by Morris West
An ailing Pontiff was one thing – a brain-damaged one was quite another. How did you dispose of him – if indeed dispose were not too coloured a word. Towards the end of the nineties, rules had been promulgated to take care of the problems of ageing among the high prelates of the Church and, indeed, of the Pontiff himself. If he were incapacitated, either the Secretary of State or a majority of the College of Cardinals could declare him unfit for his office and discharge him with all due charity into retirement. This done, the Camerlengo was free to declare that the See of Peter was vacant and to summon the electors to choose a successor.
The rules were less clear on what to do with the retired Pontiff if he remained alive in a vegetable state. The worst case decisions would be whether to place him on a life-support machine and, if he were so placed by error or misjudgment, whose hand would switch off the current. The presumption was that the Pontiff would have expressed his own will in the matter of the excessive prolongation of his life. However, if he had left no instruction, who would make the decision? Clearly, it could not be left only to the physician. It could not be left to family because, in theory at least, the Pontiff had passed out of the circle of kinship. He belonged to God and to the Church of God. The prelates he had created were therefore the arbiters of his fate.
That, however, would be only the beginning. The press of the world would translate the Vatican dilemma into another chapter of the ongoing debate on euthanasia. As Rossini drove back to the city, this was the reading which he gave to the situation. If the Pontiff had not been moved out of the confines of the Vatican, things were still under a measure of control. If, however, he were removed to his usual clinic, the Gemelli Hospital, outside the sovereign territory of the Vatican, the situation would change radically. Secrecy would be impossible. Medical bulletins would have to carry more than the mere colour of truth. The media would suborn half the hospital staff to provide them with daily facts and saleable fictions.
The Cardinal Camerlengo was an experienced administrator, yet one of his predecessors had made an egregious mistake by trying to gloss over the details of the death of Pope John Paul I. That mistake had released a torrent of political disinformation and produced a world bestseller in which it was claimed that an American Cardinal, and an American Bishop resident in the Vatican, together with a Mafioso criminal, Michele Sindona, had conspired to murder the Pontiff. The scandalous tale was still current. The book was still in circulation. If the present affair were handled badly, new rumours would spring up and grow faster than the legendary beanstalk. This was another irony which he pondered amid the tumult of horns and shouted imprecations: secrecy created and perpetuated the scandals it was designed to prevent.
The homeward journey took an hour and three-quarters. By the time he reached his apartment, he was convinced that the security still held. He locked the car in the garage, changed into his clerical clothes and telephoned his office to send a limousine for him. Fifty minutes later, a guard at the Porta Angelica saluted him and waved his vehicle into the parking place reserved for senior prelates. Luca Rossini, Cardinal Presbyter, grey eminence of the Roman Curia, was back at work.
He hurried to the Papal apartments where a forlorn secretary sat guard in the Pontiff’s study, while the physician and the Camerlengo waited by his bedside. Pale and immobile, hooked up to an oxygen supply and the portable monitors, which for months now had become part of the furniture of the Papal bedroom, he still had the look of an old lion dozing in the grass but formidable to any intruder who might disturb his rest. When Luca Rossini entered the room, the Camerlengo and the physician greeted him with obvious relief. He stood for a moment staring down at the prone figure of his master. Then he asked:
“How is he?”
The doctor shrugged.
“As you see. Deep coma. We are administering oxygen. There is probably massive cerebral damage. No way to be certain, of course, unless we put him into hospital for a CAT scan and twenty-four hour monitoring.”
“Is the damage reversible?”
“I would say not.”
“So, at very best, there will be serious incapacity?”
“Yes.”
“At worst, a vegetative existence?”
“If we put him on life-support, yes.”
“Which is the last thing he wants or deserves.”
“I would have to agree.” The physician hesitated a moment, then added a careful afterthought: “It would be helpful if His Holiness has left in writing some clear expression of his wishes.”
“Did he ever express them to you, doctor?”
“Only in the most equivocal terms.”
“Such as?”
“We must wait and see what God has in store for me.”
“Nothing more precise?”
“Nothing.”
Rossini turned to the Camerlengo.
“Does his secretary have anything?”
“He knows of no document expressing the Pontiff’s wishes in this matter. There is no relevant codicil to his will.”
Luca Rossini looked from one man to the other. A small sardonic smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“I wonder what he expected: to exit like Elijah in a fiery chariot?”
The Camerlengo frowned in distaste.
“I would remind you, Luca, His Holiness is still alive and with us. We have to decide what is best to be done for him and for the Church.”
“Have you sought specialist advice, doctor?”
“Cattaldo and Gheddo have both seen him.”
“Their opinions?”
“Correspond with mine. There is irreversible damage. From a medical point of view, it would be simpler to have him in hospital care. However, we do understand …”
The Camerlengo cut him off abruptly.
“There are certain consequences, very public ones. The Pontiff will be outside the borders of Vatican City State. Those who treat him – though not the Pontiff himself – will be under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Italy and the constant surveillance of the world media.”
