The Omega scroll

CHAPTER NINE

Roma

A rchbishop Lorenzo Petroni, Sostituto for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State, was the most influential archbishop in the Vatican. Following the death of Pope Paul VI and the election of Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice as Pope John Paul I, Petroni had continued in the appointment as the new Pope’s Chief of Staff, retaining control of the vast finances of the Vatican Bank. Nothing went in or out of the Pope’s office without Petroni seeing it, or so he had thought, but today, less than a month after the new Pope’s election, Lorenzo Petroni was a very worried man. Cardinal Luciani had been elected as someone the Curial Cardinals thought they could control but the quiet cardinal from Venice had turned out to be quite the opposite. The very careers of both Archbishop Petroni and the French Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal Jean Villot, were now seriously threatened.

Archbishop Petroni frowned as he read the memo from Father Giovanni Donelli, private secretary to His Holiness. His Holiness has expressed a wish that a small number of priests and nuns be given the opportunity to study at a secular university. The aim is to promote an exchange of experiences to enable the Holy Catholic Church to better respond to changes in the wider world and to become acquainted with the thinking of the next generation. His Holiness would be grateful for advice.

‘Exchange of experiences!’ Angry at having to even consider such a proposal when other events were spiralling beyond his control, Petroni screwed the memo up and threw it into the bin, wondering who or what might have prompted the Holy Father to even contemplate such a move. A move fraught with danger, even if the right people could be found. His thoughts were interrupted by the quiet buzzing of the intercom.

‘Petroni!’

‘His Holiness would like to see you, Excellency.’

‘Subject!’

‘I think it might be about the university proposal,’ Father Donelli replied calmly. He was getting used to the Chief of Staff’s irascibility.

‘It would make life easier if we were sure,’ Petroni snapped, switching off the intercom, relieved that the summons had not been the one he was dreading. He quickly composed himself and focused his thoughts on how he might best head the university proposal off at the pass.

‘ S’accomodi!’

‘You wished to see me, Holiness?’

‘Have a seat, Lorenzo.’ Luciani’s demeanour was polite but uncharacteristically cool, something that was not lost on Petroni.

‘This university proposal. You’ve had a chance to look at it?’

‘Not in much detail, Holiness, but I will.’

‘It has some merit, non e vero?’

‘Certainly, Holiness. Although I think there are some pitfalls that should be examined before we go ahead.’

‘Oh?’

‘It will be important to select the right people, and of course the right university. The course content will also be crucial. With all that in mind I think it would be prudent to establish an interdepartmental committee that should be asked to report on these and some of the other issues.’ Lorenzo Petroni had learned early the value of an inter-departmental committee. With the right man at the helm, in this case himself, a proposal like this could be buried before it even got off the ground. If someone did remember to ask, an interim report could be relied upon to cause further delay until whoever had made the proposal in the first place had moved on.

‘Inter-departmental committees can be useful things. Sometimes,’ the Pope added meaningfully. It was not the first time the young Petroni’s arrogance had led him to misjudge an adversary, and it would not be the last.

‘I have already had a very favourable response from the Chancellor of Ca’ Granda, the Universita Statale in Milano.’

‘There is an excellent Universita Cattolica in Milano,’ Petroni countered.

‘We know that, but our mind is made up.’ The Holy Father’s rare use of the Papal plural carried a note of finality. ‘I would like the Cardinal Prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy to examine it and get his people to provide four nominations.’ Luciani’s smile lacked its customary warmth.

Furious at being outmanoeuvred, Petroni stormed back to his office. Exposing young Catholic priests and nuns to the perils of an uncontrolled secular world risked corruption of their minds, but the university proposal could wait. Right now Petroni’s biggest problem was the Pope’s rumoured investigation of the Vatican Bank.

A week later Lorenzo Petroni, more worried than ever, was summoned to see the Cardinal Secretary of State.

‘Of course, Eminence, I’ll come down straight away.’

Cardinal Jean Villot was slumped, ashen-faced, on one of the crimson couches in his office. A large ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts sat next to a copy of L’Osservatore Politico on the coffee table. The headline could not have been worse – ‘The Great Vatican Lodge’.

Membership of a Masonic Lodge, especially one as well connected as P2, had significant benefits but the Catholic Church had always been very clear on the ‘sons of evil’. Any Catholic found to be a Mason would be excommunicated, and the editor of L’Osservatore Politico, a disgruntled former member of P2, had published a list of a hundred and twenty-one prominent Catholics who were members of Masonic Lodges. The Cardinal Secretary of State’s name was at the top of the list, along with several other cardinals. Petroni’s gut clenched. He had been accepted for membership just the week before.

‘I have just been sacked,’ the Secretary of State said simply.

‘The list?’ Petroni asked, glancing towards the paper. ‘May I?’

‘You’re not on it.’

‘I don’t understand, Eminence,’ Petroni replied, struggling to keep the relief from his voice.

‘Your membership was agreed but it hasn’t been processed yet.’

