1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Just inside the entrance of the upstairs parlor that was rapidly becoming known as the Garden Room (the reference was to Gethsemane, not the barely visible vegetable plots behind the villa), Sharon put a hand on Larry Mazzare’s arm as he passed.

The village priest-turned-cardinal started, noticing the ambassadora and her husband for the first time. “Oh. Hello, Sharon. Ruy.” Antonio Barberini the Younger, with whom he had been talking, went on into the Garden Room.

Sharon kept her voice low. “Before you put on the gloves for round two, Larry, I just wanted to congratulate you on winning that all-important first battle. I’d have said so sooner, but we haven’t seen much of you for the past week.”

Larry smiled crookedly. “Trying to write a defense of up-time canonical doctrines from memory is pretty time-consuming, Sharon. Sorry I haven’t been around too much.”

“Not to worry, Larry; I’m just grateful that you proved we’re not demonspawn. Of course, you put us all at risk of auto-da-fe in the process.”

Larry’s smile faded a bit. “Okay, now; let’s not overstate the case, Sharon. Debating in every era, and particularly this one, recognizes a tendency to paint in broad strokes when making a big point. But yeah, I’m glad that one is over; it’s tough walking the rhetorical line between this century’s presumed fire-and-brimstone literalities of Satan, and my own more symbolic beliefs.”

Ruy nodded somberly. “I understand, but you are doing what you have to, Cardinal Mazzare. And that first victory was necessary for you to be able to continue this decisive war of words.”

Larry nodded in return. “I grant you, I felt I was pretty much the favorite for winning round one. The judgment of the common people, and Urban’s own actions, all point to an unspoken judgment that, whatever else we are, we are not infernal agents. But up until now, he’s never proclaimed anything about our origins ex cathedra. If he does so, Urban will be committing the Church to a position that’s going to earn him some real enemies.”

“Yes, but most of those will be in Spain. Where he already has few enough friends, I think,” appended Ruy with a smile.

Mazzare shrugged. “I suspect that’s one of the reasons he’s willing to let all this issue come to a head, now: all the people who will hate that pronouncement are already on Borja’s side. But I think Urban’s consciousness has become less political and more spiritual since the massacres in Rome. I think he wants to be sure-absolutely sure-that in trusting us, he’s doing the right thing for the Church.”

“Which makes him a good pope,” averred Ruy.

“Yeah,” interjected Sharon, “but like one up-time songster said, ‘only the good die young.’ And Borja certainly seems determined to use Urban to prove the truth of those lyrics.”

“Ambassadora!” cried the delighted voice of Urban from the doorway. “I only heard the very end of your exchange-I can discern that I missed the best parts of it, alas-but I am still vain enough to relish the thought of one so vibrant as yourself considering me ‘young.’” He beamed and winked. “I am in desperately short supply of such flattering opinions, so I am doubly glad that I did not have to declare you a devil. Now, let us take our places.”

Vitelleschi began with his signature abruptness. “Today we resolve two issues. The first, that of the correctness of the up-time doctrine of papal infallibility. This has been conceded nolo contendere by Cardinal Wadding.” The father-general’s eyes sparked with what looked like amusement. “Of course, as he is a good Franciscan, I expected no different.”

Sharon whispered to Ruy. “Huh?”

“He is referring to the dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans that gave rise to the entire notion of papal infallibility.”

Sharon, no more edified than before, simply said, “Oh.”

Vitelleschi had not even stopped to breathe. “Cardinal Wadding has also inspected Cardinal Mazzare’s documentation on the principle of the dogmatic infallibility of papal councils as articulated under the convention of the Sacred Magisterium. He also accepts this nolo contendere, conceding that it has been recognized, albeit less formally, since the time of Justinian.

“However, since Cardinal Wadding has already conceded this day’s points of debate involving infallibility, he wishes to use his time to discuss whether the up-time ecumenical council known as Vatican II, or the papal decrees which emerged from it, can be presumed to enjoy such absolute authoritativeness. He has asked to be the first speaker. Cardinal Mazzare, will you consent to giving him the first word?”

“He is as welcome to the first word as he is to the last,” Mazzare replied with a thin smile.

Wadding rose. “Even the sparse documentation available here reveals that the convener of Vatican II, Pope John XXIII, did not want the results of the ecumenical council to be perceived as having the impress of either consular or papal infallibility. Specifically, he expressly enjoined the council not to promulgate any dogma, but instead, to merely reaffirm the truths of the church in the idiom of that time, the mid-twentieth century.”

