The Accidental Pope (25 page)

The pale sisters watched their brother thrust through the door. Then it happened. Suddenly the boy disappeared. The would-be kidnapper went crashing to the floor of the porch, the heavy boot of trooper Joe Collins smashed down on his gun hand. The startled young goon looked up to see the barrel of a police .38 revolver inches from his face.

“Even breathe heavy and I'll blow your head off. Just give me any excuse!” Two more troopers were now on the man, handcuffing him behind his back.

A tearful Meghan rose from her chair.

“Stay still, Miss Kelly. Just give us a moment to get this piece of garbage out of here. Roger is okay.”

Within two minutes the hoodlum was subdued and in a police car and the happy, crying siblings were hugging each other. “Oh God, Trooper Joe,” Colleen cried, “how can we thank you enough? How did you get here so soon? I mean, how did you know? Good God, I'm so shaky I need to sit down.”

“That's a good idea, Miss Kelly. Welcome to celebrity time.”

21

FIRST MORNING

The Italian sun shone spectacularly through the windows of the Vatican apostolic apartment as a persistent knocking on his bedroom door awakened the new pope. Bill rubbed his eyes, and Cardinal Robitelli entered in response to his invitation to come in.

“I'm sorry to disturb you, Your Holiness. I let you sleep a bit later because I thought you might be very tired after these last, or should I say first, two days.” He came closer to the bed. “I have asked Monsignor Cippolini to say Mass for you when you are ready. Or would you like breakfast now?”

“I should attend Mass first, I guess. I suppose that's what the pope usually does?”

“John Paul II rose at five-thirty, prayed, and said his own private Mass at seven. He breakfasted at eight and began his daily schedule at nine,” Robitelli replied.

Bill sat up and thrust his feet on the floor and into his slippers. Then, glancing at the bedside clock, he exclaimed, “Seven o'clock! I haven't slept after five-thirty on a workday in years!”

“I assume,” Robitelli said dryly, “that it's been many years since you've said Mass, so I assigned Monsignor Cippolini to run through the process with you. You appear to have a good relationship with him, and he's a knowledgeable man.” What he did not say, although Bill sensed his motive, was that he would control Cippolini and, as secretary of state, he felt the need to exert as much authority and influence as possible. “He'll act as a tutor. He speaks English very well. Also, he is a Scripture and Church scholar.”

“Thank you, Eminence. Most thoughtful of you.” Bill paused a moment. Then, “Brian Comiskey suggested I meet frequently with Monsignor Timothy Shanahan. You remember him. He was here.…”

A frown flickered across the cardinal's patrician features. “The rector of the North American College is indeed knowledgeable and busily engaged in running his institution.” Robitelli continued, “An Italian, Sicilian actually, Cippolini is surprisingly familiar with the ins and outs of the American Church as well as Vatican affairs. He is a talented linguist who will help you learn Italian, an important accomplishment for a non-Italian pope. We went to unusual lengths to retain such a man as a permanent member of the curia.”

“I'm thankful for that!” Bill said warmly.

The secretary of state nodded. “At Cippolini's diocese, in Sicily, they had counted on getting him back after his studies were completed. It took a request by Pope John Paul II himself to keep him. We rewarded him by designating him Monsignor. He can be more than a mere help to you.” Robitelli smiled sadly. “Some people have not taken him seriously because of his often casual, Sicilian appearance and his notorious familiarity with the local restaurants, but he nonetheless graduated at the top of his class at the Pontifical Gregorian University and in virtually every advanced study group in Rome. A bright man indeed, with certainly a bright future.”

“Fine, fine, Gene—if you don't mind me calling you that?”

“I can adjust to it in private, Your Holiness. ‘Gino' is our word for ‘Gene.' But in public we need to use the proper titles of office, if you agree with me.” A perfunctory smile, then, briskly, “Before I busy myself with the stacks of backed-up paperwork…” He reached under the folds of his black cassock and retrieved an ivory-colored business-size envelope that bore a large red seal across the flap. “This was given me by our late Pope John Paul II to be handed only to his successor. It was for his eyes only, now yours. Any others with whom you feel you might share this vital message can be given this missive.”

