Ally shifted in her seat and began passing out copies of a situation analysis on their opponent’s religious stance. It included a flowchart of the Archer family’s seventeenth-century ties to the Virginia Company of London and culminated with Archer’s conversion to Catholicism while attending Georgetown University in the late seventies.
“Archer’s message about religion isn’t just what he is—it’s how he came to the decision to convert. He’s sharing a spiritual journey. A narrative about having a genuine religious epiphany and how that has shaped the way he’ll lead this nation if elected. That’s a powerful message, sir. One that makes his faith a living thing, not just an entry on a fact sheet.”
Casey flipped to the next page in Ally’s report. It was an extensive biography of Archer’s life prior to entering the presidential race. Archer entered Georgetown with the intention of pursuing international relations with the State Department in 1976. It was the height of the liberation theology movement led largely by Jesuits in South and Central America, many of whom visited Georgetown as guest lecturers. Archer had been so impressed by their efforts that he joined the Peace Corps after graduation, spending several years in El Salvador, then embroiled in a devastating civil war. “Archbishop Romero’s physical body was killed,” Archer said in an interview with Time, recalling the violence he had witnessed, “but his spirit, the essence of his faith was not. He died defending the oppressed in the same way he believed for his whole life that Christ had done during his short time on earth. That moment was when I felt the call of Catholicism.” Casey could barely keep from rolling his eyes at the saccharine piety seeping off the page.
“Not only that, sir, but Archer’s religious conversion is tied to living in Central and South America helping impoverished communities. Even for Latino voters who aren’t Catholic—Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists—that means something. He cites his time there as the number-one influence on his faith and his domestic policy agenda, from immigration reform to stimulating job growth for struggling communities across America. It has the potential to hit us in two key voter pools: Latinos and jobless Middle Americans.”
Casey asked for the latest demographic research. A young man handed him a breakdown of shifts in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Voters as recently as 2008 were largely Caucasian and middle-class or retired. Eight years later the figures indicated sharp increases in the number of Latino voters in most of the battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio—critical states with blue-collar communities brought low by jobs lost to the global economy, and by widespread heroin addiction, and where voter frustration with the two-party establishment was high. Both factors could prove problematic for Wyncott.
Twenty-seven million US citizens self-identified as Latino and were registered to vote. That figure couldn’t possibly begin to paint a full picture of the distribution of people hailing from nations south of the US border; for every registered voter, there were bound to be others who were legal but not registered. Realistically, identity politics alone wasn’t going to be enough to win this race—not this time. Gerrymandering across the South, coupled with restrictive voter-fraud measures across the Midwest, guaranteed gains for the GOP. But twenty-seven million ballots was still nothing to sneeze at. Wyncott couldn’t afford to ignore them, nor could he disregard the inroads Archer was making with blue-collar voters in postindustrial towns.
“We used to think these votes were concentrated in coastal and Southern cities where we either had the vote locked or we didn’t. But now they’re in every state, sir. Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio. In every class stratum. Mobilized to vote for candidates who understand their roots and identity. And Archer’s message isn’t just resonating with them. He’s connecting with religious voters across the spectrum and in communities who feel left behind. So we have a bigger problem than why the Post takes his photo at Mass.” She closed the binder she’d been consulting. “It’s how to avoid losing the states we need just because Archer felt the hand of Jesus in El Salvador.”
She was right. He was embarrassed to admit it, but she was right. The campaign had a team working on outreach to the Latino community, but he hadn’t emphasized religion with them. That was a mistake. And this research showed that Archer was also gaining ground with Catholic voters of all ethnic backgrounds. When the meeting was over, he was going to need to follow up with his contacts in the Archdiocese of Boston. If anyone was going to know how to handle an immigrant Catholic problem, it would be John Cardinal Mulcahy.
CHAPTER 3
Bishop Owen Feeney contemplated the nature of death and its many forms from the billowy comfort of his leather chair at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC. James Ingram’s accident had shocked many in his office, Feeney included. At times like this, he relied on the refrains of his life’s devotion to explain away the fear and disappointment. Death, whether expected or sudden, was never easy. But comfort, he reminded the bereaved, came from faith and accepting the idea that whatever happened in this world—famine, war, even freezing to death on a quiet Sunday evening—was part of God’s plan.
His assistant, Sister Anne Marie, popped her head in the door for the fifth time in an hour to ask if he wanted anything to drink. Some coffee or tea, perhaps? But he continued to stare at a framed map on the opposite wall, barely summoning the effort to give her an answer. He knew he ought to be kind to Sister Anne Marie and let her go fetch him coffee. It would give her a sense of comfort and purpose, something to do instead of pacing in front of his office door clucking like a hen over how tragic the loss of his best friend must be. She was a relic of the Church—a particular kind of woman with middling intelligence and profound piety, who entered the convent intent on furthering the faith of others, but ended up serving clerics who ascended higher in the ranks of Catholicism than she ever could, all at younger ages and with more esteem.
