Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  ‘From all this, ladies and gentlemen, you will see that the Holy Father, far from considering resigning, as has been suggested in some quarters, is as busy as ever trying to use the Holy Spirit for the betterment of the human condition, wherever it is needed. The Catholic Church is an international entity. The Holy Father feels that, in order to preserve that unique quality, he can never allow himself to be aligned too closely with one block of countries, one set of narrow interests. That is why he was in Rome yesterday, Hong Kong today and he will be visiting in the coming months many Pacific Islands, Israel, South America, Canada.

  ‘President Roskill has his political aims, and he has only two terms of office at most to fulfill them. Besides being a uniquely international office, the position of pontiff is also unusual in that it allows a man, guided by the Holy Spirit, to devote his lifetime’s effort in the directions where that effort is most needed. Despite setbacks, the many successes of the Holy Father’s policies show that the directions he has identified are indeed deserving of his, and our, attention. But that work is far from finished. We are leaving now to continue it. Thank you.’

  Bess, O’Rourke and Thomas had laboured long hours over that statement. O’Rourke had been in favour of the blandest mishmash, but Thomas and Bess had wanted something much tougher. In the end they had listened to O’Rourke and toned down earlier versions, avoiding comments on the ‘discoveries’ in Rome that Roskill had referred to. They would be attended to, whatever they were, on the Pope’s return. But still they had kept in Thomas’s firm intention to continue in office, and to continue working in the same way.

  And so, on the morning of the American vote, the New York Daily News was able to lead with: ‘Pope to Prez: I’ll not resign.’ And in smaller type: ‘I’m in this job for life.’ The Boston Globe said: ‘Pope works on, despite calls for his resignation.’ And, further down: ‘Looks forward to a lifetime of effort, helping the poor.’ The Straits Times in Singapore had a somewhat different perspective. Its headline ran: ‘Vatican cash for South East Asia’ with the subheading: ‘New help for Kampuchea refugees, a college for Korea.’ But the election was not taking place in the Far East.

  In America the voters in the north and east faced steady rain. In the south and west it was its usual sunny, self-satisfied self. Roskill and Fairbrother voted early, accompanied by their wives and their respective press packs. Both were asked on camera what they thought of the Pope’s statement of the day before.

  Fairbrother said: ‘I wish the Pope well. He is giving Catholics a sense of dignity. But right now I am more concerned that the voters of America will excommunicate James Roskill.’

  Roskill said: ‘I have only one thing to add to what I said outside that locked cathedral on Sunday morning. It is this: If I am elected again today, as I expect to be, I shall not need a lifetime to accomplish what I think is wrong with this country. Another four years will be enough.’

  And, as ever, the unexpected played its part. Shortly after Roskill returned to the White House, after voting, news came through that a US helicopter had crashed in Honduras. There was no suggestion that the ’copter had been fired at, but the crash had taken place very early that morning, in the dark, in what the Pentagon called ‘difficult terrain’. All the three-man crew were killed. Nothing overt was said in reference to Thomas’s projects. But at the back of everyone’s minds was the thought that the Nicaraguans were now more active thanks to the pontiff’s policies in the area, which had backfired. Roskill made a fuss of sending the men’s families his goodwill. He telephoned wives or mothers and called the men ‘heroes’. Later on, but well before the polling booths closed, tapes of the phone calls were released to TV and radio stations.

  The New York Times Business Section also revealed that day the sensational news that Red Wilkie had decided to sell the ‘Pietà’ by Michelangelo, which he had bought at the great Vatican sale. Wilkie was quoted as saying that, as an American, as the chief executive of an American company, he could not be seen to tolerate an attack on a US president of the kind made by Pope Thomas. A board meeting had been called and the decision taken that, with the company holding a valuable piece of art so strongly identified with the Vatican, the board believed it now had no choice but to divest itself of the sculpture, and would also be changing its company logo. With no apparent sense of irony Wilkie said he intended to sell the ‘Pietà’ through Steele’s. His encounter with David and Bess in Sicily had clearly riled him.

