Balance of Power

THIRTY

Father Norberto flew to Madrid in the General Superior’s private plane. It was a twenty-year-old Cessna Conquest decorated in lavender and red with darkened windows and a small sacristy in the back. The eleven-seat two-prop aircraft was very noisy and very bumpy.

Like almost everything in Spain these days, Norberto thought bitterly as he squeezed the thickly padded armrests.

Yet even as he thought it, Norberto knew that that wasn’t true. Not entirely. Norberto was accompanied by five other priests from villages along the northern coast. While his own soul was in turmoil, these men were calm.

Norberto breathed deeply. He wished that their composure was enough to steady him. He wished that he could somehow turn away from his private loss and focus on the monumental task ahead. Helping to keep the spiritual peace in a city of over three million people was a challenge unlike any he had ever faced. But maybe that was what he needed now. Something to keep him from dwelling on the terrible loss he’d endured.

The elderly Father Jiménez was sitting beside Norberto in the back row. Jiménez came from the village of Laredo, which was farther west along the coast. Not long after they were airborne, Jiménez turned from the window and leaned close to Norberto.

“I hear that we will be meeting with prelates from other denominations,” Jiménez said. He spoke loudly in order to be heard over the growling engines. “There will be at least forty of us.”

“Do you have any idea why he selected us?” Norberto asked. “Why not Father Iglesias in Bilbao or Father Montoya in Toledo?”

Jiménez shrugged. “I suppose it’s because our parishes are very small. Our parishioners know one another and can help each other in our absence.”

“That’s what I thought at first,” Father Norberto said. “But look around. We are also the oldest members of the order.”

“Therefore the most experienced,” said Jiménez. “Who better to entrust with such a mission?”

“The young?” Norberto said. “The energetic?”

“The young question much too much,” Jiménez said. He poked Norberto’s arm. “They’re a little like you, my old friend. Perhaps the General Superior wants men. Men he can trust. Men whom he can tell to do a thing and it will be done, without delay or complaint.”

Norberto wasn’t so sure of that. He didn’t even know why he felt this way. Maybe it was his awful grief or the overbearing manner with which he’d been ordered to Madrid. Or maybe, he thought portentously, God was poking him the same way Jiménez just had.

“Do you even know where we’ll be gathering?” Norberto asked.

“When Father Francisco telephoned,” Jiménez replied, “he said that we would be taken to Nuestra Señora de la Almudena.” The priest’s soft, white cheeks framed a gentle smile. “It feels strange, leaving a small parish for a place like that. I wonder if Our Lord felt the same way when he set out from Galilee? ‘I must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent,’ ” he said, quoting the Gospels. Then he sat back, still smiling. “It feels strange, Norberto, but it also feels good to be sent.”

Norberto looked ahead at the other priests. He didn’t share Jiménez’s optimism. The priests’ ministrations should have come before the people turned on one another. Before they turned to rioting — and murder. Nor did Norberto presume to know what Jesus felt when He went into the wilderness. However, as he thought about it, Norberto imagined that Jesus was probably disturbed and overwhelmed by a society polluted with prejudice and mistrust, violence and immorality, greed and discord. Faced with that, there was only one place Jesus could have turned to for strength.

In his distress, Norberto had momentarily lost sight of that place. Closing his eyes and bowing his head, Father Norberto prayed to God for the courage to take on this burden. He prayed for the wisdom to know what was right and for the strength to overcome his own sudden rancor. He needed to hold on to the faith that was fast slipping away.

The plane arrived in Madrid early but was forced to circle for nearly half an hour. Military traffic had priority, they were informed. From what they could see through the window there was a great deal of that. When they were finally able to land at ten o’clock, the group entered terminal two, where they joined priests from around the country. Father Norberto recognized a few of the clergymen — Father Alfredo Lastras from Valencia, Father Casto Sampedro from Murcia, and Father Cesar Flores from León. But he didn’t have time to do more than shake some hands and exchange a few words of greeting before the group was ushered onto an old bus and taken to the Cathedral of the Almudena. Norberto sat by the open window and Father Jiménez sat beside him. Traffic into the city was extremely light along the Avenue de America and they reached the famous — as well as infamous — cathedral in just under twenty minutes.

The sprawling Cathedral of the Almudena was begun in the ninth century A.D. Little more than the foundation was completed before work was halted due to the arrival of the Moors. The invaders raised their mighty fortress beside it. When the Moors were driven from Spain and the fortress was dismantled to make way for the Royal Palace, work was also scheduled to resume on the cathedral. However, the powerful and jealous Archbishop of Toledo did not want any church to be more imposing than his own. Individuals who gave money to finish a church on a site made unholy by the Moors faced both excommunication and death. It was nearly seven hundred years before work continued on the church. Even then, money and resources were scarce. Sections were completed and then work was abandoned, resulting in a chaotic variety of styles. Finally, in 1870, the patchwork church was pulled down and a new Neo-Gothic church was planned. Construction began in 1883, though funds ran out with regularity and the effort was finally abandoned in 1940. It wasn’t until 1990 that work was undertaken to finish the cathedral in earnest. Yet once again the billions of pesetas needed to execute the job were not forthcoming. Ironically, it was just three weeks ago that the last of the paint was applied to the friezes in the main entablature.