‘I’m sorry about your name being published, Eminence,’ Petroni offered belatedly. ‘I guess I’ve been lucky this time,’ he added, seeking confirmation that he had indeed escaped.

‘Not really. The Pope intends to relieve you of all your duties tomorrow. Yesterday he received a preliminary report on your activities in the Vatican Bank and he intends to hold a thorough investigation into all Vatican finances. If that goes ahead I don’t have to tell you that it will result in criminal charges that will have some of us behind bars for a very long time.’

Lorenzo Petroni returned to his office, his face the same colour as the Secretary of State’s, his mind in turmoil. The investigation could not be allowed to go ahead. He would need to confer with Giorgio Felici, the young Sicilian from P2.

Giovanni Donelli made his way to the Papal dining room on the third floor of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. It had been thirty-two days since Luciani’s election and tonight, Pope John Paul I had asked Giovanni to dine with him alone.

At Luciani’s request the sisters of the Papal household had prepared a simple meal of clear soup, veal, fresh beans and salad.

‘You look troubled, Holiness,’ Giovanni ventured.

‘Some of what I have to tell you tonight, Giovanni, will become common knowledge tomorrow, but some of it will not. You’ve seen L’Osservatore Politico?’

‘I was shocked, Holiness,’ Giovanni said. Freemasonry was an anathema to him, let alone Lodges that were linked to the Mafia.

Albino Luciani nodded. ‘This afternoon I relieved the Cardinal Secretary of State of all duties. He will be sent back to France to a retirement home where hopefully he will find some peace. The other cardinals and bishops on that list will be found dioceses where they can reflect and are unlikely to have any contact with a Masonic Lodge.’ It was a measure of the man; bitterly disappointed and shaken, he still found time to consider those who had betrayed the Church.

‘The preliminary report on the Vatican Bank that I gave you for safekeeping, did you read it?’

‘No, Holiness, I wasn’t sure if I should. I put it in the safe.’

Luciani smiled. Had the positions been reversed he would have done the same. ‘We need to apply the same rules here as we did in Venice, Giovanni. Neither of us is used to Vatican politics but you need to be across all the issues. When you have time I’d like you to read the investigation. I’m not sure how to proceed yet, but tomorrow I will be relieving Archbishop Petroni of all his duties.

‘Your Chief of Staff?’ Giovanni was no great fan of the arrogant and aggressive Petroni, but he was still stunned at the levels to which corruption and deceit had reached within the Vatican.

As Pope John Paul I and Giovanni continued their conversation, and the nuns of the Papal household relaxed in the kitchen, a figure dressed in a priest’s black soutane left the Pope’s bedroom as quietly as he had entered.

‘The Vatican Bank has been involved in serious criminal activities for at least as long as Petroni has been at the helm.’

Giovanni listened intently.

‘Over the past few years we have criminally abused our position as a Papal State and our immunity from investigation by the Italian authorities. The Vatican Bank has been laundering billions of lire for the Mafia and we are heavily involved in a fake invoicing scheme that is defrauding the Italian people of billions more. We have shares in companies that make tanks and munitions, and I’m told that of the more than ten thousand accounts in our Bank, fewer than 10 per cent have a legitimate purpose. Most of them are slush funds for Petroni’s cronies in the Mafia.’

‘We should make a clean breast of this, Holiness,’ Giovanni observed astutely.

‘I intend to, including the fact that at one stage, Istituto Farmacologico Sereno was owned by the Vatican.’

‘The big pharmaceutical?’

Pope John Paul I nodded. ‘One of their biggest selling products is Luteolas, the oral contraceptive pill. You know my views on our doctrine on contraception, Giovanni, but to be condemning birth control while at the same time manufacturing millions of contraceptive pills because it makes us money plunges us to a new depth of hypocrisy. There is, however, an even more sensitive issue. The investigation has revealed that earlier this year we purchased a Dead Sea Scroll for ten million dollars. Have you ever heard of the Omega Scroll?’

‘I’ve heard of it, Holiness, but I had no idea it actually existed, much less that the Vatican might have bought it.’

‘We have known each other for a long time, Giovanni, and when I’m long gone it will be up to you and others like you to carry the Church forward. If what I’m told is true, the Omega Scroll will force us to rethink much of our doctrine and that will upset a great many people, but we must never shy away from the truth. At my request, an old retired Professor of Middle East Antiquities from Universita Ca’ Granda, Professor Salvatore Fiorini, has been here for the last week secretly translating it. I have a brief that I will read tonight. My initial impression is that amongst other revelations, the Omega Scroll contains a terrible warning for us all.’

Giovanni woke to the urgent ringing of the Holy Father’s bell. He looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It was just after five in the morning. Giovanni struggled into his robe and hurried down the corridor that connected his own small apartment to that of the Pope’s.

‘Sister Vincenza. You look ill!’ Giovanni said as he reached the end of the hallway. ‘What on earth’s happened?’

‘Something terrible, Father. His Holiness… He’s…’ Sister Vincenza choked on the words.

