The Accidental Pope (13 page)

Hardly had the media reported Cardinal Comiskey boarding the flight in Boston for his return to Rome when Father Farrell was back in the media limelight. His educated reasoning was broadcast around the world. He was convinced the new pope would be an Italian but made splashy sound bites by saying, “Cardinal Cushman of Boston, an intelligent and pious priest, is noted for his fund-raising expertise, and is the possible new pope. The Church worldwide needs to meet its humanitarian obligations with its limited financial resources, so somebody who could raise considerable amounts of cash is essential to lead the Church into the new millennium.” Farrell had certainly used his Chicago Irish political instincts to catch the media's attention.

11

BILL VISITS ROME

Not a little mystified by the reasoning behind Cardinal Comiskey's summoning him to Boston, Ed Kirby dutifully followed the plan as Brian had concocted it. He checked out of the hotel a bare two hours after he had registered, picked up a rental car, and made the hour's drive to the Lizzie Borden Café in Fall River. Ryan Kelly was to drive with his father to the famous restaurant, just off the main interstate that would take Bill and Ed Kirby to New York and JFK International Airport.

Kirby was well acquainted with Fall River and the city of Providence, Rhode Island, from his college days and had no trouble finding the appointed meeting spot. He parked directly in front of the entrance to the restaurant and, after taking a long look for reporters, opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A tall, lean man with a weathered face and graying hair, dressed in a dark suit, walked out to meet him immediately. He was carrying an overnight bag.

“Ambassador Kirby, I presume.” He grinned.

“Please, get in the car, Bill,” Kirby answered. “We're on our way to Rome via New York, Kennedy Airport.”

Bill walked around the car and opened the front door, stowing his bag in the backseat. In a jiffy they were on Interstate 95 heading south for New York. Ed opened the conversation. “Brian asked me not to give you the third degree, so say whatever you feel comfortable with.”

“Well, first I need to express the gratitude both Brian and I feel toward you personally. He never really thought his mission would end this way. But, just in case, he knew he would need you.”

“Bill,” he began, “Brian didn't give me much information, so I really don't understand what is going on. It is only a matter of time until the wrath of Foggy Bottom will fall upon me again. I'm glad, of course, that it is all for a good cause. I would hate for the desk at State to be right when next I get castigated for being too damned independent, or too close to the Vatican point of view.”

“I don't know what will happen in Rome,” Bill said. “But either way you will have done a great service to the Catholic Church. It may or may not be recognized.”

“Service is important to me.”

“Brian will explain it all to you when this blows over.”

“I'm sure. Now let me tell you how we are going to handle the TWA flight to Rome tonight and get off without attracting attention. Fortunately, you have a valid passport. With the help of Tom Meagher from Chicago, Chairman of TWA, we can board without my full name being entered on the passenger manifest. In Rome I'll get you through customs quickly, and we will go to my residence, called Villa Richardson. Once there, it's all up to Brian. I'll have done the job he gave me.”

“If this all works out, you just might be a hero down there at the State Department.”

“Are you kidding? Not on your life!” Ed snapped. “You never get rewarded for doing a good job but you do get punished when you make a mistake. Most diplomats unfortunately take the safe ‘middle' course and do nothing.” The ambassador chuckled to himself. “A former governor of your state and a good political friend of mine, John Volpe, became ambassador to Italy some years ago. When he heard I was going to the Vatican, he called me and said, ‘Ed, the career diplomats have foreign service degrees, but they are without either loyalty or common sense.' I have learned for myself how right he was.”

A long silence ensued as Ed drove along the John Lodge Connecticut Thruway that would eventually lead them to New York and JFK International Airport. Then the conversation continued. “I won't even try to guess why Brian is bringing you to Rome,” Ed Kirby sighed. “By the way, here it is October fourth and I see in the newspapers the Red Sox have missed the playoffs again. But the Patriots are four and one and leading the division.” Ed warmed to his favorite subject after politics. “You remember that year when my Bears cleaned their clocks at the Super Bowl in New Orleans?”