At age seventy-nine, Sister Anne Marie had long outlived any ability to manage the day-to-day practicalities of an office as large and influential as Feeney’s. But upon the death of her previous ward, a ninety-three-year-old cardinal whose early-onset Alzheimer’s relegated him to the dusty halls of ecumenical research, she was so lost that Feeney took pity and allowed her to work for him. She ruled the halls with the sort of palpable anger reserved for women who waited for opportunities and respect that never came. Although the clergy all disregarded her blustering with mild bemusement, she routinely terrified the younger staff and, in particular, the interns in ample supply who came from Catholic U, Loyola Baltimore, Georgetown, and occasionally Villanova.
But now, anxiously watching Feeney’s face for a response, Sister Anne Marie broke into a smile entirely too wide, given the somber circumstances, when he finally gave an affirmative nod. “I’ll be right back, Your Excellency,” she bleated at the back of his head, which had again turned to the map.
It was an original from the eighteenth century, charting those parts of the world—Europe, Africa, Asia, and even South America—to which Catholic missionaries had extended their reach. Very little of the globe had been left untouched. The map was a gift from James Ingram many years ago, when Feeney had decided to leave academia and instead focus his clerical career on rising through Rome’s ranks in America.
The news hadn’t seemed to surprise Ingram as much as Feeney thought it would, and if he’d been speaking honestly (Did he ever? Even then?) he would have had to admit it hurt him to feel so predictable, so contrived, as Ingram might have called it. But then, that had always seemed to be the nature of their friendship. They had grown up just a few buildings apart on Kingsbridge Avenue in the Bronx. Knowledge, scholarly and human, had come to Ingram in ways that Feeney labored for many long hours to attain. Ingram could read the same passages from Saint Augustine’s Confessions during class at their Jesuit high school, where they both were scholarship students, and summarize the meaning so instantaneously, so concisely, that the instructors often marveled at his acuity.
His homework would be com
pleted in a fraction of the time it took the other boys. So much so that Feeney had learned to dread the sound of a basketball bouncing against the wall outside his bedroom window on the building’s first floor, and the singsong of Jimmy’s voice summoning him as he called out, “C’mon, Owen. Finish up and let’s shoot some hoops!” The syncopated thwack of the ball against the bricks pounded like a musical interlude of failure in Owen’s mind, a nervous feeling that followed him always so that even now, on those rare occasions when he took public transportation instead of a chauffeur, his heart twisted with inadequacy at the similar beat of the Metro train wheels thumping over the tracks.
What Feeney lacked in raw ability he made up for in hours spent at the offices of first his local parish, then the nearby monsignor, then his bishop, and on up the line until his admission to Columbia for an undergraduate degree in political science. By junior year he had announced his plans to join the Church, and not long after graduation, he was headed to the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City.
Years later, when Feeney announced his intention to transfer from a post at Villanova to work on governmental affairs for the Archdiocese of Chicago, Ingram had cautioned him not to lose sight of why they chose to take orders. “This map,” he said as Feeney unfurled the gift, “doesn’t represent the physical dominance of our church, Owen. It represents the strength of its ideas. That’s what lasts—through oppression, through earthquakes, through constant change. After we’re gone and the art, the real estate, all of it has passed into other hands, it’s the ideology that will endure.”
He thought about his last conversation with James, just days before his accident. At the disappointment on the Jesuit priest’s face as he addressed him. The only thing more infuriating than James’s disappointment was his continual surprise at the discovery that people were flawed, imperfect beings. “Flawed is not what I would call it,” Ingram had said at the time. “Flawed implies that some part of it is beyond your control, Owen. We’re talking about negligence here—the willful and deliberate refusal to act even though you knew you should have.” Then James had pushed a battered brown envelope across the table at him.
“You have a chance to do the right thing now,” he said. “Don’t make me wonder if you got lost in your zeal to become cardinal, or if you were this way from the start.”
Even if he’d wanted to give his full attention to the contents of the envelope (he didn’t), or to the loss he felt at his old friend’s death (he did), Feeney had more pressing matters before him. The gray accordion folder on his desk was bursting at the seams with issues that wouldn’t be ignored. Each day, more and more files arrived at the Conference’s offices. Notices to subpoena records. Notices of intent to file class action suits against this diocese or that, to file against this defrocked clergymen or his monsignor. Nearly ten years after the widespread scandal had erupted, victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clerics across the nation continued to file nuisance claims against the Church, seeking monetary recompense for some sense of security or comfort that would never come, no matter the size of the settlement. That was what he found so exasperating about the exercise. They should be looking for the answers in God, in his opinion, not a bank account.
“Which God would you recommend they consult, Owen?” Ingram had asked when Feeney called him to vent one night, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of claims and paperwork. “The one served by the priests who did this to them?”
Feeney could almost see Ingram shaking his head in that oh-so-disappointed way of his through the telephone cable. “Comfort for these children became unattainable the minute those priests touched them,” Ingram had said after Feeney’s failure to respond created an uncomfortable silence. “It’s justice they need now.”
