The Confessor
The motorcycles went silent. On the steps of the synagogue, the Pope embraced the chief rabbi and a few of the delegates. It was quiet, except for the distant chanting of the protesters and the cicadalike whirring of the news cameras. Gabriel stood behind Karl Brunner, whose left hand was resting on the small of the Pope’s back. Gabriel looked around him, eyes alert, searching for anything out of the ordinary. A man pushing his way forward. An arm swinging upward.
There was a commotion behind them. Gabriel turned in time to see a trio of carabinieri wrestling a man to the ground, but it was only a protester carrying a sign that read FREE CHINESE CATHOLICS!
The Pope turned around as well. At that instant Gabriel caught his eye. “Please go inside, Holiness,” Gabriel murmured. “There are too many people out here.”
The Pope nodded and turned to his host. “Well, Rabbi, shall we get on with it?”
“Yes, Your Holiness. Please, come inside. Let me show you our place of worship.”
The rabbi led the Pope up the stairs. A moment later, much to the relief of Gabriel and Father Donati, the leader of the world’s one billion Catholics was safely inside the synagogue.
AT THE entrance to St. Peter’s Square, Eric Lange climbed off the motorbike. Katrine slid forward, taking hold of the handlebars. Lange turned and started walking.
The square was filled with pilgrims and tourists. Carabinieri paced the edge of the colonnade. Lange headed toward the Apostolic Palace, his walk crisp and purposeful, his pace quick but controlled. Passing the towering Egyptian obelisk, he drew several long breaths to slow his heart rate.
A few paces from the palace, a carabiniere stepped in his path.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked Lange in Italian, staring at him with a pair of stubborn brown eyes.
“Portone di Bronzo,” Lange replied.
“You have an appointment inside?”
Lange removed his wallet and flashed the identification badge. The carabiniere took a step backward. “I’m sorry, Father Beck. I didn’t realize.”
Lange put the wallet away. “Tell me your name, young man.”
“It’s Mateo Galeazzi.”
Lange looked directly into the policeman’s eyes. “I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you inside. I know General Casagrande will be pleased to know that the carabinieri are maintaining good order out here in the square.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The carabiniere actually dipped his head and held out his hand for Father Beck to proceed. Lange almost felt sorry for the boy. In a few minutes, he would be on his knees, begging forgiveness for allowing an assassin to enter the palace.
At the Bronze Doors, Lange was stopped again, this time by a Swiss Guard in full Renaissance regalia, a dark blue cloak draped over his shoulders. Once again, Lange produced the ID badge. The Swiss Guard ordered Lange to register with the officer at the permission desk, just inside the door to the right. There, Lange presented his identification to another Swiss Guard.
“Who are you here to see?”
“That’s none of your business,” Lange said coldly. “This is a security review. If you feel it’s necessary, you may tell Casagrande that I have entered the palace. If you tell anyone else—such as your friends who are standing watch at the moment—I’ll deal with you personally.”
The Swiss Guard swallowed hard and nodded. Lange turned around. The Scala Regia rose grandly before him, lit by vast iron lamps. Lange climbed the stairs slowly, like a man performing a job he secretly loathed. He paused once to look down at the permission desk, where the Swiss Guard was eyeing him intently. At the top of the stairs, he came to a set of glass doors and was challenged again. Before the Swiss Guard could say a word, Lange had his badge out. The guard took one look at it and nearly tripped over himself to get out of the way.
Amazing, Lange thought. Casagrande’s scheme was working better than he imagined possible.
Next he found himself in a gloomy interior courtyard known as the Cortile di San Damaso. Above him soared the loggias of the Apostolic Palace itself. He passed beneath a stone archway, came to a staircase, and climbed quickly upward, footsteps echoing on the marble. Along the way, he passed three more Swiss Guards, but there were no more challenges. This deep inside the palace, Lange’s clerical suit and Roman collar were identification enough.