Kirby's switch from present circumstances to sports was a welcome change in subject for Bill Kelly. They talked sports and then some politics as the ambassador drove toward New York. Bill noticed that Kirby started blinking from time to time and seemed to be getting road tired. “Would you like me to drive?” he asked.

“No, I'll make it. One more hour and we'll be there.”

“By the way, when did you leave Rome for Boston?” Bill asked.

“Ten
A.M.
this morning, that was four
A.M.
in Boston. I checked into the Harborside Hyatt Hotel at about eleven this morning and called Bishop Murray. That's five
P.M.
in Rome. By the time I talked to Brian at your place it was after twelve noon. I got my instructions from Brian and picked you up at three o'clock in Fall River, nine
P.M.
in Rome. Now it is, let's see”—he glanced at the dashboard clock—“six
P.M.
, that's midnight my time. Eternal Rome is just starting its nightlife. The restaurants have been open a few hours. Tough to get used to these changes.”

“You've already had a full day,” Bill marveled.

“I didn't take my usual run this morning—saving all my energy. We'll be on the eight o'clock flight tonight for Rome in good time and back at my place before eleven tomorrow morning. We should get a few solid hours sleep in first class, and you'll be ready to do what Brian has in mind by the noon vote in the conclave.”

“I can hear you speculating, Mr. Ambassador.” Bill chuckled.

“Well, as a born-and-brought-up Chicago politician, when I see certain things happening during the election process, I have to draw my own conclusions. And I must say, although the inference is hard to ignore, it seems as downright improbable as anything I have ever heard.”

There was a long silence between the two of them as they stared out while passing Shea Stadium. Kirby started to mention the infamous 1986 Mets–Red Sox World Series but caught himself, realizing that this was a sore spot with New Englanders. Finally they approached the outskirts of JFK Airport.

There was no doubt in Ed's mind that in some arcane manner, Bill Kelly had become the leading candidate for pope. The concept was almost unbelievable. Did the college of cardinals really believe that with the number of fallen and disillusioned Catholics in the world, more swept away from the faith every day, they could turn to the laity for their Church's new leader? A leader who would restore the faith of the financially, politically, socially, and ideologically oppressed? Was the Church seeking a pilot whose personal sufferings reflected those of the ordinary people in the pews? The concept was perceptive and innovative, but its implementation seemed nigh unto unimaginable.

Ed parked the rental car at Hertz. After sloppily signing the credit card slip, he and Bill were driven to the TWA terminal, where Ed contacted the supervisor, an affable disabled Vietnam veteran from Brooklyn named Ed Hunter. They worked out the details of first-class ticketing, keeping Ed's name off the passenger manifest until after the plane was airborne. Any one reporter seeing the name of the ambassador to the Vatican on the passenger list could cause him considerable trouble and raise questions that, for the moment, were better left unanswered.

Gratefully unnoticed, Ed and Bill were escorted to the jet by a passenger manager and shown to their first-class seats. Ed recalled a previous trip on the same jet with the deceased pope, on his second to last visit stateside. They had sat together talking politics on the way back from a World Youth Conference in Denver. Was he once again flying with a pope back to Rome?

Dead tired, Bill settled his tall frame into the wide, comfortable seat as the enormous jet filled with passengers. Shortly after eight
P.M.
the flight took off and headed out over Long Island Sound on its route to Europe.

Ed checked his watch. “Two
A.M.
in Rome. The city is jumping. I hope my daughter is home. When I'm away she thinks she can get away with staying out late with her friends at Miscellanea Café, near the Pantheon. She's a great kid. Thank the Lord we can really trust her. I've been lucky with my children. Rome has a different clock for the young than any other place in the world.”

Bill sighed. “I know the problem. My daughter Colleen, just twenty-one, attends our community college, and I have to discipline her sometimes for breaking our curfew.” He sighed again. “But she is a wonderful young lady, trying to replace her mother for the family. If only…” he paused. “If she could just make her peace with God, who she says can't exist. A kind God wouldn't have taken her mom. And in that mood she comes home after midnight all too often.”

Ed nodded. “Young people don't realize the trouble they can get into out late. The drug situation has changed everything in one generation.”