  One place where the election was watched especially keenly was in Rome, where Roskill’s call for Thomas’s resignation had been greeted with undisguised joy in many quarters. The President had refused to name the ‘leading churchmen’ who questioned Thomas’s authority and there was no shortage of speculation in the Rome press as to who they might be. In general two groups were favoured: the northern Italian cardinals, from wealthy commercial cities which had the same political interests as Roskill, and the traditional Roman families who had provided cardinals and Popes for generations: they had been against Thomas since the great sale of treasures. No one seemed to know what the ‘discoveries’ that the President had referred to were.

  For David, working alone in Rome, America’s election day was one of mixed fortunes. In the morning he continued to make his way through the Giacomo Salai file in the Palazzo Montaforno. The previous day had been one of orientation, finding the way the file was organized. Now he looked through the documents themselves. About eleven o’clock he came to a slip of yellowed paper with a red chalk drawing on it. It showed a young man with a head of tight curls. Someone had pinned to it a typed note. Translated from the Italian, it read: ‘Giacomo Salai: self-portrait.’ Except that it wasn’t. David was immediately convinced of that. Clearly the family which had had this drawing in their possession had been told time and again, probably by second-rate scholars, that this was a drawing by a third-rate artist. But the hair was too detailed, the profile too well-drawn, the shading showed too much attention to detail for it to be by Salai. Moreover, David knew another drawing similar to it: ‘Neptune’ in the Royal Library in Windsor. He knew it because it had been one of Leonardo’s drawings on Seton’s list for the Queen to sell. The image of Seton, with the new director of the Hermitage, Dorzhiev, flashed into his mind. Wasn’t he an expert on Leonardo’s style? David would now have to get some other authority to authenticate this new drawing, someone in the west. When should he tell the Montafornos? As soon as possible, he judged. If they wanted to sell, then obviously they would certainly welcome having it authenticated. If both things checked out – if they did want to sell and it really was a Leonardo – then his position at Hamilton’s was safe. The drawing mightn’t be worth the millions that Averne’s American collections were, but its discovery showed that David still had the magic touch. A Leonardo drawing was worth ten million at least. The waverers on the board would stick with him. He must prevail on the Montafornos to sell and he must get the drawing authenticated as soon as possible. As he left the palazzo that day, he inquired when Prince Alberto Montaforno would be home. He was the head of the family. David was told the prince would be back the next day: he was in Milan on business. A meeting was arranged for six.

  David headed for Gina’s in good spirits. If the prince would sell, then perhaps Michael Stone at the National Gallery in Washington would fly over at the end of the week. Hamilton’s would pay and he was the highest ranking Leonardo scholar in the west. David’s good spirits didn’t last. That evening’s paper in Rome carried the news of Wilkie’s proposed sale of the ‘Pietà’, through Steele’s. David felt sick. Now his job really was on the line. Even if the Montafornos chose to sell, and even if the picture was a Leonardo, it might not be enough. Even if he had really solved the Paris/London battle over the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ attribution, it still might not be enough. Although it brought Hamilton’s prestige to have an imaginative scholar on its board, that was an academic matter which didn’t show directly on the balance sheet.

  He sp
oke to Bess later and that helped. But she was depressed, too. ‘No one is interested any more in what Thomas is doing. All they want is his reaction to Roskill’s latest outburst. It’s sickening.’

  ‘But what about Massoni? Thomas has to do something about him now, surely?’

  ‘You bet. He’s finally seen the light. He’s going to strip him of his cardinalate. It hasn’t been done for years – we’re checking just when. It’s a lengthy process but we are going to announce it as soon as we get back. We have certain information about him that will force him out.’

  ‘Whose idea was it, for Massoni to say mass, I mean?’