On the top floor, he came to the entrance of the papal apartments. A Swiss Guard stood there, halberd in hand, blocking Lange’s path. Lange held the ID badge in front of his face.
“I need to see Father Donati.”
“He’s not here at the moment.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s with the Holy Father.” He hesitated, then added: “At the synagogue.”
“Ah, yes, of course. I’m sure Father Donati would appreciate knowing that you told a complete stranger his whereabouts.”
“I’m sorry, Father, but you—”
Lange cut him off. “I need to leave something for Father Donati. Can you take me to his office?”
“As you know, Father Beck, I’m not allowed to leave this post under any circumstances.”
“Very good,” Lange said with a conciliatory smile. “At least you got something right. Please point me in the direction of the good father’s office.”
The Swiss Guard hesitated for a moment, unsure of himself, then told Lange the way. The papal apartments were deserted but for a single nun in gray habit, busy with a feather duster. She smiled at Lange as he walked past the entrance to Father Donati’s office and entered the next room.
He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The heavy curtains were drawn, obscuring the view of St. Peter’s Square, and the room was in deep shadow. Lange moved forward, across the simple Oriental carpet, toward the wooden desk. He stood next to the high-backed chair and ran his palm over the pale plush covering while he surveyed the desk. It was too simple for so powerful a man. Too severe. A blotter, a cylindrical container for his pens, a pad of lined paper for jotting down his thoughts. A white telephone with an old-fashioned rotary dial. Looking up, he noticed a painting of the Madonna. She seemed to be peering at Lange through the shadows.
He reached into the breast pocket of his clerical suit, removed an envelope, and dropped it on the blotter. It landed with a muffled metallic thump. He took one last look around the study, turned, and walked quickly out.
At the entrance of the appartamento, he paused to glare sternly at the Swiss Guard. “You’ll be hearing from me,” Lange snapped, then he turned and disappeared down the corridor.
THE DESK in the office of Secretary of State Marco Brindisi was quite different from the austere one in the papal study. It was a large Renaissance affair with carved legs and gold inlay. Those who stood before it tended to be uncomfortable, which suited Brindisi’s purposes nicely.
At the moment, he sat alone, fingers formed into a bridge, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. A few minutes earlier, from his window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, he had seen the Pope’s motorcade speeding toward the river along the Via della Conciliazione. By now he was probably inside the synagogue.
The cardinal’s gaze settled on the bank of television screens on the wall opposite his desk. His goal was to restore the Church to the power it had enjoyed during the Middle Ages, but Marco Brindisi was very much a man of the modern age. Gone were the days when Vatican bureaucrats wrote their memoranda on parchment with quill and ink. Brindisi had spent untold millions upgrading the machinery of the Vatican Secretariat of State in order to make the bureaucracy of the Church run more like the nerve center of a modern nation. He tuned the television to BBC International. A flood in Bangladesh, thousands killed, hundreds of thousands homeless. He jotted a minute to himself to make a suitable donation through Vatican charitable organizations to ease the suffering in any way possible. He switched on a second television and tuned it to RAI, the main Italian network. The third television he set to CNN
International.
He had made good on his threat not to accompany the Pope on this disgraceful journey. As a result he was now supposed to be working on a benign-sounding letter of resignation, one that would cause the Holy See no embarrassment and raise no uncomfortable questions for the rabble in the Vatican press corps to ponder in their infantile columns. Had he any intention of resigning, his letter would have stressed a deep desire to return to pastoral duties, to tend to a flock, to baptize the young and anoint the sick. Any Vaticanisti with a bit of intelligence would recognize such a letter as deception on a grand scale. Marco Brindisi had been raised, educated, and nurtured to wield bureaucratic power within the Curia. The notion that he would willingly yield his authority was patently absurd. No one would believe such a letter, and the cardinal had no intention of writing it. Besides, he thought, the man who had ordered him to write it did not have long to live.