“And they resent you telling them,” Bill replied.

Again, Ed Kirby heard a calm but incredulous small voice within him asking,
Can this common fisherman, with such prosaic human problems, really be our next pope?
It seemed too practical, too rational, too good and simple to be true.

From the usual sumptuous hors d'oeuvres and wine list, Ed Kirby let the hostess bring him a glass of wine with dinner. Bill Kelly ordered a double Irish Mist after the plane had reached cruising altitude. Kirby had gone for twenty-four hours without sleep and he was more tired than he knew, uncertain of the results he might expect from this latest absence-without-leave from his post.

Undoubtedly, the embassy DCM had tried to reach him and was asking questions. He visualized J. Calstrom Seedworth already furiously pounding out a memo to the effect that for one entire day, the ambassador to the Vatican had not been at the embassy and was unreachable at the residence. With equal certainty he knew that the memo would already have been leaked to the hostile Chicago press who had been critical of his mayoral initiatives and strongly opposed to his lunch-bucket positions on most issues. Later the
Washington Post
would pick up the leak.

Nevertheless, relaxed and enjoying this respite in their odyssey, Ed knew instinctively that Bill was, in some unfathomable manner, up for the papacy. Then he remembered Brian Comiskey's hint that any advice of a practical nature Ed could offer to Bill would be gratefully received.

“You know, Bill,” he began, sipping his wine, “all politics, and that goes for Church politics, is personal. When you run for office you have to remember one thing: Everyone is interested in jobs, either for themselves or their relatives or their close friends. And nobody wants to lose a high-level job, or any other job, for that matter. If I were trying to take over as governor or mayor, or member of the U.S. Congress, I'd make it known immediately that nobody was going to lose his or her job or position of authority. Not only that, I would always be available to discuss their job status. And it's the same thing in the Vatican. People will transfer their loyalty from one pope to his successor almost overnight.”

Ed finished his wine and came out with a final profundity. “If they think they can manipulate you, they'd rather see you in charge than someone they know they can't manipulate.” Kirby turned in his seat, a thin smile on his lips. “Know what I mean?”

Bill nodded. “Thanks, Ed. Let them think they can push you around, actually appear to be pushed around—at first. Once you're in solid, you can clamp down.”

“That's the way, Bill. Make your enemy think you're his friend. Everybody wants authority. Let 'em think they're all going to be boss of something. That's how you manipulate the manipulators.”

“Right, Ed. I'll remember that. Job security.”

“Right. Put it on your bumper sticker.” Now he had done his best for Cardinal Comiskey, the Church, and Bill Kelly. At least for this one day.

Ed Kirby finished his second glass of wine and almost immediately fell asleep. The hostess cleared his tray and slipped a pillow behind his head, exchanging an understanding smile with Bill, who was not used to enjoying public officials' airline perquisites. The furthest place he had gone recently was Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, with Mary and the kids before she had died.

Later Bill turned off the light above his seat and, closing his eyes, began to meditate deeply on what Ed had said. How would he handle the questions sure to be asked him at the papal conclave? And that was assuming that he was even recognized and permitted to defend his various positions as pope-elect. How such a drama could have unfolded at all was God's mystery. But he, William Kelly, ordained priest—albeit lapsed, but still a brother—would not, could not ignore what he knew had been a sign from the Holy Spirit that he had been the one chosen to serve.

12

DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION

J. Calstrom Seedworth, the deputy chief of mission and number two in the Vatican embassy after the ambassador, was going through one of his periodical indulgences in the “poor me” syndrome as he pored over the latest cable from the Vatican Desk at the State Department. He, who had majored in language studies at Princeton, the super-elite Ivy League university to which he had won a full scholarship, was presently relegated to subordinate status behind this Irish big-city politician whose Catholic school credentials were, in Seed-worth's opinion, not comparable to his own. Edward Kirby, appointed ambassador over several substantial financial contributors to the party and State Department career employees, was obviously far less qualified in Seedworth's mind than proven professionals like himself, who, at age forty, was now leading the pack, ripe for advancement.