Giovanni recoiled in shock when he entered the Pope’s bedroom. His Holiness was upright in bed, his face twisted in agony, eyes bulging. His glasses had slipped to the end of his nose. Giovanni felt a strange and overwhelming need to remain calm as he glanced at the Pope’s slippers that had been kicked off in disarray beside the bed, the toes covered in vomit. He picked up the phone beside the Pope’s bedside and rang the Cardinal Secretary of State in his Lateran Palace Apartment. The Cardinal answered almost immediately.

‘ Mon dieu, c’est vrais tous ca? My God, is that true?’

The Cardinal, Giovanni would reflect later, sounded awake and alert.

‘When did you find him, Sister?’ Giovanni asked.

‘Just before I woke you, Father,’ Sister Vincenza replied, tears streaming down her kindly old face. ‘I left the Holy Father’s coffee outside his room at four-thirty as I always do and when I checked just before five it hadn’t been touched, so I knocked and then…’ Her voice trailed off as she started to sob.

‘You did all you could,’ Giovanni said, comforting the old nun. ‘Make yourself a cup of tea,’ he said, giving her something to do.

‘Would you like one, Father?’ Sister Vincenza asked, ever concerned about the welfare of those in her care.

‘Only if you feel up to it.’

When the old nun had left Giovanni looked more closely at the dead Pope. In the short time he had held the Keys of Peter, Albino Luciani had come to be loved by most and feared by some. He was a man of unassuming charm and softness, with a searing intellect. Giovanni glanced at the small bottle of medicine the Pope kept on his bedside table for low blood pressure, then at the crimson folder clutched in the dead Pope’s hand. The papers that had spilled from it onto the bed were part of Professor Fiorini’s brief on the Omega Scroll. Giovanni felt a cold fear in the pit of his stomach as he scanned the scattered pages. And in the beginning, the third will triumph over the first and second… all mankind will be annihilated.

‘Don’t touch anything, Father.’ Lorenzo Petroni’s voice was steely, his lack of emotion sinister. ‘Does anyone else know that the Pope is dead?’ He was clean-shaven and fully dressed in the formal robes of an archbishop. Only minutes had passed since Giovanni had alerted the Cardinal Secretary of State. It was not yet five-fifteen.

‘Only Sister Vincenza and the Cardinal Secretary of State.’

‘You should have rung me as well, Father Donelli. To protect Sister Vincenza from the media she is to be returned to her convent in Venice. Immediately.’

‘Eminence, a terrible thing,’ Petroni said smoothly. The Cardinal Secretary of State, also fully dressed and clean-shaven, hurried into the room. He was followed a little later by the Papal Physician, Dr Renato Buzzonetti. While Dr Buzzonetti examined the body, Archbishop Petroni systematically removed the papers and the file from the bed, as well as the dead Pope’s glasses, his slippers and his medicine. He crossed to the Pope’s desk and removed the file on the impending sackings and transfers, as well as the Holy Father’s appointment book.

Later in the morning Giovanni, still trying to come to terms with both his and the Church’s loss, was stunned to hear the official announcement of the Pope’s death on Vatican Radio: This morning, 29 September 1978, at about five-thirty, the private secretary of the Pope, not having found the Holy Father in the chapel of his private apartment, looked for him in his room and found him dead in bed with the light on, like one who was intent on reading. The physician, Dr Renato Buzzonetti, who hastened to the Pope’s room, verified the death, which took place presumably around eleven o’clock yesterday evening, as ‘sudden death’ that could be related to acute myocardial infarction.

‘The Vatican Radio has got it wrong, Excellency,’ Giovanni remonstrated with Petroni.

‘The Vatican Radio has got it absolutely correct, Father Donelli. Their statements are in accordance with the official press release, which is going on the wire as we speak. All press inquiries are to be handled by the Vatican Press Office and should anyone else ask, the Holy Father was found reading a copy of the devotional The Imitation of Christ. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Excellency,’ was Giovanni’s only response, a touch of steel in his own voice.

Petroni watched the young priest leave his office and wondered how much of the brief on the Omega Scroll he had seen. Time enough to deal with him after the conclave elected the next Pope. Hopefully this time, the Curial Cardinals would get it right and the Church could return to the right path.

Tom Schweiker prepared to go to air, adding to the growing calls for the truth about the death of John Paul I. Up until now the CCN network had not had a reporter dedicated to ‘religious affairs’ and although Tom Schweiker was CCN’s correspondent across the Mediterranean in the largely Muslim Middle East, given the relative proximity to Rome, management had not objected to Tom’s request to cover the Holy See. Management had no idea the request was part of Tom’s search for his own haunting truth, something that had driven him since his youth.

‘And this evening we cross live to Tom Schweiker reporting from outside the Vatican. Tom, there are growing calls for an investigation into Pope John Paul’s death.’ The anchor in New York was the grey-haired, avuncular Walter Casey, a household name in the United States.

Tom nodded as the satellite cross from Washington reached his earpiece. ‘That’s right, Walter. The respected Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has been just one of those in the forefront of calls for the Vatican to come clean.’

‘Do you think the Vatican is hiding something?’

