The Good Shepherd

by Thomas Fleming

  Swiftly he sketched the background of the case. Some militants had occupied Parma Cathedral to protest the links between diocesan authorities and local banks. The parishioners of the parish of Isolotto wrote a letter announcing their solidarity with the protesters. The parish priest, Don Inzo Mazzi, signed the letter. Pope Paul condemned the protesters, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, Ermene Gildo Florit, immediately called on Mazzi to retract his signature or resign. It was the climax of a fifteen-year-old feud between Florit and Mazzi. The Cardinal had already made it clear that he disapproved of the pastor’s attacks on the war in Vietnam and his fondness for letting laymen speak from the pulpit.

  Mazzi turned the Cardinal’s ultimatum over to the parish community. They stood squarely behind the pastor. Florit suspended Mazzi and closed the church. Months of guerrilla warfare followed. There were marches on the Archbishop’s palace with placards saying, “Call off your fascist watchdogs,” police arrests of demonstrators, packed rallies in the Isolotto church, and a meeting of parish representatives with Archbishop Benelli, the Substitute Secretary of State. When a neighboring priest, Don Sergio Gomiti, expressed sympathy for Don Mazzi, he, too, was fired and had his church closed. Currently, about 300 people held a Bible service each Sunday in front of the still locked Isolotto church. Perhaps fifty people attended the official parish mass celebrated in a small chapel by a priest sent by Cardinal Florit.

  “They sent me up to mediate. The cool intellectual who would see both sides of the question. I am an intellectual, but I am also a priest. And that part of my being was totally converted to the parishioners’ side. These people are asking nothing more than the holy freedom proclaimed for the Church by John. They are good Catholics - better Catholics, in fact, than 95 percent of the population in Cardinal Florit’s diocese. I decided they needed support, not discipline, and I made a statement on their behalf. What followed was a nightmare. I was ordered to return to Rome immediately. When I arrived, I was told to say nothing more on the case, under the pain of excommunication. A week later, I was expelled from the Jesuit order and told to leave my quarters in the Borgo Santo Spirito within twenty-four hours.

  “All my papers, my books, were confiscated, my orphanage taken away from me, and I was told to report to the Archbishop of Reggio Di Calabria, if I wished to continue to serve God as a priest. For the last week, I have been living with friends in Rome. But this cannot continue. I must either go to Calabria or -”

  He opened his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “I’m appalled,” Matthew Mahan said. “That’s all I can say. Appalled. But what - what else can I say - or do?”

  “Would Your Eminence consider allowing me to return to America with you? I would be happy to serve you - in any capacity. You have, as I recall, several parishes with a heavy percentage of Italians. I am not afraid of becoming a parish priest. Perhaps it is the very thing I should become. But to be sentenced to it, to go to a part of Italy where all my Roman instincts will revolt at the mere sound of their Italian. I think I could train an ape to speak our language better than a Calabrian.”

  “You won’t hear any classic Italian in my downtown parishes, Guilio. The people are mostly from Sicily.”

  “But they are Americans. That is what I want to experience. To speak, to work with people who have freedom, or a hope of freedom, in their blood.”

  “Don’t romanticize that word ‘freedom,’ Guilio. It’s a reality. It means something. But -”

  “I will do my best to learn by your example. I can never forget that you -”

  He stopped in mid-sentence. Did he see on Matthew Mahan’s face the refutation of what he was about to say? This was too painful to believe. Softly, tautly, he finished the sentence for Mirante. “- were consecrated by John. But don’t - for God’s sake don’t expect to see a saint like him in these shoes.”

  “I know, I know,” Mirante said. “And tomorrow you will take an oath of obedience, of fealty to the new Pope.” He drained his drink. “You see I can’t even pronounce his name. For me he is - a usurper. A traitor. Yes, even a heretic!”

  “Now, that is ridiculous, Guilio.”

  Mirante slumped back in his seat, setting his glass down with a clunk on the table beside it. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re absolutely right. He’s the Pope of Agony. But for me, his agony is obscene. He knows but he cannot act. When he acts, he tries not to know. The Pope of Agony, yes. But also Punchinello.” He laughed bitterly. “Every night when I go to sleep, those lines from Giuseppe Giusti’s fantasy come into my head. Do you know what I mean?”