“If he dies,” Luca Rossini laid down a series of bald propositions, “we have no problems. We bury him with pomp, elect a successor and get on with business. If he survives, but is grossly incapacitated, we have to retire him. There are provisions for that in recent amendments to the Apostolic Constitution. If, however, he survives in a vegetable state on life-support, decisions will have to be made on when to terminate him and who will be the terminator of record.”
The Camerlengo challenged him formally.
“So, how do you answer your own questions, Luca?”
“Keep him here. Let him die with dignity in his own house. Do not attempt to prolong his life. Do not permit others to do so under any pretext. I will go on record that this was the desire expressed to me by the Pontiff himself on various occasions during the last couple of years. You, Baldassare, can confirm that we have had a rather special relationship. It was hard to define sometimes, but yes, it was a very special relationship.”
The Camerlengo was silent for a moment. Then he nodded agreement.
“It makes sense.”
“Eminent sense,” said the physician with obvious relief. Luca Rossini rounded on him.
“You still have a duty to perform, doctor. We need an immediate bulletin for release by the Press Office of the Holy See. It needs a special tone, a certain emphasis. How far are you and your colleagues prepared to go in stating your prognosis?”
“I am not sure what you mean, Eminence.”
“What words are you prepared to use? A massive cerebral incident? Beyond hope of recovery? Terminal? The end is expected hourly? What, doctor?”
“Why are the words so important?”
“You know why.” Luca Rossini was brusque. “So long as the Pontiff is alive and in the care of his own household, the press will demand to know what kind of care he is getting and how long he may be expected to last. Baldassare here and the Secretary of State will communicate w
ith the senior hierarchy. The Press Office will deal with the media. It is not my business to frame the statements. I simply indicate the importance of their terms. Do I make myself clear?”
“As always, Luca.” The Camerlengo’s tone was dry.
“And you, doctor?”
“I’m sure we can come up with an appropriate text.”
“Good.” He looked from one to the other, studying their faces. His own face was set in a stone mask. “Now, with your permission, I should like to be alone with him for a little while.”
The doctor and the Camerlengo looked at each other. The doctor told him quietly:
“As you see, he is deeply comatose. He will see nothing, hear nothing. He will not feel even the touch of your hand.”
“I want to be private with him.” Luca Rossini was full of cold anger. “I have private things to say to him on the million to one chance that he may hear me. Can that do him any harm?”
“Of course not, Luca.”
“Then indulge me, please!”
The Camerlengo and the physician hesitated a moment. A glance passed between them. The Camerlengo nodded his assent. The two men left the Papal chamber, closing the door on Luca Rossini and his silent master.
As they waited in the adjacent room, the physician remarked:
“That man troubles me, Baldassare.”
The Camerlengo made a wry mouth.
“What in particular troubles you, my friend?”
“There are so many angers in him, so much arrogance. It is as if he has to master the whole world every day – with whips and scorpions!”
“The angers, I know.” The Camerlengo was a careful critic. “I have seen him face down senior colleagues in the presence of the Pontiff himself. The arrogance is another matter. I see it as a defence. He is a man who has suffered much. He is still not fully healed.”
“And that is a constant danger, is it not?” The physician put on his mask of clinical detachment. “The unhealed wound, the unresolved crisis of the spirit.”
“Is that what you perceive in Luca Rossini?”
“Yes.”
“I have to tell you, my friend, that he is superbly competent in everything he does. The Holy Father uses him as a personal emissary, and he is, as you know, a very exacting task-master.”
“So what does that signify? The court favourite is always treated with indulgence. How do Rossini’s colleagues feel about him? You, for instance?”
“I find him distant, but loyal always. He will confront you eye to eye and say what is in his mind.”
“All of it?”
The Camerlengo was beginning to be angry.
“How can I answer that? You heard him a few moments ago. He was saying things you and I had not had the courage to put into words.”
The physician was instantly defensive:
“I have no authority here, Eminence. I am a physician, but I can only counsel, not prescribe, even for my distinguished patient.”
“You have already agreed the treatment,” the Camerlengo corrected him swiftly. “But Luca Rossini is not your patient. You should not offer an opinion on his medical condition or judgments about what you may see or hear in your privileged position.”
The physician reddened with embarrassment and bowed his head.
“I am reproved, Eminence. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. At this moment we are both under stress. Luca Rossini is wrestling with his own dark angels.”
He was sitting by the bed, one hand laid over the hand of the unconscious Pontiff whose skin was cold, dry and creped like the skin of a reptile. There were tubes in his nostrils and electrodes connecting him to the monitors. Luca Rossini spoke into his ear in sharp staccato sentences, challenging him out of his silence.