‘That’s very clear. The Vatican has lied about this from the outset, Walter, and the web of fiction has been almost childish. Pope John Paul I was not found by his private secretary, as claimed in the Vatican’s initial press release. We now know that the body was found by a member of the Papal household, Sister Vincenza, who has been spirited away, and the Vatican is refusing to say where she is.’

‘And there is a question about the documents the Pope was reading when he died?’

‘Initially the Vatican claimed he was reading a devotional book, The Imitation of Christ, but that claim fell apart when the book couldn’t be found in the Pope’s apartments in the Vatican but turned up in his old apartments in Venice. The Vatican has now claimed the Pope was studying a list of new appointments but there are claims that this is also not true, and that he may have been reading a brief on the legendary Omega Scroll.’

‘Will there be an autopsy do you think, Tom?’

‘There is enormous pressure for that, Walter, but the Vatican are resisting it on the basis that Canon Law forbids it. The problem with that argument is that several theologians have confirmed that Canon Law doesn’t say anything about autopsies. As far as Italian law goes the injection of embalming fluids is not allowed within twenty-four hours of death without the express permission of a magistrate, yet Pope John Paul’s body was injected immediately. There is now a very strong sense that Pope John Paul I was murdered, possibly by the addition of digitalis to a regular medicine he took for low blood pressure.’

‘Do we know if he was in good health?’

‘He was examined by Dr Giuseppe Da Ros only a few days before his death and Dr Da Ros said, “ Non sta bene ma benone – he is not well but very well,” and his personal doctor in Venice says Albino Luciani was a very good mountain climber with absolutely no history of heart problems.’

‘Tom, thank you for joining us tonight. That was Tom Schweiker reporting from the Vatican on the suspected murder of Pope John Paul I. In news just to hand the Vatican has announced that the conclave for the election of his successor will be held on 14 October, the earliest possible date that such an election can be called. Now to the news from the White House. President Carter today expressed confidence for peace in the Middle East after the signing last week of the Camp David Accords between Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and the Prime Minister of Israel…’

Later that night in his hotel room Tom Schweiker tossed in his sleep, haunted by the day’s coverage of the Vatican. The nightmares had been with him ever since his boyhood days, spent on a dirt-poor potato farm in Idaho; nightmares that continually motivated Tom’s search for peace, taking him back to 1960 when he was twelve, missing a father who had died six years earlier. A time when a new priest, Father Rory Courtney, had arrived in their little parish out on Snake River Plain.

The big car pulled up outside the house, scattering the chickens. There was a knock on the old wooden fly-screen door.

‘I’ll get it,’ Tom called to his mother, taking the wooden stairs two at a time.

‘Father! Please come in,’ Tom said, getting used to seeing their priest at the door. Rory Courtney was a big man in his mid-twenties but his reddish hair had started to thin and he was putting on weight. A deep scar ran almost the length of his left cheek, the result of a whisky-induced brawl in his earlier days as a young mining geologist.

‘Thank you, Tom. Is your mother at home?’

‘Who is it, Tom?’ his mother called from the kitchen.

‘It’s Father Courtney, Mom.’

Tom’s mother came hurrying into the front room, wiping flour from her hands as she untied her apron.

‘Oh Father, excuse the mess. Please, have a seat.’ Eleanor Schweiker hastily cleared her sewing from the old couch, somewhat dismayed that their priest should find her in anything but her one good dress that she kept for Sundays.

‘Not at all, Eleanor, not at all. I won’t stay long. I’m just doing my rounds, checking on my flock.’ Rory Courtney had an easy manner and Tom had begun to look forward to his visits. Father Courtney always managed to find time to throw a football around the back paddock with him. It went some way to easing the pain of missing his dad.

‘Would you like coffee, Father?’

‘Perhaps next time, Eleanor. I was wondering, if Tom is not doing anything next Sunday afternoon we could take a drive down to the river. I’ve found a great little place where we can pan for gold.’

‘I don’t know how to, Father,’ Tom said awkwardly.

‘Ah, but I do and I’ll teach you. Just bring your rubber boots and I’ll bring the rest of the things we’ll need.’

‘Oh, Father, that would be so kind,’ Eleanor Schweiker responded gratefully. Tom had lacked a father figure for too long. ‘I’ll pack you both a picnic lunch.’

‘Thank you, Eleanor. I’ll call by after Mass in the morning,’ he said, getting up to leave.

‘Bye, Father.’ Tom and his mother waved from the front porch. Father Courtney’s big old Buick left a trail of dust as he headed down the hill.

The winter sun had reached the zenith of a low arc above the thickly wooded mountains. The Buick rocked gently as Father Courtney drove across the clearing bringing the car to a halt near the bank of the swiftly flowing river. The cold clear mountain waters, swollen by the early rains, gurgled over the rocks.

‘Is there really gold in this river, Father?’ Tom asked excitedly, munching on a bread roll his mother had baked earlier that morning.

‘Bound to be.’

Tom helped Father Courtney unpack a shovel, a pick and two buckets to collect the gravel, a bright blue plastic dish fitted with a small screen and a strange ribbed oblong box about 5 feet long made out of lightweight aluminium.

