, everybody else received communion, including Hollywood starlets and atheist politicians, who were notoriously opposed to the Church back home. There seems to be a special dispensation for papal liturgies.

  Giving communion to half a million people takes a long time. During the interlude, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up.

  Even before all the priests had returned from distributing communion, the Dean of the College of Cardinals intoned the prayers of final commendation and farewell. Then the patriarchs of the Byzantine churches came forward in their crowns and incensed the body of the pope with clouds of smoke. Just as they concluded their ritual, a microburst of wind swept into the piazza with the force of a mini tornado. The more pious in the crowd might have thought it was the movement of the Holy Spirit.

  The swirling wind nearly leveled the row of elderly cardinals lined up for the final commendation. Lifting their vestments over their heads, the wind sent their miters flying through the crowd. Their little red zucchettos followed the miters, airborne like silken Frisbees.

  Blinded by the wind, with their vestments wrapped around their heads, the bishops staggered around like a flock of drunken penguins.

  Little children in the crowd caught the miters and the zucchettos and put them on their heads, pretending to be bishops. These newly minted “bishops” began dancing around with their fancy hats on their heads. Embarrassed parents grabbed at the children and tried to get the miters back.

  As quickly as the wind had arisen, it died away. Then the heavens above the square opened and let loose a drenching downpour, sending the crowd of half a million running for cover. The people in the best seats, like the diplomats and the heads of state, were in the worst position to find cover, since they were far from Bernini’s colonnade. Umbrellas proved useless. In a few minutes, the high and the mighty were soaked to the bone.

  The papal casket was hurried inside, while the cardinals and patriarchs, drenched to the skin, struggled to walk in their clinging vestments, heavy with rainwater.

  Nate, Brigid, and Miriam were so quickly soaked that it was useless to run. Besides, at her age, Sister Miriam was not about to sprint anywhere. They let everyone else flee ahead of them and walked in the rain the half mile or so back to the Columbus Hotel.

  Once in their suite upstairs, all three changed into hotel bathrobes. They sent Sister Miriam’s simple brown dress to the hotel laundry to be dried and ironed and had hot tea sent up to the room as they sat reviewing the events of the morning.

  “Well,” said Brigid, “every time Nate goes to a funeral, something dramatic happens. At least no one died this time.”

  “Maybe the Holy Spirit was trying to get our attention,” said Miriam. “The scripture says that God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.” She was positively giddy with the irony of the events of the morning.

  As soon as Miriam’s dress was returned, all dried and pressed, she prepared to leave. “I want to get home to the mother house and share this moment with my sisters. We have been praying a long time for a movement of the Holy Spirit; I think we got it today. It makes for a wonderful story.”

  As she went out the door, Miriam said, “You know, I think this is a new Pentecost.” She kissed them both. “Ciao,” said Miriam cheerfully. “Thanks for a wonderful morning.” She laughed to herself as she went down the long hotel corridor.

  Nate and Brigid found themselves alone in the room.

  Nate asked, “More tea?”

  Brigid raised her eyebrows and said, “I have something else in mind.”

  * * *

  Around 3:00 p.m., the phone in their room rang. Nate picked it up. It was Tracy. “Do you want to meet Peggy and me for dinner at Alfredo’s?” he asked.

  “Brigid and I are renting a car and driving up to Orvieto for a romantic evening. Do you and Peggy want to come?”

  “No, thanks,” answered Tracy. “At our age, Peggy and I are more interested in a bowl of fettuccini and a bottle of wine than romance. Have a nice time.”

  “Thanks,” answered Nate. “I’ll call you when we get back. See you at the presentation on Monday.”

  “Ciao,” said Tracy.

  While Brigid was in the shower, Nate went downstairs with the luggage to the concierge desk to see about the rental car he had reserved.

  The day before, when he reserved the car, Nate had specified, “I want something fast and sexy.”

  “Every car in Italy is fast and sexy,” said the concierge with a smile.

  When Nate got to the desk this afternoon, he asked, “Is my car ready?”

  “It’s right outside,” said the concierge, pointing to the little courtyard. Nate was immediately drawn to a red Alfa Romeo 4C convertible. It was definitely fast and sexy.

  Nate called Brigid from the phone in the lobby. “The car is here. I’ll wait for you in the bar.”

  A few minutes later, Brigid came into the bar dressed in an off-white linen skirt and an apricot silk blouse. Everybody in the bar turned as she entered. She came up to Nate and sa
id, “Are you my driver?”

  He was in love again.

  Getting out of Rome during rush hour is always a challenge, but getting out of Rome on the day of a pope’s funeral is nearly impossible. It’s a good thing that Alfa Romeos look good standing still, because for the first couple of miles, they were mostly standing still.

  Once they reached the autostrada, they opened up the car and it flew. With the top down, Brigid turned up the radio. They got lost in a ballad by Tiziano Ferro, “Il Regalo Piu Grande.” They had no idea what the words meant, but like everything in Italian, it was sensual.

  In two hours they arrived at Orvieto, a hilltop town of romantic dreams.

  Built on a pedestal of volcanic rock, it was once a papal fortress in the days when the popes ruled Umbria and all of central Italy. It hasn’t changed much since the Middle Ages. It couldn’t. There is absolutely nowhere to grow.

  The little plateau on which Orvieto stands, sits atop steep cliffs. The only way to reach one end of the town is by funicular.

  The jewel of Orvieto is its cathedral, with zebra-striped courses of white and black rock. It took three hundred years, thirty-three architects, one hundred fifty-two sculptors, ninety mosaicists, and sixty-eight painters to complete. It practically bankrupted the town, but today nobody counts the cost, since the cathedral is what draws the tourists.

  Nate and Brigid arrived about six that evening and checked into a room at La Badia outside Orvieto, a former monastery turned hotel, with stone walls eight feet thick and a medieval tower. Their room had French doors that opened out to reveal a view of the town on the neighboring hill.

  Before supper, Brigid and Nate took a walk through the maze of little alleys and streets inside the old city walls and took the funicular up to the town.

  Deliveries in Orvieto are made with three-wheeled ape trucks, which are really modified motorcycles, with a little flat bed on the back. The word ape means bee in Italian. They’re called bee trucks because of the buzzing sound their two-stroke engines make when toiling up and down the hills. The Condons had to step into doorways to allow the apes to pass.