  ‘Roskill’s, after someone on the White House staff had shown him a translation of Massoni’s article entitled “Excommunicate me!”’

  ‘Hmm. Everything will be so much easier for Thomas if Roskill loses the election.’

  ‘You’re not kidding. Look, darling, I have to go. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. Pray for us. You know, I think for the first time ever I shall pray for something bad to happen to someone, that Roskill loses.’

  ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pray instead that Fairbrother wins.’

  *

  The election was a cliffhanger, at least to begin with. Since exit polls had been outlawed, for the effect they had on other parts of the United States which were behind in time and had yet to vote, the first results didn’t come in until around ten p.m. eastern time, already three o’clock in the morning in London and four in the rest of Europe.

  David spent the early part of the evening in the flat hanging some new silks Bess had bought. There was a Florentine damask patterned in gold pomegranates, and a Lyon silk zig-zagged in silver and framed in red lacquer. Looking around the apartment, he saw now that there were photographs of himself here and there, though nothing yet of the two of them together. And there was a drawing of a saddle Bess had told him about. It was an invention of her father’s: it was safer, he claimed, than anything else on the market. But that wasn’t the main point. Bess and her parents had grown closer in recent months and that gladdened him: she was settling, more content. She needed action less, he thought, reminding himself of their conversation in Sicily. Bess had always been brave; with her background, her personality, her job, her particular form of solitariness, it had been necessary. Now it was less so.

  Later, he watched developments on television at Gina’s. She gave him a table where he could see the screen. It was the first time he had joined the TV watchers at the back of the bar, but it was more fun than being alone in Bess’s apartment.

  The first states to be declared put Fairbrother ahead. He took two of the industrial east coast Democratic states, while Roskill took a more rural southern state. Analysis of the vote put Roskill at forty-six point five and Fairbrother at forty-four per cent. As usual the ‘don’t knows’ would make up their minds at the last minute but the gap between the two candidates stood at only two point five per cent.

  By eleven in Washington, five a.m. in Rome, Roskill was leading by twelve states to Fairbrother’s five but the results were still going mainly according to tradition. David was still there in Gina’s having the first of what would be several breakfasts. The result mattered to Thomas, to Bess and therefore to him. Gina was there. She had been to bed but was up already. There were four others in the bar. Around five-thirty everyone was waiting for the Idaho result. The polls all showed that, this time round, Idaho was a crucial state. Heavily agricultural, it had always been safe for the Republicans. But Roskill’s economic policies, which had hurt Idaho farmers, had changed the alignment of the state in unpredictable ways. Pre-election polls had shown Fairbrother’s support as less than a percentage point behind Roskill: Fairbrother could do it, right in the Republican heartlands.

  The screen was showing an interview scene in Georgia. A local senator was discussing what had happened in that state, traditionally Democratic. Suddenly, at the foot of the screen, a line flashed up, and kept flashing: ‘Roskill holds Idaho.’ ‘Roskill holds Idaho.’

  And that seemed to start the rot. By one a.m. in Washington Roskill’s lead had increased to seventeen to six. Half an hour later it was twenty-five to six and Fairbrother seemed stuck. At two twenty-nine, eight twenty-nine in Rome, Fairbrother conceded defeat. The final tally, not in until much later, was: Roskill: forty-one states; Fairbrother: ten. And in votes: Roskill fifty nine point six per cent, Fairbrother: thirty-nine point one per cent. It wasn’t a landslide exactly but it was more than convincing, especially as the polls had got it wrong.

  Shortly afterwards the markets opened in London and they, like Wall Street later on, surged ahead as business breathed easily again. Roskill was to address the American nation later that evening on TV, in a special post-election broadcast. By then, however, his actions had already answered one of the questions everyone was dying to ask: would his feud with the Holy Father continue? As soon as he was shaved and dressed, after three hours sleep only, the first thing he and Martha did was to drive to Georgetown Cathedral and attend mass. This time it was open and the Bishop of Washington led the proceedings. Something had changed.