The gears complained loudly as the bus suddenly slowed. They had just turned off Calle Mayor and swung onto Calle de Bailén, where literally thousands of people were gathered outside the twin spires of the church. Beyond them were groups of reporters and TV cameras. The print journalists were on foot and the TV crews were on the backs of parked vans. Though the crowd was being kept away by a phalanx of metropolitan police, the arrival of the bus and the glimpse of the priests seemed to enflame them. The people began crying loudly for help and sanctuary. The heat inside the crowded bus seemed to enhance their voices and carry them to every ear, like a church bell in the still of morning. These were not political refugees but elderly men, mothers with babes, and schoolchildren. They were panicked and their numbers — like their passion — seemed to swell as the bus crept toward the front of the church. The priests regarded one another in silence. They had expected need, but not this kind of desperation.

Linking their arms, a line of police officers was finally able to get between the bus and the crowd. Father Francisco came from the church and used a megaphone to implore the group to be patient. As he did, he motioned for the forty-four priests to come inside. They moved slowly, crowded into a tight, single-file line by the surging mob. They reminded Father Norberto of the hungry masses he had once helped feed in Rwanda and the homeless he’d served in Nicaragua. It was astonishing the power the weak could have en masse.

When all the priests were inside, the doors were shut behind them. After the plane ride and the grinding of the gears and the shouts of the crowd, the heavy silence was welcome.

But it isn’t real, Norberto reminded himself. The fear and pain outside—that was real and it was growing. It needed to be addressed very soon.

General Superior González was already in the apse of the cathedral, praying silently. As the group filed down the nave the only sound was the scraping of shoes and the rustling of robes. Father Francisco was at the head of the line. When they reached the transept, he turned and held both hands toward them. They stopped. Father Fernandez walked forward alone.

Norberto was not a great admirer of General Superior González. Some argued that the fifty-seven-year-old Jesuit leader was good for the order because he courted the favor of the Vatican and the attention of the world. But unless the priests of Spain preached his views and advocated his conservative political candidates and collected onerous donations from the parish, none of the wealth and support he attracted found its way to them. Norberto believed that General Superior González was interested in extending the power and influence more of Orlando González than of the Spanish Jesuits.

González was the General Superior and Norberto would never defy him or criticize him openly. But standing in his presence, in an old and magnificent church, Norberto didn’t feel the soul-warming piety he wanted to feel — that he needed to feel. He was still anguished and cynical and now he was also suspicious. Was González concerned for the people? Was he worried that the revolution would weaken his power? Or did General Superior González hope that a new leader would turn to him to help win the support of the nation’s Jesuits?

After three or four minutes of silent prayer, González turned suddenly and faced the priests. They crossed themselves as he offered a benediction. Then he walked toward them slowly, his long, dark patrician face with its pale eyes turned toward the heavens.

“Forgive us, O Lord,” he said, “for this day was the first day in over one thousand years that the doors of this cathedral have been barred from the inside.” He regarded the priests. “In just a moment I am going to open those doors. I must leave, but Father Francisco will assign each of you to a different section of the cathedral. I ask you to talk to the people in turn, assuring them that this is not their struggle. That God will take care of them to trust in the leaders of Spain to restore peace.” He stopped when he reached Father Francisco’s side. “I thank every one of you for coming,” he continued. “The people of Madrid need spiritual guidance and reassurance. They need to know that in this time of turmoil they have not been abandoned. Once Madrid has been quieted, its faith restored, we can move outward and bring peace to the rest of Spain.”

General Superior González moved past the priests. His black robe swung heavily from side to side as he walked toward the door. His step was confident and unhurried, as though everything was under control.

As Norberto watched the General Superior go, he realized with sudden horror that perhaps it was. That maybe this mission was not about ministering to the frightened or needy — not for their sake, anyway. He looked around him. Could it be that the most serene and devoted, the most trusted of the nation’s priests had been brought here for one purpose only — crowd control? Create a demand for comfort, whip it to a frenzy by keeping the doors locked, and then dispense it generously?

Father Norberto was scared. He also felt dirty. General Superior González was not looking to gain favor with the leaders of this revolution. Norberto suspected that the General Superior was already part of this process to secure a new government for the nation.

A new government for Spain with himself as its spiritual head.