by Morris West
“No trouble at all,” said Hallett, and rang off.
Rossini hurried through his toilet, but he was still in his shirtsleeves when Hallett came in with his breakfast tray on which was a copy of the Ordo for the day. There was nothing new in it: two ballots morning and afternoon, the usual list of doctors, sacristans and confessors. Rossini scanned it quickly, then gulped down the coffee. It was a couple of minutes before he asked Hallett:
“Forgive me. I’m still half asleep. You wanted to see me about something?”
“This,” said Piers Hallett and handed him a fax message for the Vicariate office. “It was received at seven this morning, sent at one o’clock New York time.”
Rossini stared at the paper for a long time, then read the message aloud as if to assure himself that it was authentic.
Senor Raul Ortega and his daughter Luisa ask me to inform your Eminence that the Señora Isabel Ortega, a patient in this hospital, passed away at 2230 hours this evening. She was under heavy sedation and her end was peaceful. The family will be in further contact with you in due course. Signed OlafWintergroen, Doctors Hospital.
“I’m sorry,” said Hallett. “If there’s anything I can do?”
“There is,” said Rossini. “Show the message to the Camerlengo and the Secretary of State. Ask them to keep the news to themselves. Tell them I’ll see them at the first ballot.”
“Yes, Eminence,” said Hallett and went out, closing the door behind him.
Rossini stood staring after him. Then, slowly, he turned to the prie-dieu. He did not kneel but stood, staring at the figure of the crucified nailed to the white wall above it. In a tone flat and almost conversational, he addressed himself to the Christus.
“So, she went without pain. Thank You for that, if You arranged it. Now, if You’re so disposed, I’d like You to talk to me – given, of course, that You are truly there and not a cosmic fiction. This is our last chance at a dialogue, You see. I’ve run out of words, and blood and tears. I’m emptied out of everything. If You have nothing to say to me, let’s not talk any more. Let’s make no more arguments. I’ll play out this pompous drama and be gone from here. I’m only human. You know what that’s like, don’t You? We’re limited creatures. You can’t blow us up like balloons to infinite dimensions. Even You gave up at the end, didn’t You? You said: ‘Enough is enough. It’s finished!’ That’s what I’m saying now. Except I still owe You a debt for Isabel. I’d like to settle that. So, if You’re there, talk to me, please!”
“He’s in shock!” Monsignor Hallett, the languid Englishman, confronted the two most senior prelates in the Universal Church. “He won’t admit it. He can’t admit it. You’ll never read it in that great stone face of his, but, gentlemen, you’d better believe it! He needs help, and in this Church of ours, we’re not very good at giving it any more.”
“You’re out of order, Monsignor Hallett.” The Camerlengo was offended.
“No, he’s not,” said the Secretary of State, “he’s reminding us of simple charity. Rossini needs brothers and sisters to nurse him through the loss. We’ve lost the art of doing that. Our sisters are too busy claiming back the rights we’ve denied them. Our brothers are too busy putting the remnant Church together. Listen to me, Hallett! Stay close to him. If you have to, break a few rules to do it – look after him. Please!”
“I’ll do the best I can, Eminence,” said Hallett gravely, “but this is a man who has had his heart torn out twice, while he’s still alive. What’s the remedy for that in the Rituale Romanum?”
“There’s a formula but no remedy,” said the Secretary of State. “Go back to him. Stay as close as you can all day. Baldassare and I will talk about this.”
“I don’t know what there is to talk about,” said the Camerlengo curtly. “People die every day. We offer our sympathy, our support, our prayers, our share in the saving merits of Christ. What more can we do?”
“For Christ’s sake!” Hallett cursed softly. “For Christ’s sweet sake! How we Christians love each other!”
“You are dismissed, Monsignor Hallett.” The Camerlengo’s tone was cold. Hallett bowed and walked away without a word. The Secretary of State shook his head.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Baldassare. He’s a faithful friend. He spoke his mind for our friend Luca.”
“I know! I know! I’ll apologise later. I’m worried, Turi. What happens now at our ballot?”
“Perhaps,” said the Secretary of State, “just perhaps this is the intervention of the Spirit we have prayed for.”
“What do we say to Rossini?”
“Nothing, until he decides to open himself to us. He is a man of steel, this one! He will do what he has promised. We should not try to dictate how he does it.”
“They’ll be calling us to the Chapel in twenty minutes. We have to have some kind of plan.”
“Why not leave the outcome to God,” said the Secretary of State.
“I wish I had enough faith,” said the Camerlengo gloomily. “I think I’ve been too long in Rome.”
Before the first morning vote began, the Secretary of the conclave made an announcement:
“The Apostolic Constitution provides that if, after an extended series of ballots, a candidate has not been elected, the election shall be decided by a simple majority of the voters. Now we have arrived at another situation altogether. Two candidates only remain in contention. I have a proposal to make to you which, I am advised, conforms to the spirit if not to the letter of the Apostolic Constitution. I propose that this ballot be decided by simple majority. You are free to decide otherwise, and to work strictly to the rule of an absolute majority of two-thirds plus one. However, with two candidates it would seem to serve little good purpose. I ask you to signify your assent by a show of hands.”
It took a little time for them to declare themselves, but finally all hands were raised.
“Good,” said the Secretary. “The scrutineers will be his Eminence from New York and his Eminence from Munich. They will be assisted by their colleagues from Sydney and from Paris. Let us invoke the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
Luca Rossini raised his voice with the others in the solemn invocation. “Come, O Creator Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your love.”