‘What’s this, Father?’

‘A sluice. Give me a hand and we’ll set it up.’

Tom followed Father Courtney through the tumbling waters of the river to the opposite bank. This new priest, Tom thought, was really nice.

‘The gold is heavier than the gravel so it sinks to the bottom while the gravel runs over each of the riffles and back into the river.’ Father Courtney propped two large rocks on either side of the sluice to steady it, picked up the shovel and gave Tom the pick. Tom grinned and swung on the pick with gusto. They took it in turns to shovel and pick, and after ten minutes of hard digging both large buckets were full of gravel.

‘The most important thing is not to dump too much gravel into the top of the sieve, otherwise it will run out the other end taking the gold with it. You’ve always got to be able to see the tops of the riffles,’ Father Courtney explained, feeding the gravel slowly into the top end of the sluice. Tom watched as the gravel washed over the riffles, leaving the concentrate behind.

‘OK, Tom, now we get to see if we’re rich,’ Father Courtney said with a big smile, filling a pan with the black concentrate. Holding the pan just under the water, he shook it gently to get the lighter dirt to the surface and then swirled it over the lip. Suddenly a small flash of yellow appeared in the bottom of the pan.

‘Father! Look!’ Tom pointed. Father Courtney picked the small nugget out of the black sand. It was about the size of a pea, but as far as Tom was concerned it could have been the mother lode.

‘There you are, Tom. I told you we’d find gold here.’

It was the only ‘nugget’ of the day. After two more hours the pan yielded about half an ounce of gold flakes, which Father Courtney put into a small plastic cylinder. Tom couldn’t have been happier.

‘Can you drive, Tom?’ Father Courtney asked as he finished loading the car. Tom shook his head.

‘Well, get in this side and you can steer some of the way back.’ Father Courtney held the driver’s door open and Tom stepped onto the running board and slid under the white bakelite steering wheel with its shining chrome horn.

‘Nice car, Father.’

‘It is, isn’t it. Grab the wheel,’ he said, putting his arm around Tom. For about a mile they drove up from the riverbank, Tom grinning as he piloted the big car around the potholes and puddles.

‘If you like I’ll teach you to drive. I’m generally free after Mass on a Sunday.’

‘Thanks, Father. That would be terrific,’ Tom said, his eyes shining as Father Courtney took the wheel. His excitement turned to confusion when Father Courtney took one hand off the wheel and rubbed the inside of Tom’s thigh.

‘It’s a good thing to be close to your priest, Tom. God meant it to be this way.’

Father Courtney pulled Tom’s hand across and put it down the front of his trousers. It hadn’t occurred to Tom that Father Courtney might have loosened his black priest’s belt, or the fly on his black priestly trousers. Black. Priestly black. Sinister, evil black. Father Rory Courtney had planned the whole outing meticulously, right down to the loosening of his belt. A simple manoeuvre as Tom had turned his back and clambered excitedly into the car. Father Courtney’s timing was the result of years of practice. Each time there had been complaints and each time the Vatican had hushed them up and moved their priest to prey on another unsuspecting group of children. This was Father Courtney’s third parish in three years.

Tom tried to pull his hand away but Father Courtney held it on his erection. With an expert flick of the wheel he pulled the big car over onto the side track he had reconnoitred earlier in the week and they drove back towards the river. When the track finally petered out in thick brush he turned off the engine and with both hands free he started to fondle Tom. To Tom’s horror he found himself getting an erection as well.

‘There see. Isn’t that good?’ In one movement Father Courtney slipped his own trousers down, grabbed Tom’s hand again and masturbated with it until he came with a high-pitched cry.

Stunned, Tom sat pressed up against the passenger door, putting as much of the big bench seat as possible between himself and the priest.

‘It won’t do any good to tell your mother, Tom. She would never believe you, but we can still do the driving lessons, eh?’

‘No thanks,’ Tom said sullenly. Angry. Ashamed. Confused. Betrayed. A whole mix of emotions that even his weekly bath that night could never remove.

When Tom refused Father Courtney’s invitations to pan for more gold from the river, his mother had been puzzled.

‘It will do you good, Tom. Besides he’s our priest, you should be grateful he wants to spend time with you.’

‘No thanks.’

‘But why?’

Tom wouldn’t answer. His response had been to run upstairs, slam his bedroom door shut and refuse to come out for hours. His mother had become angry, very angry. For weeks there had been a cold distance between them. Then the rumours started. Big Mitch Coburn, a fourth-generation potato farmer and elder of the Church, his complexion more florid than usual, outlined the complaints to the little gathering in his front parlour. Eleanor Schweiker listened with a growing sense of horror as realisation dawned on her.

‘Bobby Shanahan, Hughie Taylor and little Jimmy Osborne. All of them. Not eatin’, wettin’ the bed, sullen, just not themselves. The first one to suspect anything was Grandma Taylor. She came to me and to my undyin’ shame… to my undyin’ shame I told her I would have none a’ that sorta talk in ma parish.’

