Papal Decree

by Luís Miguel Rocha

‘It was Clement the Seventh who asked him to go to Jerusalem?’ Rafael wanted to verify. He couldn’t afford any misunderstandings.

  ‘Of course it was.’

  ‘What did the pope want him to do there?’

  ‘Note that Giulio de’ Medici was still not pope in September. He became pope only in November, and Loyola helped him with that. The correct question is, What did the cardinal of Florence want him to look for there?’ Robin clarified, stroking his beard.

  Rafael waited for the answer. What the hell would it be? Robin delayed on purpose.

  ‘I’m dying of thirst from so much talking.’

  ‘You’re not going to stop now, are you?’ Rafael grumbled.

  Robin laughed lightly. He was enjoying this.

  ‘What was he looking for?’

  ‘Papers,’ Robin answered, watching the reaction.

  ‘Papers?’ Rafael was surprised.

  ‘Parchments,’ Robin specified.

  Rafael had been sent several times for parchments and papyri that the church considered important for one reason or another. Jordan, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, as well as western Europe. Sometimes as a mere courier, other times as a thief or buyer, depending on the case or who possessed them. There was a black market in manuscripts, Rafael knew well. It was more than probable that it had existed for centuries or even millennia. Given that Loyola went to Jerusalem to recover parchments for the church five hundred years ago, the idea was not unbelievable.

  ‘Loyola went to Jerusalem and returned shortly afterward,’ Rafael reflected.

  ‘It was extremely quick,’ Robin added. ‘If it were today, he would have gone and returned the same day. Considering the travel conditions in the sixteenth century, he traveled fast. He spent only twenty days in Jerusalem.’

  Rafael nodded his head in agreement. ‘So what were the parchments?’

  ‘Parchments that mentioned parchments that talked about bones,’ Robin said cryptically.

  Parchments that talked about parchments that talked about bones, Rafael repeated mentally. Nothing strange. Many of the sepulchers most visited by tourists in modern times owed their existence to information about their exact location found in ancient texts. It was customary to record in several places the locations of those who had departed this world.

  ‘You know as well as I do that Jewish funeral rites in Jerusalem in the first century were very different from ours,’ Robin continued.

  ‘I have some idea, but I’m not well versed in the subject.’

  ‘I understand. You’re more versed in how they put their dead in caves rather than burying them,’ Robin said a little scornfully.

  Rafael said nothing. He who speaks truth does not deserve punishment.

  ‘In general the Jews did not bury their own as frequently as we do, or didn’t bury them completely. They put them in tombs carved in the rock. There could be one or many chambers, well carved or not, depending on the owner or how much money he had, and they were constructed for entire families, except for the women who married into other families. They washed the corpse with water, always from top to bottom, so that impurities from the feet didn’t contaminate other parts of the body. Then they applied oils and perfumes. The corpse was wrapped in a linen shroud, a sadin. Sometimes they used expensive, imported, woven cloth, but we know that He was wrapped in a new linen shroud. This whole procedure was carried out by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, according to the Holy Scriptures. The arms were stretched along the sides of the body, and the feet tied before wrapping the corpse in the shroud. There was a clear separation between the head and the body. The head was never covered by the sadin. What covered the head was called a sudarion.’

  ‘A burial cloth,’ Rafael repeated.

  ‘This way, if the dead man’ – Robin sketched quotation marks with his fingers – ‘should come back to life, he would not suffocate. There are numerous stories of relatives who found their dear departed sitting up, waiting for them inside the tomb. One of them is about Anaias, who was found waiting for his family sitting in the tomb, and went on to live more than twenty-five more years.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him.’

  ‘From this custom in antiquity, the Byzantines began to install small bells in their cemeteries connected by a cord to the coffin. It could be activated if the dead should wake up.’

  Rafael knew about this custom. There was even possible evidence from very ancient European cemeteries. With advances in medicine these customs disappeared, but in Latin countries, where they interred the dead as quickly as possible, it was not rare to find on the lids of excavated coffins fingernail scratches of those who had awakened too late.

