The Confessor (8 page)

“Do it,” snapped the man in Rome. “And get a photograph.”

Then the connection went dead.

“C
ARDINAL
B
RINDISI
. How pleasant to see you.”

“Your Holiness.”

Cardinal Secretary of State Marco Brindisi bent over the proffered fisherman’s ring. His lips did not linger long. He stood upright and stared directly into the Pope’s eyes with a confidence bordering on insolence. Thin, with a pinched face and skin like parchment, Brindisi seemed suspended above the floor of the papal apartments. His cassock was handmade by the same tailor near the Piazza della Minerva who made garments for the popes. The solid gold pectoral cross attested to the wealth and influence of his family and patrons. The glint of white light on the small, round spectacles concealed a pair of humorless pale-blue eyes.

As secretary of state, Brindisi controlled the internal functions of the Vatican city-state along with its government-to-government relations with the rest of the world. He was in effect the Vatican’s prime minister and the second most powerful man in the Roman Catholic Church. Despite his disappointing showing at the conclave, the doctrinaire cardinal maintained a carefully cultivated core of support within the Curia that provided him with a power base rivaling even the Pope’s. Indeed, the Pope was not at all sure who would prevail in a showdown, himself or the taciturn cardinal.

The two men had a regular lunch date every Friday. It was the part of the Pope’s week he dreaded most. Some of his predecessors had relished the minutiae of Curial matters and had spent hours each day slaving over mountains of paperwork. During the reigns of Pius XII and Paul VI, the lights in the papal study had burned well past midnight. Lucchesi believed his time was better spent on spiritual matters and detested dealing with the day-to-day affairs of the Curia. Unfortunately, he did not yet have a secretary of state whom he trusted, which is why he never missed lunch with Cardinal Brindisi.

They sat across from each other in the simple dining room in the papal apartments, the Pope clad in a white soutane and white zucchetto, the cardinal in a black cassock with a scarlet fascia and zucchetto. As always, Brindisi seemed disappointed with the food. This pleased His Holiness. The Pope knew Brindisi was a gourmand who enjoyed spending his evenings partaking of the gastronomic delights of L’Eau Vive. As a result he always asked his nuns to prepare something particularly offensive to the palate. Today the menu consisted of a consommé of indeterminate origin, followed by overdone veal and boiled potatoes. Brindisi pronounced the food “inspired” and made a brave show of it.

For forty-five minutes, Brindisi held forth on a variety of Curial matters, each one more tedious than the last. A staff crisis in the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. A dustup in the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. A report on the monthly meeting of the Vatican Bank officers. Allegations a certain monsignor from the Congregation for the Clergy was misusing his motor-pool privileges. Each time Brindisi paused for a breath, the Pope murmured, “Ah, how interesting, Eminence,” all the while wondering why he was being informed of a problem at the motor pool.

“I’m afraid I need to discuss a matter of some”—the fussy cardinal cleared his throat and patted his lips with his napkin—“shall we say, unpleasantness, Holiness. Perhaps now is as good a time as any.”

“Please, Eminence,” the Pope said quickly, eager for any change of subject that might soften the drumbeat of Curial monotony. “By all means.”

Brindisi laid down his fork like a man surrendering after a long siege and clasped his hands beneath his chin. “It seems our old friend from
La Repubblica
is up to no good again. In the course of preparing a long profile on Your Holiness for the newspaper’s Easter edition, he has uncovered some”—a reflective pause, a glance toward the heavens for inspiration—“some
inconsistencies
about your childhood.”

“What sort of inconsistencies?”

“Inconsistencies about the date of your mother’s death. How old you were when you were orphaned. Where you stayed. Who cared for you. He is an enterprising reporter, a constant thorn in the side of the secretariat. He manages to uncover things that we’ve done our best to bury. I have reiterated to my staff that no one is to talk to him without the approval of the Press Office, but somehow—”

“People are talking to him.”

“That appears to be the case, Holiness.”

The Pope pushed away his empty plate and exhaled heavily. It had been his intention to release the full details of his childhood in the days after the conclave, but there were those in the Curia and the Press Office who thought the world was not ready for a street-urchin pope, a boy who had lived by his wits and his fists until he was drawn to the breast of the Church. It was an example of the very culture of secrecy and deceit Lucchesi so despised about the Vatican, but in the opening days of his papacy he had been unwilling to waste valuable political capital, so he reluctantly agreed to paper over some of the less saintly details of his upbringing.

“It was a mistake to tell the world that I grew up in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin, before entering the seminary at fifteen. Your friend from
La Repubblica
is going to find the truth.”

“Let me deal with
La Repubblica
. We have ways of bringing wayward journalists into line.”

“Such as?”

“Banning them from accompanying Your Holiness on foreign trips. Locking them out of press briefings. Revoking their privileges at the Press Office.”

“That seems awfully harsh.”

“I doubt it will come to that. I’m sure we can convince him of the truth.”

“Which truth is that?”

“That you were raised in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin.” Brindisi smiled and brushed an invisible bread crumb from his cassock. “But when one is battling this sort of thing, it can be helpful to have the complete picture so that we know what we’re up against.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“A brief memorandum. It will be seen by no one in the Curia but myself and will be used by me only in the preparation of a defense—should one be warranted.”