Mitch Coburn was normally a big jovial gentle giant. Today he looked as if he’d been run over by a Massey-Harris tractor.

‘Ahm afraid to say ah was wrong. Ah’ve been in touch with the Bishop and he’s told me on the quiet that it’s not the first time it’s happened. He’s removed Father Courtney and the Cardinal is coming down next week from Chicago to make amends.’

‘What do you mean it’s not the first time it’s happened, Mitch?’ Eleanor asked, a steely edge to her voice. ‘What sort of “amends” does this Cardinal think he can make?’ Her stomach was churning like a washing machine. ‘My Tom has never been the same since he went out with that priest and now he refuses to discuss it.’

Eleanor’s face was white, matching an anger that was directed at the only target she could find. ‘I stood up for the priest and now you’re saying this might have happened before! My son has had heaven only knows what done to him and all I can do is stick up for a Church that protects its priests and ignores my child and every other child they allow Rory Courtney and others like him to be with. Well, you and your precious Church and that priest can all burn in hell!’

Mitch Coburn blinked at the ferocity of a mother’s anger.

‘I know, Eleanor, I know. It’s the most terrible thing. Terrible,’ was all he could say.

Tom Schweiker groaned wretchedly in his sleep at the memory of a Church offering each family fifty thousand dollars provided that everyone agreed to secrecy. The searing memory of a mother refusing to sign unless the priest was struck off and a cardinal who insisted that was the Church’s business, not hers.

He woke sweating at the memory of a little town that had been destroyed by the suicides of Bobby Shanahan and Hughie Taylor. An anger at a Church that couldn’t care less, callously protecting its image and leaving the Rory Courtneys of the world free to go to the next parish and destroy more lives, all in the name of Christ.

Lorenzo Petroni had good reason to feel satisfied. Karol Wojtyla of Poland had been elected as Pope, taking the name John Paul II. Cardinal Villot had been reappointed as Cardinal Secretary of State and Petroni had been retained as the new Pope’s Chief of Staff with control of the Vatican Bank. But there were still two loose ends. Petroni drummed his elegant fingers on his desk as he wrestled with the available solutions. The Omega Scroll had been removed to a little known part of the Secret Archives and the brief destroyed, which left the old professor from Ca’ Granda and Father Giovanni Donelli. Professor Fiorini would have to be dealt with quickly. The ‘Italian Solution’ would need to be applied. Lorenzo Petroni resolved to speak with Giorgio Felici at the earliest opportunity. Which left Donelli.

The new Pope had brought his own private secretary and Petroni had assured Pope John Paul II that Donelli would be looked after. Angered by Donelli’s calmness in a crisis and his resistance to the Vatican’s press line on the death of John Paul I, Petroni had immediately found him a mind-numbing filing job in the Vatican library in the hope he would resign. Young priests, he reflected angrily, were usually much easier to control. So far there had been no sign of resignation and Petroni had resolved to get Donelli out of the Vatican and the corridors of power at the earliest opportunity. Still considering his options, Petroni began to scan the files that were marked for the new Pope’s attention, only allowing those he was happy with to pass to the Pope – an investigation into a Sainthood… a delegation from Opus Dei

… a request from the US Ambassador to Italy for an audience with His Holiness…

The next file irritated him immediately – the university proposal. Petroni had forgotten about it, but now the doddering old cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Clergy had dutifully provided the four names that the dead Pope John Paul I had insisted on. Petroni was about to consign it to archives when he had a second thought. He glanced at the four names – two priests and two nuns. At least they got the number right. There was less chance of a priest getting close to a nun if there were two others watching. None of the names were familiar which meant that there was less control over the program but, he mused, if Donelli were put on the program it would get him out of the Vatican.

Again he wondered how much of the brief the young priest had absorbed in the minutes he had been alone in the dead Pope’s bedroom, and he fleetingly reconsidered the ‘Italian Solution’. Donelli was too close to the dead Pope; it would be too risky. The speculation on the death of John Paul I had wound down and eliminating Donelli might open up a full-scale inquiry. Donelli had worried Petroni from the moment he’d met him. The athletic young priest appeared to have a razor-sharp intellect and an astute ability to effortlessly grasp the most complex of issues. Unable to feel a genuine liking for anyone but himself, Petroni had reverted to his standard jealous response to any rival. He had done his customary detailed research into Giovanni’s personal history which had revealed a very close family background. No doubt a major reason for Donelli’s ability to mix easily in all walks of life. An image of his own violent father flashed into his thoughts and Petroni subconsciously redirected a burning hatred towards the unsuspecting Giovanni. While this emotion ran hot he marked the young priest with a single star in his little black book. True to form, Petroni calmed his anger and realised the university proposal could work to his own benefit. Sending Giovanni back to university would give Petroni a double advantage – it would get Giovanni out of the corridors of power and stall his growing reputation. More importantly, it would give Petroni a channel of communication and a measure of control over this unwanted secular program. Petroni smiled thinly as he put a line through one of the priest’s names and substituted that of Father Giovanni Donelli.