  ‘The Jewish custom was to keep the corpses in niches carved in stone walls in places called kokhim. Unless the death occurred from mutilation or execution, relatives always wanted to be certain their loved one was dead, and not in a kind of coma between sheol, the world of the dead, and that of the living. People were afraid of being buried alive. So they visited their dead for three days or more, not only to verify the actual death, but because this was part of the ceremony. They prostrated themselves before the corpse in respect and used lotions and potions so that the passage to sheol was made correctly. In any case, the subsequent visit to the tomb of Christ was a perfectly normal custom established in the Jewish community. The body remained in the kokhim for a year or more. Because of the geological and climatic conditions of Jerusalem, at the end of a year the body would be totally decomposed, and another ritual began. The bones were taken from the kokhim and placed in ossuaries, stone chests, normally engraved with the name or names of the dead inside. They were then deposited in another place in the tomb, another chamber or space, depending on how the tomb was constructed. No two tombs were alike. Also there were excavated trenches, the ossilegium, where the bones of previous generations reposed. It was not uncommon for the dead man to awaken during the ritual of three days’ visitation. There are even some who claim …’ Robin hesitated. Even for him it was a sacrilege to suggest such a theory.

  ‘That’s what happened to Lazarus,’ Rafael concluded for him.

  Robin looked disdainfully at him. ‘Do you also believe this theory?’

  ‘I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. It makes no difference to me whether Jesus rose from the dead or never died. I’m an arm or leg, not the head or heart of the church,’ he explained coolly.

  ‘You’re the arm or leg because the church today doesn’t have a head. The society was always the front line and cornerstone of the Catholic Church.’

  ‘Perinde ac cadaver, Robin. Your oath,’ Rafael quoted with a sarcastic smile. He opened the book and leafed through it. ‘I’ll bet it’s here somewhere.’

  ‘Cut the shit,’ Robin swore, and got up and grabbed the Secret Monition out of Rafael’s hands. ‘Don’t give me demagogy.’

  ‘To obey the pope like a cadaver. Loyola’s fault. It was your idea. If it doesn’t serve you now …’ Rafael continued to provoke him.

  ‘You know perfectly well why it doesn’t serve us,’ Robin pointed out bitterly. ‘Ratzinger himself made his decision. You can’t blame us for that.’

  ‘I’m just saying you obey the pope blindly, as was proposed from the beginning, all the time, not just when it’s convenient for you.’

  ‘Fuck you, Santini,’ Robin said, furious. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Rafael controlled himself. He didn’t want Robin to lose patience completely. There were still things to explain.

  ‘Maybe you’re right. You’re much better informed about these things than I.’ He tried to calm their tempers.

  ‘The society always has the higher interest of the church in mind. History proves it,’ Robin argued, still a little irritated. ‘We went out on missions to every corner of the earth, converting more faithful than any other religious order, new people for the ranks of the church. We went where no other Christian had ever gone, and are still established there today. We preach th
e word of the Lord in the language the faithful understand, thinking about them, and not the costs. We invented confession, plenary indulgences, and gave the church the power of omnipresence. If the leaders of the church weaken and decide to betray us, should we continue to serve blindly?’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘Ad maiorem Dei gloriam is what the society proclaims, and not Ad maiorem papam gloriam.’

  It was not worth pursuing the argument. Rafael shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He wasn’t going to continue a one-sided discussion. It was obvious to him that the society owed respect to the pope, and once they depended on him directly, even more respect. There was a huge divide between the Holy See and the Society of Jesus, the white pope and the black pope. Which one was most powerful? He couldn’t say. His duty was to defend Ratzinger, and he would do it until the end.

  ‘You mentioned parchments that referred to other parchments that spoke of bones.’ Rafael returned to the subject that really interested him.

  ‘There were.’

  ‘Put it simply.’

  Robin sighed. This was the most delicate subject. He’d already told Rafael too much, more than he should have, some of which might blacken the reputation of the society and the good name of Saint Ignatius, but nothing compared with what was coming. Rafael had been the one to ask, and would be the one to suffer the consequences.