  Matthew Mahan shook his head. “I’ve never read him.”

  Mirante nodded. “There is no reason why you should. He was a minor poet, basically a satirist, who died in 1850. Most of his writing had to be printed outside Italy and circulated here surreptitiously. Those were the days when the Pope ruled the papal states, you know. At any rate, Giusti wrote this poem about Father Pero, a happy, simple priest who had been elected pope. The mere possibility of him practicing Christianity on the papal throne threw everyone into a panic.”

  Rapidly he recited in Italian.

  . . . questo papa spiritato

  che vuol far I’apostolo,

  ripescare in pro’del Cielo

  colle red del Vangelo

  pesci che ci scappino

  Questo e’un papa in buona fede,

  e’un papaccio che ci crede,

  diamogli I’arsenico!

  Matthew Mahan translated it for himself, losing the poetry but getting the meaning easily enough.

  Here’s a pope who’s trying to be an Apostle

  Casting gospel nets

  For the fish that get away.

  Here’s a pope who has real faith,

  A fool of a pope

  Who believes what he says

  Let’s poison him today.

  “That’s very good, Guilio,” Matthew Mahan said, smiling in the hope of restoring Mirante’s sanity, “but I hope you’re not suggesting -”

  “No, no. I am in an extreme mood, but not that extreme.” He even came close to smiling, but it faded away with the last word.

  What should he do with this unhappy man? There was an air of innocence about him that was touching. It reminded him of Dennis McLaughlin. Innocence and bitterness, with Mirante’s bitterness more extruded, more Italian. “Excuse me a moment,” Matthew Mahan said.

  He went into the bedroom and returned with his checkbook. “The first thing you need is some money. Here’s $500. It ought to keep body and soul together for a month or so. Write to the Archbishop of Calabria and tell him you’ve decided, with his permission, to go to America. When you arrive, I’ll have something lined up for you. Maybe at the university. Maybe in a parish. Our Italian-Americans are awfully conservative. I’m not sure how you’d get along with them.”

  “I see what you are thinking,” said Mirante. “This fellow has proved himself a fool once. What happens if he does it again in my archdiocese and embarrasses me? Let me assure you, Eminence, the loyalty of the beggar is to the man who lifts him from the gutter. So it will be with this beggar, I swear it.”

  “I’m sure it will, I’m sure it will,” Matthew Mahan said, too embarrassed to deny what he was thinking. “I just want to make sure you don’t see me as another John. I’m not. I have no pretensions to that kind of holiness. A bishop - at least an American bishop - has to run his diocese with the greater good of the greater number in mind.”

  He stopped, somewhat appalled at the implications of what he had just said. But wasn’t it true? Did all the emotion of the last two days wither in the cold, rational light of this premise? No, somehow both realities must be sustained.

  “That interests me greatly,” Mirante was saying. “Is it because the great majority of American Catholics actively practice the faith? You are not faced with the dilemma of empty churches as we here in Italy?”

  “Yes, that’s partly true.”

  “I am tol
d they are literalists. They take the folk religion and practice all of its precepts. But not the latest, on contraception. Why is that?”

  “Because it makes no sense to them. Even the folk religion, as you call it, has to be in touch with the heart. With their experience. Well” - Matthew Mahan stood up - “I’m afraid I’m too tired to make much sense on this subject. Let me know your plans as soon as you complete them, and we’ll do our best to make you useful. For the time being, I wouldn’t say a word about this to anyone.”

  “Of course not, of course not.” Tears suddenly filled Mirante’s eyes. “I can’t tell you how grateful -” He knelt and tried to kiss Matthew Mahan’s ring.

  “Oh no, please, Guilio, it isn’t necessary.” He helped the fragile, sad-faced man to his feet and threw his right arm around him. Where have you seen someone else do that? In a movie or - As he closed the door, he suddenly remembered. It was John. The way John had greeted him in the Vatican on his first visit.