Had he started a letter of resignation, it would have raised uncomfortable questions in the days after the Pope’s assassination. Had the two most powerful men in the Church experienced a falling-out in recent weeks? Did the Cardinal Secretary of State have something to gain by the Pope’s death? No letter of resignation, no questions. Indeed, thanks to a series of well-placed leaks, Cardinal Brindisi would be portrayed as the Pope’s closest friend and confidant in the Curia, a man who admired the Pope immensely and was much beloved in return. These press clippings would capture the attention of the cardinals when they gathered for the next conclave. So would Marco Brindisi’s smooth and adept handling of Church affairs in the traumatic days after the Pope’s assassination. At such a time, the conclave would be reluctant to turn to an outsider. A man of the Curia would be the next pope, and the Curial candidate of choice would be Secretary of State Marco Brindisi.
His dreamlike trance was shattered by an image on RAI: Pope Paul VII, entering the Great Synagogue of Rome. Brindisi saw a different image: Beckett standing on his altar at Canterbury. The murder of a meddlesome priest.
Send forth your knights, Carlo. Cut him down.
Cardinal Marco Brindisi turned up the volume and waited for news of a pope’s death.
34
ROME
THE ROME CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: Eastern and ornate, stirring in restless anticipation. Gabriel took his place at the front of the synagogue, his right shoulder facing the bimah, his hands behind his back, pressed against the cool marble wall. Father Donati stood next to him, tense and irritable. The vantage point provided him perfect sight lines around the interior of the chamber. A few feet away sat a group of Curial cardinals, dazzling in crimson cassocks, listening intently as the chief rabbi made his introductory remarks. Just beyond the cardinals stirred the fidgety denizens of the Vatican press corps. The head of the press office, Rudolf Gertz, appeared nauseated. The rest of the seats were filled with ordinary members of Rome’s Jewish community. As the Pope finally rose to speak, a palpable sense of electricity filled the hall.
Gabriel resisted the temptation to look at him. Instead, his eyes scanned the synagogue, looking for someone or something that seemed out of place. Karl Brunner, standing a few feet from Gabriel, was doing the same thing. Their eyes met briefly. Brunner, Gabriel decided, was no threat to the Pope.
The Pope expressed his gratitude to the rabbi and the community at large for inviting him to speak here this day. Then he remarked on the beauty of the synagogue and of the Jewish faith, stressing the common heritage of Christians and Jews. In a term borrowed from his predecessor, he referred to Jews as the elder brothers of Roman Catholics. It is a special relationship, this bond between siblings, the Pope said—one that can pull apart if not tended to properly. Too often over the past two thousand years, the siblings had quarreled, with disastrous consequences for the Jewish people. He spoke without a text or notes. His audience was spellbound.
“In April 1986, my predecessor, Pope John Paul the Second, came to this synagogue to bridge the divide between our two communities and to begin a process of healing. Over these past years, much has been accomplished.” The Pope paused for a moment, the silence hanging heavy in the hall. “But much work remains to be done.”
A round of warm applause swept over the synagogue. The cardinals joined in. Father Donati elbowed Gabriel and leaned close to his ear. “Watch them,” he said, pointing to the men in red. “We’ll see if they’re clapping in a few minutes.”
But Gabriel kept his eyes on the crowd as the Pope resumed. “My brothers and sisters, God took John Paul from us before he could complete his work. I intend to continue where he left off. I intend to shoulder his burden and carry it home for him.”
Again the Pope was interrupted by applause. How brilliant, Gabriel thought. He was portraying his initiative as merely a continuation of the Pole’s legacy rather than something radically new. Gabriel realized that the man who liked to portray himself as a simple Venetian priest was a shrewd tactician and political operator.
“The first steps of the journey of reconciliation were easy compared with the difficult ones that lie before us. The last steps will be hardest of all. Along the way, we may be tempted to turn back. We must not. We must complete this journey, for Catholics and Jews alike.”
Father Donati touched Gabriel’s arm. “Here we go.”