Somewhat awed, Peter II reached for the envelope. Suddenly he had the distinct impression that Robitelli resented handing it to him. He realized that Robitelli had been convinced that only he was entitled to receive the envelope as John Paul II's successor.

Robitelli continued briskly, “Many documents require your signature. I trust you will sign those I feel need approval as quickly as possible. I'll explain any others you may want to know more about as we go along.” He paused, and then in a tone of satisfaction added, “With Cippolini for Scripture and language and—” He was just going to name another staff person for the pope when Bill Kelly abruptly interrupted.

“And with Monsignor Shanahan as secretary.”

Affronted, Robitelli stared in disbelief and could only mutter, “But—”

Bill broke the tension by saying, “I am extremely grateful for your understanding of my preliminary problems here,
Eminenza.
” He smiled at his sudden recollection of the deference to Rome young seminarians learned. “In ten minutes I'll be ready for chapel.”

There was one item needling the profound sense of peace enveloping the new pope as he finished preparing for Monsignor Cippolini's Mass. Robitelli had been all too set to dismiss Tim Shanahan, who both Brian Comiskey and Ed Kirby felt was best suited for becoming the most influential member of the new cabinet.

For a moment Bill regarded the wooden carving he had packed unwittingly with his belongings when he'd left to meet Ed Kirby on the way to Rome. Our Lady of Fatima and the three peasant children to whom she had appeared in 1917 in Portugal stood on the austere bureau at the foot of his bed. Bill propped up the envelope from his predecessor against the carved grotto.

When the Portuguese crewmen of his fishing fleet had presented him with this carving, Bill thought it was impossible that he would ever actually read the words dictated by Sister Lucia to her bishop. However, after the recent release of the third prophecy, given that day to three children in a field outside the northern Portuguese town of Fatima, the pope enjoyed the new attention given to Our Lady. Now, the third millennium had actually broken. Peter II knew he must read this portentous document with more care. But first there were the contents of the envelope bequeathed him by John Paul II to be absorbed.

The Kellys had a friend who owned an antique furniture shop on Cape Cod. He often spoke to Bill and members of his crew about the third prophecy, wondering what events it foretold. The first prophecy had concerned the end of World War I, the second the end of Communism in Soviet Russia. The third prophecy was only recently made public, and some authorities still debated its true meaning. Others predicted a great threat to the Church and the world coming from the East. Wasn't this what Our Lady herself had said to Bill Kelly only a few days before? John Paul II, more than any world leader save former president Ronald Reagan, had deflected the second near-disaster as a prime mover in the Soviet overthrow. But what now after the third prophecy?

A few Swiss guards and several Vatican household retainers attended Monsignor Cippolini's Mass, possibly to make the pope feel as though he were not the only one late for the prayers.

It all reminded Bill of the tranquil days at St. John's Seminary in Boston, where students were cut off from the world, enjoying their island of isolation with no interruptions from the outside. For a moment he meditated on how different the seminary chapel and this private Vatican chapel were from the half-empty Churches most laity knew.

True, a few Catholics made retreats on occasion, but fewer ever experienced this kind of serenity in prayer. Bill remembered the quiet and profound peace out at sea just after a storm. He glanced down at the small shelf in his prie-dieu and noticed a pad and pen. Quickly he jotted down “
Shanahan
” as Monsignor Cippolini's strong voice from the altar interrupted his reflection.

“Brothers and sisters, let us begin. In the name of the Father and of the Son…”

22

AVVISO

Pope Peter found it impossible to concentrate on prayers as his mind kept slipping back to the envelope propped up on his bureau. He was the first to hurry from the chapel when Monsignor Cippolini finished Mass. Now he had two immediate objectives: to talk to Monsignor Shanahan and, even more urgent, he felt, to read his predecessor's epistle.

He made short work of the continental breakfast brought to him at his desk and, with trembling hands, applied an ornate letter opener to the underside of the red seal, breaking the envelope open. There were three pages of tightly spaced, handwritten manuscript. It was the first time he had actually seen the former pope's handwriting. Staring at the meticulous script, his eyes crinkled as he tried to understand the sentences before him.