  Driving through Rome. Darkened streets, then squares flashing with lights from every century. Neon twentieth. Renaissance candle glow. Beside him, Bishop Cronin was strangely silent. Above Cronin’s head, which only reached the Cardinal’s shoulder, Dennis could see Matthew Mahan’s somber profile in flashes as the lights alternately filled and fled the gliding limousine. You would almost think we were going to a funeral, Dennis mused. What was it Cronin had said three days ago? Wait till you hear the oath they take.

  The old boy probably knew what he was talking about. A Cardinal was the Pope’s man. It was a special relationship. Old Davey did not want to see Matthew Mahan become anybody’s man. Because he wanted him for himself? No, nothing quite so cheap or obvious. There was something mysterious between them, a common understanding that they shared about the Church.

  It was visible when the Cardinal came into their room last night and told them to forget about their trip to Isolotto. He and Goggin had been outraged, but Cronin was amazingly mild about it. I couldn’t agree with you more, Matt, he had said. No point in stirring up the animals. If they wanted to find out more about Isolotto, Mahan had suggested they call the Jesuit, Father Mirante, whom he had just seen. An ex-Jesuit, actually. But Matthew Mahan had wryly observed that he considered such a being a metaphysical impossibility. Once a Jesuit, always a Jesuit. “What do you think, Dennis?”

  They had kidded for a few moments. Then Mahan had become serious, almost sad, and had urged him to go see Sister Helen Reed. “Talk to her about her father. I’ve never seen anything so cruel -” He told them about his impromptu visit to Helen’s pensione with her father in tow.

  Go see Sister Helen Reed. An episcopal command, no less. Why had he tried to make excuses, while Goggin eyed him mordantly? Was he afraid of what might happen? Did fornication in the shadow of St. Peter’s dome guarantee damnation? Childish, mocking questions, along with buffets of intense anxiety. Torn between sex and your priesthood. When there was no conflict, no reason for a conflict in the new order, in the Church of tomorrow, where every act of love would be equally valued. Dennis squirmed in his seat, as if hands were seizing, caressing his flesh. He did not believe it. Too much history in his head. The mind, that unique analytical tool, mocked hope as well as faith.

  But he had gone to see Sister Helen while Goggin and Cronin were seeing Father Mirante, the living contradiction. Another lunch on the terrace overlooking the brown polluted Tiber. Helen was furious. There were only two women - two - employed in the entire Vatican. It was enough to make her consider becoming a Buddhist. She had not even come close to seeing Cardinal Antoniutti. A polite monsignor listened to her tale for an hour and a half, took copious notes, and assured her that it would be brought to the Cardinal’s attention. As for an answer before she left Rome - impossible, my dear Sister. The Cardinal’s duties - the week of ceremonies for the new Cardinals.

  Dennis tried to joke her into a better humor. He told her why Matthew Mahan had sent him. With enough money to buy the most expensive lunch on the menu. They would start with champagne. Then discuss the solution to their parent problems. He had a mother, she had a father. Match them up, and let them haunt each other. But seriously, her father was a charming man. Why?

  Yes, through all the mockery, the oblique intentions, there was a priest’s concern. What was it, exactly? Perhaps you are about to discover something essential. You are the enemy of cruelty, of hate, the apostle of compassion, forgiveness. Marvelous. So is Mother.

  So is Pious Paolo. What if that’s all there was to it? No matter who else was for it or against it. To find out the precise tone your own soul struck. That would be something above mere knowledge, or beneath it. Beyond words, those razors that always cut flesh to clarify.

  Then there were her hands. Leading you up the stairs to the blue-walled bedroom, the smoky Tiber flowing, sunlight on the quilted rose bedspread. Today what would it be? More half love, celibate caressing? No, no, no. Passion as the trembling hands shed clothes like leaves. Feet, legs, like roots deep in the ancient earth of Rome. No. Hands angry on the small snub breasts. Today would be the love of the man for the woman. Absolute, absolute, absolute sunlight and darkness there between her legs, dark hair, precious earth where seeds were summoned by nature’s blind will. What does God have to do with any of it? God is clarity, light, light, light. Why at the very climax was there a desire to weep? Poor old Goggin, a dry wind whistling through the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  Suddenly tears, a trembling woman in your arms. Hold me hold me hold me; please hold me. I’m afraid it’s sinful to make love that way. Hold me hold me hold me. Dennis can we really love each other?