“Did you learn those tactics studying Canon Law, Marco?”

Brindisi smiled. “Some things are universal, Holiness.”

“A memorandum will be forthcoming.”

The Pope and the cardinal stopped talking as a pair of nuns cleared the table and served espresso. The Pope stirred sugar into his coffee slowly, then looked up at Brindisi.

“I have something I wish to discuss as well. It concerns the matter we discussed some months ago—my initiative to continue the process of healing the rift between the Church and the Jews.”

“How interesting, Holiness.” A man who had spent his career climbing the bureaucratic ladder of the Curia, Brindisi’s tone was skillfully noncommittal.

“As part of that initiative, I intend to commission a study of the Church’s response to the Holocaust. All relevant documents in the Secret Vatican Archives will be made available for review, and this time we will not tie the hands of the historians and experts we select for this project.”

Cardinal Brindisi’s already pale face shed any remnant of color. He made a church steeple of his forefingers and pressed it to his lips, trying to regain his composure before mounting his challenge. “As you well remember, Holiness, your predecessor commissioned a study and presented it to the world in 1998. I see no need to repeat the work of the Pole when there are so many other—and I dare say more important—issues confronting the Church at this time.”

“
We Remember
? It should have been called
We Apologize
—or
We Beg Forgiveness
. It did not go far enough, neither in its soul-searching nor in its search for the truth. It was yet another insult to the very people whose wounds we wished to heal. What did it say? The Church did nothing wrong. We tried to help. Some of us helped more than others. The Germans did the actual killing, not us, but we are sorry in any case. It is a shameful document.”

“Some might consider it shameful that you are speaking this way about the work of a predecessor.”

“I have no intention of condemning the efforts of the Pole. His heart was in the right place, but I suspect he did not have the full support of the Curia”—
from men like you,
thought Lucchesi—“which is why the document ended up saying little if anything at all. Out of respect for the Pole, I will portray the new study as a continuation of his good work.”

“Another study will be seen as an implicit criticism, no matter how you attempt to render it.”

“You were on the panel that drafted
We Remember,
were you not?”

“I was indeed, Holiness.”

“Ten years to write fourteen pages.”

“Consideration and accuracy take time.”

“So does whitewash.”

“I object to—”

The Pope cut him off. “Do you oppose revisiting the issue because you fear it will bring shame upon the Church, or because you calculate it will damage your chances of taking my place when I’m gone?”

Brindisi lowered his hands and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, as if preparing himself for a reading from the Gospel. “I oppose
revisiting
the issue because it will do nothing but give more ammunition to those who wish to destroy us.”

“Our continued deception and evasion is more risky. If we do not speak forcefully and honestly, the work of our enemies will be accomplished by our own hand. We will destroy ourselves.”

“If
I
may speak forcefully and honestly, Holiness, your naïveté in this matter is shocking. Nothing the Church can say will ever satisfy those who condemn us. In fact, it will only add fuel to the fire. I cannot allow you to tread on the reputation of popes and the Church with this folly. Pius the Twelfth deserves sainthood, not another crucifixion.”

Pietro Lucchesi had yet to be seduced by the trappings of papal power, but the blatant insubordination of Brindisi’s remark stirred his anger. He forced himself to speak calmly. Even so, there was an edge of rage and condescension in his voice that was plain to the man seated on the other side of the table. “I can assure you, Marco, that those who wish for Pius to be canonized will have to pin their hopes on the outcome of the next conclave.”

The cardinal ran a long, spidery finger around the rim of his coffee cup, steeling himself for one more assault on the ridge. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “The Pole apologized on numerous occasions for the sins of some of the Church’s sons and daughters. Other prelates have apologized as well. Some, such as our brethren in France, have gone much further than I would have preferred. But the Jews and their friends in the media will not be satisfied until we admit that we were
wrong
—that His Holiness Pope Pius the Twelfth, a great and saintly man, was
wrong
. What they do not understand—and what you seem to be forgetting, Holiness—is that the Church, as the embodiment of Christ on earth, cannot be
wrong
. The Church is truth itself. If we admit that the Church, or a pope, was wrong . . .” He left his sentence unfinished, then added: “It would be an error for you to go forward with this initiative of yours, Holiness. A
grave
error.”

“Behind these walls, Marco,
error
is a loaded word. Surely it is not your intention to level such an accusation at me.”

“I have no intention of parsing my words, Holiness.”

“And what if the documents contained in the Secret Archives tell a different story?”

“Those documents must never be released.”

“I am the only one with the power to release documents from the Secret Archives, and I have decided that it will be done.”

The cardinal fingered his pectoral cross. “When do you intend to announce this . . .
initiative
?”

“Next week.”

“Where?”

“Across the river,” the Pope said. “At the Great Synagogue.”

“Out of the question! The Curia hasn’t had time to give the matter the thought and preparation it deserves.”

“I’m seventy-two years old. I don’t have time to wait for the mandarins of the Curia to give the matter thought and preparation. That, I’m afraid, is how things are buried and forgotten. The rabbi and I have spoken. I’m going to the ghetto next week, with or without the support of the Curia—or my secretary of state, for that matter. The truth, Eminence, shall make us free.”