In answer to Archbishop Petroni’s summons Giovanni paused before knocking on the door to the inner office. He collected his thoughts and went over the issues that he thought might be exercising Petroni’s mind. This week the Curial Cardinals and the Archbishop would again be discussing Vatican II and contraception. He knocked and entered the office.

‘Have a seat, Father Donelli.’ Archbishop Petroni waved his right hand towards the high-backed chair that had a permanent position in front of his desk. Petroni had arranged for his desk and his own chair to be raised several centimetres so he could look down on whoever was sitting in the chair opposite.

‘The Curial Cardinals will be meeting tomorrow to receive a progress report on Vatican II.’ As he spoke, Archbishop Petroni absentmindedly examined his fine bony fingers. Giovanni recognised the ploy – one of feigned indifference – and he was instantly on guard.

‘You’ve served in a small parish, where was it again?’ Petroni asked.

‘Maratea, Excellency. It’s a small village south of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea.’

‘Ah yes, I remember. Tell me, how did the parishioners react to Vatican II?’ It was a fearfully loaded question. In 1962 when Pope John XXIII was asked why the second Vatican Council was needed, His Holiness had got up with a twinkle in his eye, opened a window and said, ‘I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in’. Faced with that sort of logic the Curial Cardinals had been careful to support Vatican II in public, but in private their opposition had been scathing. Concepts such as the possibility of ordinary people gaining salvation outside the Catholic Church seriously threatened the power of the priesthood.

‘When Vatican II was introduced I had only just been made an altar boy, Excellency.’ Giovanni’s mind flashed back to the little fishing village of Maratea where he had grown up in the Faith. His first day as an altar boy was not only a defining moment for himself; it had been a cause for celebration for his whole family.

High above the fishing port of Maratea, the parish church of the Addolorata nestled amongst the terracotta roofs of the houses on one of the Apennine ridgelines that tumbled into the Golfo di Policastro and the emeralds and blues of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Giovanni Donelli was robed in the white cassock his mother had stayed up sewing the night before. He glanced at his family who had arrived half an hour before the service to make sure to get the front pew. Papa was beaming, Mamma quietly proud, and his younger brothers Giuseppi and Giorgio were trying to look uninterested. The old wooden pews protested as the congregation settled back and Father Vincenzo Abostini prepared to address them all. The beautifully kept little church didn’t have a pulpit, but Christ and his Mother Mary would have certainly approved. The altar was covered in the finest white lace, which le donne of the village laundered every week. High on the wall behind the altar between two marble pillars was a life-size statue of Mary, standing watch over the little congregation, six gold candlesticks at her feet. Giovanni could still remember sitting on the marble steps that led up to the chancel, listening to Father Abostini, a quiet gentle man with an ample waistline, thinning hair and flushed, pudgy cheeks.

‘I have a message from the Holy Father himself,’ Father Abostini began, grasping the sides of the lectern. On Sunday 14 October 1962, the same message was being read in tens of thousands of Catholic parishes around the world but Father Abostini had the ability to make it seem as if it was a personal message to the villagers of Maratea.

‘Il Papa sends his blessings to each of you and he asks for your prayers. Under the auspices of the Virgin Mother of God, the Second Vatican Council is being opened in Rome beside St Peter’s tomb. I want to add my own message to that of Il Papa. I know that many of you have great hopes for Vatican II, but, i miei amici, please understand that reaching a conclusion will take time.’

Like a true priest of the people, Vincenzo Abostini was warning them against expecting too much. He had spent time in the Vatican and knew well the formidable power of the Curial Cardinals massing against any change.

‘Many of you, I know, have deep concerns over issues such as birth control, but I would caution that change will not happen overnight.’ The Vatican’s dogged ban on contraception had caused millions of Catholics enormous pain. He glanced at Giovanni’s mother sitting in the front pew. He had shared the guilt of her confession as they’d sat either side of the grill in the church’s little white wooden confessional the previous day. Like so many of his flock, tormented by the Church’s teaching. A dogma that had very little to do with the Bible and a lot more to do with the Vatican using sex to maintain its power over the masses.

‘In convening such a Council our much loved Holy Father has shown great leadership,’ Father Abostini continued. ‘In his own words, he has flung open the windows of the Holy Church to what he has called aggiornamento, a process of renewal and modernisation of the Faith. He has reached out to the Jewish faith with a concern for the Church’s anti-Semitism of the past. Instead of denouncing other religions he has rejoiced in their common spirituality. Il Papa is truly a man of the people. He is one of us. I am reminded of the story of him catching a reflection of himself in a mirror and remarking ‘ Sono fa brutto – I am so ugly!’

The laughter of the villagers of Maratea was full of affection for a Pope who was truly ‘one of them’. A Pope who held the view that the Church should be less hierarchical and more open. More responsive to her grass roots congregations and the world outside the walls of the Vatican. In the tradition of Christ himself, Pope John XXIII held that the villagers were the most important part of the Church. Rather than a tree with the Pontiff and his bishops at the top, Pope John saw the Church more like a field, each blade of grass making up the People of God.