Larry Mazzare smiled. “Yes-probably because he figured it was the best way to skin that particular canonical cat.”

Wadding blinked. “I’m sorry; what do you mean?”

“I mean if the Council had been free to promulgate dogma, it would never have ended. As it was, Vatican II went on for over three years, and its resolutions took eighteen years to emerge as a series of Apostolic Constitutions. John averted the possibility of a complete impasse by-technically-constraining the scope of the deliberations.”

Wadding shook his head. “I take it that you are implying that even though John XXIII restricted the council to simply rewording Church doctrine, he was nonetheless hoping that this would produce de facto changes in how the doctrine was applied and practiced.”

“Something like that,” said Larry with a smile.

Wadding made a dismissive gesture. “Even if true, that still does not change the significance of his exhortation: that Vatican II was to refrain from promulgating new, or revising old, doctrine. And insofar as that the council might believe itself infallible since it was convened by a papal injunction, John XXIII famously said of himself ‘I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible.’ How much more explicit could we ask him to be in indicating that the pronouncements arising from Vatican II were not to be deemed infallible?”

Mazzare nodded. “John XXIII did say that about himself. However, although the infallibility of a papal council originally derives from that of the summoning pontiff, it does not continue to depend upon or defer to that imprimatur. More significantly, the pope who ultimately issued the numerous Apostolic Constitutions arising from Vatican II-John Paul II-did not declare the same limitations upon his own exercise of the Extraordinary Sacred Magisterium of papal infallibility. Rather, he decreed new canon law and a new catechism from out of the corpus of Vatican II. More significantly, in the bulls whereby he announced the Apostolic Constitutions, John Paul II repeatedly emphasized that the authority of the documents was also traceable to their origins in a papal council. Lastly, the language he used when issuing the relevant decrees leaves no doubt as to his intent.”

Mazzare picked up a sheet from the small table in front of him. “In the In Sacrae Disciplinae Lege, he lists himself as ‘The Supreme Pontiff Pope John Paul II’ and writes: ‘I order today, January 25, 1983, the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon Law.’ And he clearly tells us by what authority he orders this. ‘Trusting therefore in the help of divine grace, sustained by the authority of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul,…and…with the supreme authority with which I am vested, by means of this Constitution, to be valid forever in the future, I promulgate the present Code as it has been set in order and revised. I command that for the future it is to have the force of law for the whole Latin Church, and I entrust it to the watchful care of all those concerned, in order that it may be observed.’”

Mazzare put the document down. “In every particular, this wording fulfills the expectation of an ex cathedra statement of papal infallibility. It is absolute in its instruction, invokes the key terms of authority, and commands that it be retained as perpetually valid, along with an enjoinder for the Church to protect it against being either changed or disregarded.”

Wadding held up a hand. “I will point out that the American cardinal Avery Dulles authoritatively argued that, although Vatican II produced over eight hundred pages of commentary, there is not one new statement for which infallibility is claimed.”

“He did write that,” agreed Mazzare with a smile, “but he was, after all, only a cardinal like us. He was not the pope who inititiated Vatican II, nor the pope who issued the Apostolic Constitutions-who was the final authority on the matter of his own intents or exercise of his Sacred Magisterium.”

Sharon held on to Ruy’s arm and whispered to him. “It’s getting mighty deep, here.”

“The theological implications of papal infallibility are indeed as profound as the greatest trenches of the ocean, my heart.”

“Sorry, Ruy, but when I said ‘deep,’ I wasn’t talking about water.”

“Dear heart! Can you truly be so scatologically flippant about matters so holy? Perhaps you are a demon after all; an infernal temptress, at least…”

“Ruy, you remove that hand right now. Yes, the one with your knuckle brushing against my-Ruy! There’s a pope in the room!”

Wadding was nodding at Mazzare’s last point. “As you say, neither we, nor your Cardinal Dulles, can know if a pope had unspoken intents. So it seems that there is insufficient reason for me to continue to question the infallibility of Vatican II in your time.”

Ruy’s hand dropped away suddenly. Sharon looked at his face; his eyes, playful a moment ago, were deadly serious now. “Ruy-” she began.

“My dear,” he interrupted in a tense whisper, “Wadding’s concession means he is springing a trap.”