Bill Kelly sighed helplessly. Of course, the words were in Italian. He had never learned to speak more than deckhand Italian and certainly never to read it. He took the first sentence and copied down each word in letters he could read and then went to an English-Italian dictionary he had located among his office reference books. Word by word he began to decipher the former pope's message. Half an hour later he managed to read the first sentence, a welcome to the papal successor.

Obviously Bill Kelly could have called in any number of his people, from Cippolini to Robitelli, for a quick, clear translation. But he didn't want to be forced to reveal the pope's message to anyone but himself, at least not until he understood its purpose.

He guessed that the deceased pope had wanted his successor to make up his own mind how much of this missive should be passed on to any others. The pope had written that he did not wish even his faithful scribe, who translated all his directives from Polish to Latin and other languages, to learn the exact nature of this “letter of warning,” as Bill interpreted the word
avviso.

For two hours, during which he warded off intrusions on his solitary perusal of the message's opening, Pope Peter painstakingly struggled with the Italian, unraveling the meanings and intimations Pope John Paul II had intended to convey. Bill jotted down the disclosures as he struggled like a child with them, word by word.

The fact that only one living person—perhaps two, unless Bill himself deemed otherwise—would know the contents of the pope's epistle lent moment to this painful process. And still, he realized, he was missing the little ironies and gentle derisions which only familiarity with Italian might render clear.

For two and a half hours he struggled to comprehend the three pages. He realized he had gained only a superficial knowledge of the intent and meaning of this communication. Yet he sensed it might be the most important aspect of the last pope's legacy. The intent itself came through explicitly. The
avviso
was never to be made public. Bill grinned as he held up two fingers and recited an old mantra about secrecy: “If two know—that's eleven.”

The disclosure was indeed a warning.
Avviso
meant to him: “Be advised.” It was in Italian because the pope apparently expected an Italian cardinal would succeed him. The Polish pope must have realized that he was an anomaly in a more-than-four-hundred-year line of native Italians. This was an oddity unlikely to recur despite John Paul II's efforts to stack the national origins of the college of cardinals against the seemingly inevitable election of yet another Italian.

Twice during these two and a half hours of isolation he had created for himself, Bill's concentration had been disturbed by soft knocks on the door, to which he responded with pleas for continued solitude. Finally, with a sigh, he picked up his gently ringing telephone. As he suspected, it was Robitelli, anxiously inquiring whether His Holiness needed special guidance on any matter.

“Give me another few minutes, Gino. I'll call you.” He replaced the receiver without waiting for a reply.

With a sigh Bill folded up the parchment, put it back in the envelope with the broken red seal, and tucked it into a marked manila folder keeping his notes in front of him. He placed the folder into a drawer of his desk, which had a key protruding from the keyhole. He locked the drawer, placed the key in the pocket of the pants he wore under his white cassock, stood up, and walked to the window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

At least he now comprehended what the former pope was trying to impart! This millennium into which the new pope would lead his great Church was fraught with danger and a certain unvarnished evil. The Polish pope had been a practical man, unrelenting in his quest to firmly establish traditional Catholic values worldwide. He had fought an evil revealed in three parts at Fatima and destined to destroy the world if allowed to continue unobstructed. He had barely come away with his life, but he had won temporarily. The assassin had fired unsuccessfully and Communism in most of the Western world had since been eliminated.

But forces of this evil remained implanted and deeply rooted within a corner of the Russian Orthodox Church, part of the
avviso
seemed to tell Bill. The pope and the Roman Catholic Church were the enemy. Catholicism and most other competing religions had been banned from Russia by the state Duma in 1997. The continuing indicators had been apparent when, in 1999, the Russians and their Orthodox Church had allied themselves with former Balkan Communist rulers to destroy, massacre, and “cleanse” certain countries of European Muslims and those Catholics, including priests, as were housed among them. Even as the would-be assassin had come out of Bulgaria, so the Catholic Church faced dire prospects for its continuing preeminence in that tortured and dangerous region.