  ‘Since Jesus died, though there have always been questions’ – he searched for the right word – ‘what happened to him.’

  ‘He arose on the third day,’ Rafael objected.

  ‘That’s the fairy tale they tell in catechism.’

  ‘We don’t need any other,’ Rafael argued. One shouldn’t complicate what was simple.

  ‘It was good enough, Santini – in fact, for many years – but things changed with the Inquisition.’

  ‘The Inquisition is always to blame,’ he replied.

  ‘The Inquisition, as you know, created antibodies. The Jews, who had no love for Catholics, earned our hatred, a hatred that endures even today.’

  Robin continued to relate how the Jews who fled started actual expeditions to the Holy Land, sometimes disguised as converted Christians or even as Muslims. The remains of parchments began to appear. Nothing special at first, later parchments from Jerusalem, Qumran, Syria, and the Middle East. Miqwa’ot, tombs, ossuaries. The church tried to keep on top of these discoveries, paid thieves and tomb robbers to intercept whatever was excavated, but that Hanukkah gang – Robin’s words – always defended themselves well. In the time of Leo X in 1517, rumors were heard for the first time of the discovery of a parchment that identified the location of the tomb that held Christ, and that text mentioned another parchment that had never been heard of before … the Gospel of Jesus.

  ‘The what?’ Rafael asked, astonished. Had he heard right? He got up and took off his jacket. He needed air. ‘What parchment is it that mentions that gospel?’

  ‘The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.’

  ‘But that didn’t appear until the nineteenth century.’

  ‘It reappeared in the nineteenth century is a better way to put it. Loyola never succeeded in bringing it to Rome.’

  ‘It’s too much to take in at one time,’ Rafael complained.

  ‘Do you think?’ Robin asked, seated with his legs crossed and Loyola’s book on his lap. ‘That’s nothing. The worst is yet to come.’

  48

  ‘Manuscripts? What manuscripts?’ Schmidt asked, looking out the window.

  A downpour with heavy wind was pounding Rome. Below, in Saint Peter’s Square, a few brave souls tried to zip up their raincoats, and others ran under the arcade to seek shelter. Banks of black clouds closed over the Eternal City as if preparing for the universal flood. The tourists and faithful looked like insects scurrying from the water and sheltering under its immense roof. It was afternoon in the Vatican, but it looked more like night-time.

  ‘The weather’s not going to change today,’ William observed indifferently.

  ‘If it’s confidential, I understand,’ Schmidt said, excusing himself. He didn’t want to put Tarcisio in a difficult position. Whatever was going to happen was enough.

  William shot a constraining look at the secretary. Obviously he wasn’t going to share a papal secret with a simple priest, especially if he might cease to be one soon.

  ‘It’s confidential,’ Tarcisio confirmed uncomfortably. He wanted to reveal everything and let the logical, rational mind of the Austrian iceman analyze the case and come to conclusions, but he couldn’t do that in front of William.

  Whether by fate or divine intervention, Trevor, the secretary of state’s assistant, knocked lightly on the door and came in with a cordless phone in his hand.

  ‘Excuse the interruption, Your Eminence,’ he said fearfully.

  ‘What is it, Trevor?’

  ‘A call for Cardinal William.’

  ‘Who is it?’ William asked, approaching Trevor.

  ‘David Barry, Your Eminence.’

  William took the phone from Trevor, or, more correctly, snatched it from his hand. ‘If it’s all right with you, I’ll talk outside, gentlemen.’

  ‘Do as you wish, William,’ Tarcisio said.

  William left with Trevor behind him, and the two men continued to watch the heavy rain come down on the square.

  ‘If this keeps up, the Tiber will overflow its banks,’ Schmidt observed.

  ‘Let’s hope it stops. I’m going to pray it does.’ Tarcisio turned his back on the window and went to sit on the leather sofa. He was too old to confront the Sodom and Gomorrah that contaminated society. The world was going to hell, and at an amazing speed. To find young people capable of devoting themselves to more than video games and iPods was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Consumerism was the new religion and, with every day that passed, gained followers more easily than any other faith.