It was this view of the Church that made an indelible impression on Giovanni and it had become stronger as his career progressed. It was a philosophy that resonated deeply within him and formed the foundations for his interpretation of his faith and its teachings. This philosophy was a guiding light in times of doubt and darkness. It gave him an inner strength that would be sorely tested in the not too distant future. Archbishop Petroni and his supporters were quietly massing against any departure from the dogma and were preparing to silence the echoes of Vatican II. But across the Mediterranean, as the heat haze shimmered off the Dead Sea and a few grains of sand trickled from the roof of a cave, a much greater threat to the dogma was yet to be discovered.

‘And what did Father Abostini have to say about Vatican II?’ Archbishop Petroni demanded, frustrated with Giovanni’s noncommittal answer.

Giovanni was jolted back to the present with the realisation that, on the one hand, Archbishop Petroni seemed to need reminding as to which parish Giovanni had belonged but on the other, he knew precisely which priest was in charge.

‘He was supportive of the Holy Father’s message, Excellency.’

‘Of course. And what were the peoples’ views on Humanae Vitae?’

‘Maratea is only a small village, Excellency, but the news of the world does not go unnoticed and many villagers follow The Catholic Weekly. When it reported that the Canadian bishops had allowed informed conscience on birth control, it was also reported that this had provided a great many Canadians with relief from the burden of guilt. Many of the villagers in Maratea expressed their disappointment, Excellency, that they did not receive the same relief.

‘The disobedience of the Canadian bishops has not gone unnoticed, Father.’

‘The people of Maratea are fishermen, Excellency. They have a strong faith that is a great comfort when times are hard.’

Archbishop Petroni got up from behind his desk, turned his back and walked over to the windows overlooking La Piazza San Pietro. Giovanni remained seated.

‘The Holy Father has decided to introduce a pilot scheme whereby selected men and women of the Faith are to attend a state university. It is something I have opposed, Father Donelli, but the Holy Father is adamant.’ Pertroni returned to his desk but remained standing, looking down on Giovanni, his blue eyes cold and steely. Petroni did not enjoy being overruled, even by the Holy Father.

‘You, Father Donelli, have been chosen to lead the program and to provide periodic reports on its effectiveness or otherwise,’ Petroni said, with a chilling emphasis on the ‘otherwise’. ‘You are also to ensure that the more junior members of this program do not go off the rails.’

‘I already have two degrees, Excellency, in theology and chemistry,’ Giovanni said, more than a little puzzled.

Petroni’s eyes narrowed and Giovanni instantly regretted his response. ‘I am aware of that, Father,’ Petroni said slowly. ‘I have at least persuaded the Holy Father that theology continue to be taught where it should be, within the correctness of a Catholic university. You and three others have been enrolled in a new degree, the Philosophy of Religion. The details including the reporting requirements are in this folder. I require only one copy of each report and there are to be no duplicates. They are to be submitted for my personal attention and the reports are to include a general summary on the approach of each lecturer, highlighting where there are departures from the teachings of the Church.’

In years to come Giovanni would have cause to remember Archbishop Petroni’s paranoia.

‘You leave for the Universita Statale in Milano at the end of the year.’

With that Giovanni was dismissed, but it would not be the last time the ambitious Archbishop would impact on Giovanni’s career. As Giovanni would discover, the Holy Spirit worked in strange ways. Two weeks later Petroni was summoned to see the new Pope.

‘Lorenzo. Avanti. Avanti.’ The Holy Father waved Archbishop Petroni to a comfortable chair. ‘Now that I am settled in I have been going over the list of suggested new appointments and I think it is time we got you out of these dusty corridors in the Vatican.’

Petroni’s heart sank. His power base was firmly rooted here in the Vatican and the Vatican Bank. Immediately his disappointment swung to anger as he wondered who might have engineered the move to sideline him. Petroni struggled for control, but the Holy Father was smiling.

‘I need a good man in Milano, Lorenzo. You are a very good archbishop, but I think you would make a better cardinal, non e vero ?’

Not one given to any outward show of emotion, Petroni simply nodded in acquiescence, while inwardly he congratulated himself. ‘Thank you, Holy Father. Wherever I can be of service.’

Petroni left the Pope’s office with a feeling of satisfaction. If he had to serve outside the Curia, Cardinal Archbishop of Milano was a powerful post and he was on track to acquire the Keys of Peter. His satisfaction didn’t last long. It rarely did and back in his own office he slowly and meticulously worked his way through the personnel files of the other university candidates. So far nothing unusual – proven attachment to the Church, all living in regional areas of Italy. One candidate, Allegra Bassetti from Tricarico, did stand out academically – prizes for academic achievement, outstanding grades in all her subjects – a bright young thing. Petroni knew her education would come to nothing, she was a woman after all. He buzzed the outer office.

‘Put me through to the Bishop of Tricarico,’ he demanded, annoyed at having to waste his time organising a university scholarship for some poor nun in a village backwater. Petroni would soon find out that the power of a woman should never be underestimated.