Feeney opened the gray folder and began slogging through the most recent financial impact analysis prepared by their internal auditors. In a worst-case scenario, if judgment in all the current claims went for the plaintiffs, the Church was looking at a payout in excess of $700 million. This was on top of approximately $2 billion paid out over the past ten to fifteen years. He looked at a pile of papers on the opposite side of his desk—counterclaims, motions to dismiss, and filings citing precedence to treat the Church as a limited liability corporation, all prepared by the Conference’s legal team. Judging from that pile, stacked twice as high and twice as deep as those he’d just finished, justice would be a long time coming.
CHAPTER 4
The window announcing successful transmission of the file popped up on the laptop screen at last. The Economist piece had been filed, and Peter now turned his attention to the difficult task of trying to summarize the life of a man whose influence was seemingly too vast to be contained by words on a page.
He was rocking back in his chair, bouncing a miniature soccer ball off the wall, when Emma came in.
“I saw the news about Ingram,” she said gently. “Are you okay?”
“Okay’s a relative term these days,” he said without looking at her. He couldn’t stand to. Couldn’t stand that expression of hers, the way her eyes pinched together in pity whenever she smiled at him. “But I’m doing, and that’s something at least,” he said, throwing her a bone, his tone more dismissive than he’d intended.
Emma flinched. “A Patricia something from the college,” she began hesitantly. “From Ignatius—she, uh, called earlier.”
He wondered when Emma had stopped being able to complete entire sentences without stuttering. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, a nervous habit from her days as a dancer in high school. “She left a couple of messages on the home phone.”
“I got it.” He turned and looked at her. “I’ve already called her back.”
“Oh,” Emma said. She seemed disappointed that she couldn’t even be useful as a messenger. He wasn’t trying to make her feel that way.
“She called my cell. It’s the first time I’ve checked those messages in days,” he offered in a conciliatory tone.
“I’m writing a piece about him now,” he added. “A eulogy of sorts, I guess.” He saw her face brighten. She got excited over the littlest things he did these days, like he was an infant clapping his hands for the first time. He was swift to quell her enthusiasm. “I’m stuck on the first paragraph, so don’t even bother to ask how it’s going.”
“You don’t always know what I’m planning to do or say, Peter,” she said sharply. It was a nice change from the way she’d been tiptoeing around him for weeks on end.
He began bouncing the ball again. “I’m just trying to make some headway here and—”
“I know, I know. You don’t want any interruptions.” Emma grabbed the ball in midair as it ricocheted off the wall. “I don’t see how you’re going to get anywhere sitting here staring at a screen.”
“It’s what I do. It’s how I write.”
“It’s how you write an article, yes,” she said. “But this is different. Ever since I’ve known you, this man has been important to you. More important than anyone else, I think. How can you get that right from here? Maybe it would go more smoothly if you went somewhere else to write it. Ignatius, even.”
Peter felt a flush of anger and irritation rising in his cheeks. “Tell you what, Emma. I won’t tell you how to be a crayon shrink or whatever it is you do, and how about you let me be the writer?”
The words had their intended effect. Her body closed in on itself like the shrinking violet she’d been for months, but she wouldn’t fold without a parting shot or two. “Art therapy, Peter. I do art therapy.”
She put the soccer ball down on his desk, just out of reach so he had to shift position to reach it. She’d been winning that way for years, knocking him off-balance when he least expected it.
“And that’s the difference between you and Ingram,” she said, moving toward the door. “He didn’t just sit around writing about the things other people do. He actually got up and did them.”
He didn’t notice until he h
eard the sharp clang of pots and pans being unloaded from the dishwasher: this time, she’d left the door wide open.
CHAPTER 5
Miles away in snowy Boston, a package from Milton Casey sat on Cardinal Mulcahy’s desk. It contained the results of an independent poll conducted among Catholic voters about what they looked for in a political candidate. The information was encouraging. Key voter issues and trends among Catholics were easier to track than for most groups. A limited number of issues seemed to drive them more than others, and although economic policy was important, so also were moral questions routinely addressed publicly by the Vatican and its leadership in the United States. The cross influence couldn’t be denied, even if it was impossible to capture hard numbers on the full extent to which it drove voting decisions.
Mulcahy had predicted as much when Casey contacted him about the findings in Ally’s report, and Mulcahy suggested the poll. It wasn’t a long conversation; Mulcahy thought these things were better discussed in person. He’d assured Casey that the Church shared certain interests with Wyncott and that a meeting between the two groups could prove productive for everyone. Then Mulcahy arranged for Casey to meet with Bishop Owen Feeney in Washington, DC. “Owen’s the right man for this,” he told Casey. “Trust me—he’s got the sharpest business mind I’ve ever seen.” Casey was amused to hear him speaking about a bishop as though he were the head of a tech start-up.
Mulcahy wouldn’t be able to join them. His schedule was (and would continue to be) jam-packed with meetings, depositions, testimony preparation, and public appearances expressing remorse, all related to a number of sexual-abuse charges that had been levied against priests in the cardinal’s archdiocese. When the accusers first started coming forward Mulcahy hadn’t bothered to address them publicly. Throughout his many years in parishes around the United States, he’d encountered accusations and rumors before, but seldom accompanied by any compelling evidence.
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