  For the first time, the appalling truth of her woundedness. For the first time, a glimpse of what loss of love, mother love, then father love, had done to her. Then strength, amazing, compassionate strength flowing from you into her, strength of touch, of paradoxical tenderness, and strength of word, of promise. Yes, yes, had been the sure loving answer. Where had this strength come from? A mystery. Or was the answer sitting beside you in this car, the big bulky man in red looking mournfully out the other window?

  “Is there a reception after this?” Matthew Mahan asked. “I’ve forgotten.”

  “Yes, but only a brief one, our monsignor says. No drinks.”

  “Good. My stomach is killing me. Did you get anywhere with Sister Helen?”

  Dennis’s chest tightened. For a minute, he thought he was strangling. “No. She is - obstinately convinced that her father is the personification of racist reaction.”

  “God help us. What damn nonsense. Where do people her age get these ideas?”

  From the newspapers. But you will not say it, Dennis. No, the apostle of universal love will be silent.

  A half hour later, Matthew Mahan sat in the Hall of Benedictions directly above the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica. There were about 2,000 people in the huge room, and at least 1,000 of them were Americans. Their language predominated in the murmur of general conversation. The thirty-four new Cardinals sat on the right, the hundred or so senior Cardinals on the left. All were dressed in their red robes and ceremonial red capes and white lace rochets. Before them, on a platform about two feet above the floor level, sat Paul VI in white robes and a red cape fringed with ermine. Matthew Mahan had seen dozens of pictures of the Pope. Like almost every other Catholic American, he had followed on television his historic visit to the United Nations in 1965. But television images were no substitute for the living man. The television camera lied, just like every other camera. More important, those earlier images in his mind were faded with age. Now, at this moment in time, he wanted to know what he thought and felt about this man.

  The huge armchair in which Paul sat made him look almost ludicrously small. His feet rested upon two raised steps on the platform. The Pope began speaking in Latin. Matthew Mahan was dismayed. He had hoped that the speech would be in Italian. His Latin was a patchwork job, propped up largely by his knowledge of Italian. During the Vatican Council he had joined Cardi
nal Cushing of Boston and many other American prelates who had pleaded with the Pope for a simultaneous translation system, so that they could follow the debates and perhaps contribute to them in their own languages. The request had gone unheeded, and Cushing, who had no backup Italian to help him, had finally gone home in disgust. The Pope was talking about the place of Cardinals in the structure of the Church. He declared them to be of great importance. The task, he said, was to build up the Church. He called on them to serve, to witness, to sacrifice for the truth. Above all, he depended on them for their unswerving support of the Prince of the Apostles. He hoped he would always be able to say, “You continued with me in my trials.”

  As he had done in the previous consistory in 1967, Paul was reiterating his conviction that the College of Cardinals was no anachronism, as many leading churchmen of the liberal wing had been saying. Cardinal Suenens of Belgium had recently suggested that an annual synod of bishops or an assembly of the heads of the bishops’ conference in each country should replace the Cardinals as the electors of the Pope. Paul was giving this idea the back of his hand.

  It was easy enough to explain. Whether the explanation was sweet or sour depended on your point of view. Sour: The Curia had no intention of surrendering control of the Church to a bunch of unknowns. As long as they handpicked the Cardinals, they were almost certain to have one of their own in the Chair of Peter. True, the system wasn’t perfect. A secret saint like John XXIII might slip by them once in a century. But the odds were heavily in favor of keeping all heads turned to Rome. In line with this, Paul was obviously working on the principle, the more Cardinals, the more Romans in the Church. Sweet: When you have inherited a system that has worked smoothly for 400 years, you are not inclined to surrender it to critics who seem more than a little unstable emotionally and intellectually. Critics were hardly a novelty in the long history of the Church. Mater Ecclesia endures forever, the critics disappear.