Wadding stood poised, as if he had not completed his sentence. Then: “But I reemphasize: I constrain that concession of infallibility to your time. It is quite a different matter to assert that Vatican II is an infallible teaching or dogma for this time,” He picked up a paper from the small table on which he had his materials arrayed. “Paradoxically, my assertion-that infallibility cannot survive such a temporal and spatial discontinuity as that which brought Grantville to our world-arises from the text of one of the Apostolic Constitutions engendered by Vatican II itself. Specifically, in going through the end notes to the Gaudium et Spes, there is a directive as to how it should be read and understood. Speaking of its first part- De Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis, or, “The Role of the Church in the Modern World”-the note explains that “Some elements have a permanent value; others, only a transitory one. Consequently…interpreters must bear in mind…the changeable circumstances which the subject matter, by its very nature, involves.”

Wadding laid down the paper. “I have no argument with papal infallibility. And I am satisfied with Cardinal Mazzare’s proofs that the Apostolic Constitutions arising from Vatican II do, in fact, possess that infallibility. However, we must also pay heed to this passage, which is equally infallible when it explains that ‘some elements have a permanent value; others, only a transitory one.’”

Wadding leaned forward over his table. “This, I assert, is the voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking across the vast gulfs of space and time, to caution us about what we might call the ‘epochal provisionality’ of canonical church doctrine. In short, it compels us to ask: does Vatican II reflect God’s intents across all eternity? Or was it specifically, and only, infallibly valid in relation to the up-time world, of that particular epoch, and at that particular moment?”

Vitelleschi made a cutting gesture in the air with his hand. “That intrudes upon the topic of our next session, Cardinal Wadding: whether the infallible doctrines and decrees of the up-time Church must be recognized as such in this one, as well. And so we are adjourned-and may rightly give thanks for the shortness of today’s proceedings, for I note there is still light in the garden.” Without further comment, Vitelleschi headed for the stairs that would lead him outside.

Sharon stepped over to Larry to offer her congratulations, but was stopped by the grim look on his face. “Why so glum, Larry? You won the day.”

Mazzare glanced over at Wadding, who seemed unusually serene in defeat as he gathered his papers. “It’s not today that concerns me, Sharon. Wadding pulled an exegetical judo move on me just now, one from which I may not be able to recover in the next session.”

“You mean that he has used the rationale of your own defense of the infallibility of Vatican II to establish a reasonable doubt as to its applicability in this world?”

“Exactly.”

Sharon frowned. “And do you think he can prove that Vatican II is inapplicable here?”

Larry shrugged. “He doesn’t have to, Sharon. The burden of proof is upon me. I have to establish that its infallibility extends from our up-time land of never-never-when, all the way back down into this very real down-time world.”

One of Ruy’s eyebrows raised slightly. “And can you accomplish that, Cardinal Mazzare?”

Larry sighed. “Damned if I know.”

“Do you really think they came this way, Valentino?”

Given the number of times he had now heard the question, Valentino would probably have slashed the inquirer across the face with his dagger-except that this time, the inquiry came from Cesare Linguanti. Quiet Linguanti, who was the only other senior-and therefore, trustworthy-man that Rombaldo had assigned to this search group, and who had not once showed any doubt in Valentino’s leadership. Of course, he had yet to speak fifty words since leaving Venice. “Where else do you think we should search?” Valentino asked him.

Linguanti shrugged. He looked at the land humping up between the mountains that were rising ever higher around them as they entered the Asiago region from the south. “It’s a lot of empty country and tall mountains, here at the gateway to the Dolomites.”

“Yes,” answered Valentino, surprised at Linguanti’s relative loquacity, “but this is where the trail leads.”

“Some trail,” intruded a broad, brash Milanese accent behind him. “These days, there could be any number of groups on horseback with some English speakers. Since those up-time demons arrived, everyone and his father’s whore is speaking English, it seems.”

Valentino turned, schooling himself to patience as he did. The new voice in the discussion belonged to Odoardo de Mosca, who was so large that his horse looked like a pony, sagging under him. Odoardo was arguably one of the ten most dangerous-and contrary-men Valentino had ever met. It was an unpromising mix, and Valentino half-suspected that, after this job was done, he would have to preemptively, albeit surreptitiously, “retire” Odoardo from Rombaldo’s payroll; the burly Milanese man-ogre was as indiscreet with secrets as he was with cheap, barnyard grappa. “Yes, Odoardo, there are a lot of English-speakers abroad these days, but that’s not the main reason we’re on this group’s trail.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s the big difference?”