  *

  David took a break from Gina’s after his meeting with Prince Alberto Montaforno. He felt like celebrating so he went back that night to the small restaurant just off the Piazza del Risorgimento, where they deep fried the anchovies, the place where he’d spotted Massoni. He had reason to celebrate, despite Roskill’s depressing victory in the election. The prince would sell but only if the drawing really was a Leonardo. So David had tried a call to Michael Stone in Washington where, to his delight, he was told that Stone was already in Europe, in Milan, working in the Brera Museum and staying at the Hotel Principe e Savoia. He was in the shower when David phoned but called back soon after. Astounded at David’s news, he said he could be in Rome on Friday night.

  So, before the weekend was out, with two days to spare before the board meeting, David would know whether or not he had something to fight Sam Averne with.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The 747 seemed to race on for ever without rising, its huge wings swooping endlessly between the fringes of palm trees that lined the runway. Then, at the last minute, the floor of the aircraft sloped up and the shoreline of the Philippines became visible below.

  Underneath the flightdeck, in what would normally be the first-class compartment, Thomas had his office. Above, behind the captain and flight crew, the aircraft was converted so that the Holy Father could sleep comfortably in a large bed. The rest of the contingent, and the press, were in the back. As the seat belt warning sign was switched off, a stewardess brought Thomas some Pellegrino water. Bess strolled forward, leaning to counteract the upward slope of the aircraft. She flopped into a seat besides him.

  ‘Tired?’

  He nodded. ‘Flat out, very nearly. Perhaps for once I’ll be able to sleep on one of these things.’ He smiled. ‘You must be exhausted, too. I suppose when you are married you won’t be able to work these long hours?’

  She shot him a furious glance. ‘I haven’t let you down yet, have I?’

  He laughed. ‘What would I do without you, Elizabeth? You’re the only one who ever talks back at me. It’s as if we are married.’ They both laughed.

  ‘Here, have some water.’ He offered her his glass.

  She swallowed what was left in one gulp. ‘So, what’s your verdict on the tour?’

  Thomas stiffened. ‘You know as well as I do. It started well, but got progressively worse. The conference in Hong Kong was a great step forward. The college in Korea will attract many students and the refugee work in Thailand, though not very newsworthy these days, is still important. The Taiwan bishops are faithful, but I fear that, in consequence maybe, we will have a problem opening up China.’

  ‘And the Philippines?’

  Thomas bit his lower lip. The visit had been an outward success but they both knew there was far more to it than met the TV came
ra’s eye. ‘And to think Roskill persuaded me to help Sebbio back to power! Dear Lord.’

  A huge banquet had been hosted for Thomas in Manila by President Sebbio himself. Since Thomas had instructed the bishops to support him, Sebbio was, in effect, God’s choice for many voters, so he could not but greet the Holy Father sumptuously. But as a politician Sebbio knew that the power of the Church could be as easily turned against him and he was consequently about to begin a discreet anti-Church programme throughout the islands under his control. Religious education in schools was to be downgraded, the Jesuit university was to be closed, the Catholic bank was to be nationalized, the number of bishops was to be limited, their privileges reduced. None of it was official yet but the local archbishop had already been warned.

  Bess signalled to the stewardess for more water. ‘Now that Roskill’s back for a second term, we can expect the flak to fly even faster. How do you want to play it?’

  Thomas grimaced and lit a cigarette. ‘I must say I hadn’t counted on all this when I was elected. But I can’t shirk it. I’ve got to sort out this Massoni business.’ Thomas shifted in his seat and took the water which the stewardess brought. ‘But we must hold on, Elizabeth, to what we have been doing. The world doesn’t revolve around Washington, or Rome, come to that. We shouldn’t always be worried by our critics. We should remember instead that at least half the world is on our side. I’m sorry our enemies have to include Roskill – but there it is.’