“In both our religions, we believe that forgiveness does not come easily. We Roman Catholics must make an honest confession if we are to receive absolution. If we have murdered a man, we cannot confess to taking the Lord’s name in vain and expect to be forgiven.” The Pope smiled, and laughter rippled through the synagogue. Gabriel noticed that several of the cardinals seemed not to find the remark humorous. “On Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, Jews must seek out those they have wronged, make an honest confession of sin, and seek forgiveness. We Catholics must do the same. But if we are to make an honest confession of sin, we must first know the truth. That is why I am here today.”
The Pope paused for a moment. Gabriel could see him looking at Father Donati, as if gathering strength, as if saying there was no turning back now. Father Donati nodded, and the Pope turned once more to the audience. Gabriel did the same thing, but for a very different reason. He was looking for a man with a gun.
“This morning, in this magnificent synagogue, I am announcing a new review of the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people and the Church’s actions during the Second World War, the darkest period in Jewish history, the time in which six million were lost to the fires of the Shoah. Unlike previous examinations of this terrible time, all relevant documents contained in the Vatican Secret Archives, regardless of their age, will be made available to a panel of scholars for review and evaluation.”
The Vatican press corps was in tumult. A few of the reporters were whispering into cellular phones; the rest were scribbling wildly on notepads. Rudolf Gertz sat with his arms folded and his chin resting on his chest. Evidently, His Holiness had neglected to tell his chief spokesman that he intended to make a bit of news today. The Pope had already entered uncharted territory. Now he was about to go even further.
“The Holocaust was not a Catholic crime,” he resumed, “but far too many Catholics, lay and religious alike, took part in the murder of Jews for us to ignore. We must acknowledge this sin, and we must beg forgiveness.”
There was no applause now, just stunned and reverential silence. To Gabriel, it seemed that no one seated in the synagogue could believe that words such as these were being spoken by a Roman pontiff.
“The Holocaust was not a Catholic crime, but the Church sowed the seeds of the poisonous vine known as anti-Semitism and provided the water and nourishment those seeds needed to take root and thrive in Europe. We must acknowledge this sin, and we must beg forgiveness.”
Gabriel thought he could detect unrest among the cardinals. Dark looks, heads shaking, shoulders rising and falling. He looked at Father Donati and whispered, “Which one is Cardinal Brindisi?”
The priest shook his head. “He’s not here today.?
??
“Why not?”
“He said he was under the weather. Truth is, he’d rather be burned at the stake than listen to this speech.”
The Pope pressed on. “The Church could not have halted the Shoah, but it is quite possible we could have lessened its severity for many more Jews. We should have put geopolitical interests aside and shouted our condemnation from the top of our mighty basilica. We should have excommunicated those members of our Church who were among the murderers and the enablers. After the war, we should have spent more time caring for the victims instead of tending to the perpetrators, many of whom found sanctuary in this blessed city on their way to exile in distant lands.”
The Pope spread his arms wide. “For these sins, and others soon to be revealed, we offer our confession, and we beg your forgiveness. There are no words to describe the depth of our grief. In your hour of greatest need, when the forces of Nazi Germany pulled you from your houses in the very streets surrounding this synagogue, you cried out for help, but your pleas were met by silence. And so today, as I plead for forgiveness, I will do it in the same manner. In silence.”
Pope Paul VII lowered his head, folded his hands beneath his pectoral cross, and closed his eyes. Gabriel looked at the Pope in disbelief, then glanced around the synagogue. He was not alone. Mouths hung open throughout the audience, including the usually cynical press corps. Two of the cardinals had joined the Pope in prayer, but the rest seemed as stunned as everyone else.
For Gabriel, the sight of the Pope in silent prayer on the altar of the synagogue meant something else. He had spoken. His initiative could not be undone, even if he were not alive to see it through. If Crux Vera had intended to kill him, they would have done so before he made his remarks. Killing him after the fact would only make him a martyr. The Pope was safe, at least for the time being. Gabriel had only one concern now—getting him safely back inside the papal apartments.