“This group used an unusual method of victualing.”

Odoardo spat; thick and phlegmy, the gobbet didn’t carry as far as he intended. It hit his own horse square in the eye. The beast bucked; Odoardo smiled and wrestled it back under control, sawing at the reins cruelly. “That’s bullshit, Valentino. From what we’ve been able to learn at each town this group visited, they bought the right amounts of food and drink for a big group. So what’s so unusual?”

Valentino smiled and resolved to kill Odoardo in his sleep just as soon as the pope was dead. “Odoardo, you should pay a little more attention to the details. Yes, the men seen in the towns always bought the right amount of supplies for the group they claimed to be traveling with, but then why did that whole group never pass directly through any of the towns where they got their provisions?”

Odoardo frowned and shrugged a single shoulder diffidently. “Maybe they’re shy.”

“No one’s so shy that they don’t want to bring their horses or wagons to load up the provisions directly from the supplier, instead of dragging them off beyond each town’s outskirts and then loading them.”

“I thought you said that they didn’t have wagons,” Odoardo muttered, half annoyed, half confused.

“I was just trying to make a point-but you’re right: we’ve not found much in the way of wheel ruts and the other spoor we’d expect if the group had any heavy wagons. So the reason they traveled so quickly is that they traveled light. And they took precautions so that no townspeople ever saw but a few of them, and usually not the same ones, from what we can tell.”

“I thought the English-speakers always went to town.”

“Odoardo, my boy,” Valentino patronized, enjoying the rare opportunity to torture the insolent behemoth, “you really must pay more attention to the details. Yes, an English speaker-or several-were always in the group that went to town. But that might simply be because most of the party are English-speakers. Which would be exactly what we’d expect from a group of up-timers, don’t you think?”

What Odoardo lacked in perspicacity, he made up for in stubbornness. “If this group is our target, then they’d have servants-from their Roman embassy. They could’ve sent them to do the ‘victualing.’ Then no one would have known there were so many people who could speak English. If they were trying to travel without being detected, that’s what they’d have done.”

“Yes. Of course they would. They’d send their servants. Servants who probably can’t keep from inadvertently revealing their secrets any more than you can resist blabbing your own to anyone who’ll listen. Not exactly the team I would send to buy provisions if I wanted to maintain a low, largely undetected, profile. And besides, although each provisioning group always contained English speakers, the shop keepers have reported very different accents: a few were genuine English, a lot used this Amideutsch that you hear Germans speaking these days, some say they heard genuine up-time dialect, and a few report strange accents, maybe from Ireland or Scotland. Which, when you consider the group we’re looking for, matches the mix of expected nationalities.”

“Merchants might be that mixed.” Odoardo tried to sound confident.

It was Linguanti who answered. “If they’re merchants, then where are their wagons?”

Odoardo’s head went forward in a silent sulk.

Valentino had already forgotten him, looking at the northern panorama of mountains; far to the left, the Little Dolomites were leaning north, in the direction of the true Dolomites, whose distant peaks were painted bright pink and silver by the setting sun. “No,” declared Valentino, “every other lead we found north of the Po checked out, made sense. But this one, this group-no. And what the devil would merchants be doing heading up into this country, anyway? If they wanted to traverse the alps from western Veneto, they would have gone via Lake Garda and then Trent, up toward Bolzano.”

Odoardo’s voice rumbled up from where his chin was tucked into his chest. “Maybe they’re trading to the valley folk.”

Valentino laughed heartily. “Oh, yes. Of course. How foolish that I didn’t see it earlier. But I see it clearly now-thanks to you, Odoardo. In fact, we are actually tracking a multinational rabble of merchants who have journeyed all the way from the British Isles and Germany. For here, in PreAlpine Italy, they mean to set up a thriving trade going from one unpopulated valley to another, selling their big city baubles to the local troglodytes in exchange for riches such as smelly cheese, old goatskins, and the dubious favors of their cross-eyed daughters.”

Odoardo was silent, except for the steady grinding of his teeth.

Valentino ignored him. He looked up at the failing light that was plunging the strange mix of both naked and pine-forested peaks into a rosy pre-dusk gloom. “No,” breathed Valentino to no one in particular, “we’ve finally got the scent of these damned up-timers and their renegade pope. They’re up here. Somewhere.”