It was a prayer that reached deep into the heart of the most ancient Trinitarian beliefs of Christianity, and stretched out to include the most primitive apprehensions of a deity abiding in all creation. It called for light in darkness, fire in a cold world, healing for the wounds of life. Time was when Rossini related all that it signified to Isabel. Once, among the Greeks, he had preached a passionate sermon on the feminine elements implicit in the mystery. Now the memory of it rustled like dead leaves in a parching wind.
The solemn exercise in which he was engaged was a theatrical irrelevance. He could hardly wait to be done with it. He printed the name of his candidate on the ballot paper and took his place in the line to lay it on the paten and recite the affirmation that he had chosen in good faith the best possible candidate.
He watched, dull-eyed and indifferent, as the four scrutineers checked and rechecked the ballot papers, and when the count was agreed initialled the figures and handed them to the Secretary of the conclave. The Secretary then turned to the assembly and announced that his Eminence Cardinal Luca Rossini had been elected Bishop of Rome and successor to Peter Prince of the Apostles by a majority of two votes.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then a burst of clapping which was stilled instantly by the Secretary of the conclave.
“Please! Not yet! There is still a necessary formality.”
He walked down the nave and stood facing Luca Rossini, who sat rigid as a carved figure in his stall. Then, in a loud voice, the Secretary put the question:
“Acceptasne electionem? Do you accept election?”
Slowly, very slowly, Luca Rossini rose in his place and faced the assembly. The look of him, the rigid stance, the lif
t of his head, the fall of the light on his lean and anguished face reduced them all to silence. His utterance was that of a doomsayer pronouncing his own damnation.
“My answer is no! I do not accept. I cannot accept. I am not fit for this office. I know that I should crack under the burdens of it. You may ask, as you have a right to do, why I presented myself as a candidate in the first place. The answer to that is very simple. Certain of my brethren, your brethren, wanted me to withdraw because of a brief association with a married woman who saved my life in Argentina, and for whom ever since I have had a deep and constant love. The late Holy Father was aware of these things. They were not secrets of which I was, or am, ashamed. I accepted the penances laid upon me – a permanent exile from my homeland, honours beyond my deserving, a discipline of silence about what had been done in my country and the connivance of my Church, your Church, my brothers, in what was done. My rank made me a candidate in this election. I would not consent to any further abridgements of my rights in the Church or out of it. I did not expect to be chosen. The anger you hear in my voice disqualifies me from the office you offer me, because although I have learned to control it, I have not purged it altogether.
“One more matter, the woman I have loved so long in absence died last night in New York. I was given the news at seven this morning. In my first agony many years ago, I had little time for healing and grieving. Now, I confess, I need it. That need is measure of my weakness and not of my strength. The very ground of my belief quakes under my feet. I am not the man you want. I am not the man you need. He stands opposite me: our brother from Milan. I do not know what formalities are needed to ratify him, but I know I have a right to acclaim him, and to urge you to confirm him in the place you have offered to me. He is my old master. He is a wise man. I believe he can heal the wounds which afflict the Church and reunite us all in the charity of Christ. We need that. We need to rule a line under the past and begin again what is our true task to demonstrate in our own lives the saving Gospel. I beg you all to accept this man. Give him the votes you dedicated to me, who is so much less deserving. Rise and proclaim your acceptance. Let yourselves be seen and heard.”
The Camerlengo and the Secretary of State were the first to rise, then the demonstration began. The others rose by fives and tens and twenties, until no one was left seated and everyone was applauding as the Secretary repeated the question he had put first to Rossini.
“Acceptasne electionem?”
To which the answer came back, firm and clear.
“I accept.”
They applauded him again, but this time he stilled them with upraised hands, conferred briefly with the Camerlengo and then announced:
“I should like this to be seen as my first act as head of this family. Let us pray for our departed sister, Isabel Ortega, whom God has already welcomed home. Let us pray for our grieving brother, Luca Rossini, that he may come soon to peace, through Christ our Lord.”
The murmured “Amen” rippled through the chapel like a homing wave. Then the new Pontiff crossed the floor to embrace Rossini. The Secretary to the conclave hurried to intercept him.
“Please, Holiness! There is still the question of the name by which you wish to be called. We have to make the announcement to the people and to the world.”
“First I need a moment for my friend Luca.”
The Secretary stepped back. The other prelates kept their distance, noting every detail of the scene, trying without success to hear the quiet dialogue.
“How are you feeling, Luca?”
“Very strange! Like the blind man in the tree, hearing the crowds moving and shouting as Jesus passed, but seeing nothing.”
“But He will see you and He will open your eyes again.”
“I hope so. I have no certainty anymore.”
“My door will be always open to you, as it was in the old days. You put me here. I’m going to need your help.”
“Thank you, Holiness, but for now I need to go away and be quiet and unknown. Will you grant me leave?”
“As much as you need. Later, when you are ready to come back, tell me.”
“Thank you, Holiness.”
“Is there anything else?”
“A speedy release for a cleric whom I have been counselling. He’s a good man, but he is not happy in the ministry. It will be better for him and for the Church if he is out of it.”
“Send me the papers. I will expedite them. Anything else?”
Rossini fished in the pocket of his soutane and brought out the package with the gold medallion in it.
“Would you bless this, please. It’s just a medallion.”
“For someone special?”
“You could say that, Holiness. She’s a campfire girl from the via Flaminia. I’m sure she’ll be back there one day; she’s just as sure the Madonna will protect her. That’s only part of the story.”
“The rest of it you will tell me when you come back. Be sure I am expecting you. Go with God and come safely home.”
“Be kind to your people, Holiness,” said Luca Rossini. “They live in a rough world. They are often afraid and lonely. They need a caring shepherd.”
Clareville
1996–1998