  A lightning bolt lit up the dark day for a brief instant, followed immediately by a deafening thunderclap.

  ‘God save us!’ Tarcisio cried out, terrified. ‘Sit next to me,’ he asked Schmidt. ‘I’m going to tell you the story of the manuscripts.’

  Schmidt approached his friend and held up his hand. ‘Tarcisio, I don’t want you to tell me things you cannot or ought not tell,’ he said forcefully. ‘Friendship should not override duty.’

  Tarcisio smiled. An admonishment like that could come only from Schmidt, who was always more concerned about the welfare of others than his own. Friends like Schmidt were becoming extinct.

  ‘Sit down, my friend,’ he sighed with consternation. ‘The problem is that I don’t trust William.’

  ‘Why not?’ Schmidt asked curiously, sitting down by his Italian friend.

  ‘I’m not sure he can be trusted.’

  ‘He’s a cardinal in the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church, a prince of the church, like you. He is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What more do you need?’ Schmidt argued.

  ‘I know his credentials, Hans. That’s not the problem, nor is his dedication to the church,’ Tarcisio replied, choosing his words carefully. ‘I don’t know what side he’s on or what his goal is.’

  ‘Is that your impression?’ Schmidt asked, almost condescendingly. ‘His methods have gotten results. Rafael has got information. The girl is with Ben Isaac. Skepticism aside, he’s given us a suspect, and what a suspect. The glorious Society of Jesus.’

  Tarcisio listened attentively. A cold analysis, based only on facts, relegating opinion and feelings to second place. That’s how Schmidt was. That’s why Tarcisio needed him.

  ‘Maybe it’s just an impression,’ Tarcisio agreed.

  ‘It is. He’s on our side,’ his friend assured him.

  ‘Let’s forget that,’ the secretary decided to change the subject. ‘The parchments I was telling you about were mentioned for the first time during the time of Leo the Tenth, specifically in 1517.’

  Egidio Canisio, a prelate whom Leo X named a cardinal, had a pr
estigious professor of Hebrew with vast connections in Jerusalem. His name was Elias Levita. It was he who told Leo X about a document that mentioned where the bones of Christ reposed.

  ‘That would be a disaster,’ Schmidt remarked.

  ‘Leo the Tenth knew that. He was an astute businessman before he became a man of the church.’

  ‘I know. He was the one who had the bright idea to sell indulgences,’ Schmidt mocked.

  ‘Don’t remind me. He offered a license to sell indulgences in all the Germanic territories to a Dominican, Johann Tetzel. That’s why Luther did what he did.’

  ‘That’s another story,’ Schmidt said, going back to the subject they were discussing.

  ‘Well, moving along, Leo the Tenth kept everything secret and appointed his nephew to personally investigate the matter.’

  Giulio, the nephew, understood that to control the situation they had to get the parchments and get rid of the witnesses. He had just the man for the job.

  ‘Who?’ Schmidt wanted to know.

  ‘Saint Ignatius,’ Tarcisio suddenly answered.

  The Jesuits, Schmidt thought.

  Tarcisio noticed the connection his friend was making. Rafael’s suspicion was not as crazy as it sounded.

  ‘Loyola completed his mission,’ Schmidt said, with a gesture for Tarcisio to go on.

  ‘The Society of Jesus was the reward. Loyola brought the parchments and much more,’ Tarcisio said thoughtfully.

  ‘The bones of Christ,’ Schmidt added.

  The secretary nodded, as if putting it into words was too painful.

  ‘Where are those documents?’ Schmidt asked.

  ‘The Jesuits are their faithful keepers. They confide them to the pope only on the night of his election.’

  ‘And the bones?’

  ‘Also in their possession,’ Tarcisio said, exhausted.

  Schmidt got up and went to the window again. Historical facts, holy men, prestige, legends, none of this mattered. Only information, validated with some skepticism. Feelings were inimical to thoughtful decisions. He paced back and forth from one window to another, from the desk to the sofa, comparing the facts Tarcisio gave him with those he’d assimilated the night before.