“You hear me! I know you do! This time you listen! You were mistaken in me. You believed what they told you: that I was the hero, the young pastor spreadeagled on a cartwheel in a little town and publicly flogged to terrorise his people and teach them that there was no power but from God and the Colonels were God’s voice in the land … You ordered me brought here to shame the coward Bishops of my country. You favoured me. You pushed me forward and upward. You made me a high man. You could not believe that I was a flawed man, a vessel cracked and damaged. I accepted all you gave me. I was so full of guilts, so full of shame, I thought I was hearing the voice of God. Are you listening to me? It’s the nearest I’ve ever come to a full and open confession and you can’t even raise your hand to give me the absolution I don’t believe in! But let me tell you just this once that I loved you – not because you were my patron but because you made me pay for every trust you gave me. That’s why I don’t want you shamed now. I’d rather kill you with my own hands than see you rotting on the vine like a piece of fruit. But you can do it yourself. Just loosen your grip and slip away. Please, please go!”
He bent and kissed the forehead of the silent man. He pushed himself away from the bed. There were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away, then composed his features once more into a mask, hostile and imperious.
Just before eight o’clock that evening a bulletin was issued by the Sala Stampa, the official Press Office of the Holy See.
At 1430 hours today His Holiness suffered a major cerebral haemorrhage which has left him paralysed and deeply comatose. A series of minor ischaemic episodes during the summer vacation at Castelgandolfo had alerted both the Pontiff and his medical advisers to the possibility of a major incident.
Certain interventions had been discussed by the Pontiff and his medical advisers. All were attended by high risk. His Holiness had steadfastly declined what he called the officious prolongation of his already long life by surgical means or by mechanical maintenance. He would go, he said, in God’s time, and he would prefer to go from his own house, rather than from a hospital bed.
It is in response to these clear wishes that nursing care, and appropriate neurological and vascular monitoring, is being provided in the Papal apartments. The Pontiff’s physician, Dr Angelo Mottola, is assisted by two distinguished colleagues, Dr Ernesto Cattaldo, neurologist and Dr Piero Gheddo, cardiovascular specialist.
All three hesitate to predict how long the Pontiff may survive. They agree, however, that the cerebral damage is massive and the prognosis is negative.
The Cardinal Camerlengo begs the prayers of all the faithful that God may be pleased to call His good and faithful servant to Himself.
Further bulletins will be issued from this office daily, at 1200 hours and 1800 hours.
Background material will be available from Vatican Information Service (VIS) in English, Spanish and French. The daily wire service from VIS will continue as usual.
“I wonder who cooked this soup?”
Stephanie Guillermin of Le Monde tapped the bulletin board with a scarlet fingernail and challenged her audience: half-a-dozen late drinkers at the bar of the Foreign Press Club in Rome.
“Who cares?” Fritz Ulrich of Der Spiegel waved away the question. He was into his third whisky and ready for an argument. “The man’s been working himself to death for years now. Finally he’s popped a blood vessel. What do you expect the Sala Stampa to say about it? They’re saving the eloquence for his obituary.”
“My point exactly, Fritz.” Stephanie Guillermin was not easily rebuffed. “This text is completely out of character. It lacks the personal touch of Angel-Novalis. My guess is that it was put together in committee and handed to the Press Office for release.”
“But who’s the committee, Steffi, and why would they intervene?” Frank Colson of the Telegraph knew the lady well enough to pay respect. She looked like a young George Sand and she wrote a clean classic prose, with a fine edge of malice. She lived in some style with a very rich widow of an Italian banker, so her news sources were exotic but reliable. Her readings of people and events were subtle enough to have earned her the nickname of la déchiffreuse, the decoder. She was flattered by Colson’s deference. She smiled and
reached out to stroke his cheek.
“The committee? Figure it for yourself, Frank. It had to be at least a threesome – the Camerlengo, the Secretary of State, the physician, with maybe another Curial Cardinal. Jansen comes to mind, or perhaps that floating mystery, Rossini. The document had to be got out in a hurry and it had to represent at least a token consensus in the Curia.”
“But why should they want to intervene in the composition of a simple document?”
“Because it isn’t simple at all, Frank.”
She had everyone’s attention now. Fritz Ulrich’s drink was suspended in mid-air. Enzo, the barman, laid down his napkin and leaned across the bar to listen. Colson prompted her out of the momentary silence.
“Go on, Steffi.”
“What have we got here? Half a page of flat banal prose; not at all in the usual style of the Sala Stampa. Nevertheless, it’s very carefully contrived.”
“To what end?” Ulrich was back on the attack.
“To answer awkward questions before people like us begin to ask them. Consider! They speak of a major cerebral haemorrhage, a massive incident. Why didn’t they rush him into hospital? We all know the monitor equipment in the Papal chamber is elementary stuff. They certainly don’t have a CAT scanner. So, in spite of those three respectable names on the medical bulletin, what the old man is getting is basic bedside diagnosis, elementary monitoring and home nursing.”
“What more would he be getting in Gemelli Hospital?”
“Wrong question, Fritz.” Guillermin was fast as a fencer on her feet. “When did you ever read a Vatican document that offered an explanation for any action – let alone an excuse for it?”
“Never in living memory!” Ulrich emptied his glass and pushed it across the bar for a refill. “So you are saying …”