The Accidental Pope (58 page)

Both the pope and the cardinal were surprised at the empathetic accolades of Belfast's bisectarian populace upon seeing the TV and newspaper pictures of their dart game. As the crowds arrived at the park in Belfast, half the people were brandishing the morning newspapers featuring the pope aiming a dart. “Direct Hit on Heart of Belfast,” the papers proclaimed.

*   *   *

With the concert behind them an invigorated Cardinal Comiskey joined the pope's venture across the North. Tim Shanahan, Brian, and the pope rode in the lead limousine, the children and two guards following in two vehicles and the Vatican observers bringing up the rear. At every village crowds turned out to wave to the pope, the limousine slowing down so the people could see him smiling and waving back.

“It's hard to imagine real trouble breaking out again,” Bill remarked to Brian. “People seem so in accord today.”

“The real political fact of life is that in four hundred years, Bill, Catholics and Protestants have been unable to reconcile their differences. There is always an Ian Paisley trying to stir up trouble on the Unionist side and our hotheaded lads causing it on the Nationalist side.”

Bill chuckled. “The Lady Lord Mayor pointed Paisley out to me standing on the edge of the crowd with a bullhorn and his own bully boys around him.”

“It is a tribute to you, Bill, and the moderate Protestants that the Unionists kept their protests under wraps today,” Brian observed. “The best thing that happened in the park was when Mrs. Dawn Richarson, Lord Mayor of Belfast and the city's leading Protestant woman, couldn't bring herself to introduce the pope himself so she introduced the pope's children.” Brian laughed. “Ah, that's a clever Protestant woman. How gracefully she avoided personally introducing the pope, leaving his children to do those honors. It was a charming moment indeed! And, of course, the Protestant Lord Mayor pointed out to everyone at the gathering that Catholics were seeing the mystical power of a clerical celibacy challenged at the highest level for the first time in the Church's history.” He chuckled dryly. “At least as far as they have been allowed to learn it.”

Bill changed the subject. “The kids must be getting hungry.”

“We'll stop in Derry for supper.” Brian glanced at his watch. “Say, half an hour. Then push across to Donegal to stay the night.”

*   *   *

Ed and Kathy Kirby did not accompany the pope's party beyond Dublin. Ed had apprised Bill of his all-too-controversial status in the North of Ireland. Even before he was first elected mayor of Chicago he had openly sided with the Catholic peace and justice movement. After his election, he had never hesitated to lend his prestige to Irish Nationalist causes. He had made his share of enemies, especially Ian Paisley of the extreme Unionist wing, who was Northern Ireland's most virulent anti-Catholic demagogue.

The U.S. Department of State was anxious to keep Kirby out of the North, and Ed knew he would harm the pope's trip in Protestant Belfast by appearing close to the American pontiff. Irish-American groups in the U.S. were always suspected, not without cause, of giving material aid to the families of imprisoned members of the violent Irish Republican Army.

Instead of the North, Ed and Kathy traveled south to County Cork to see their own families, the Collinses and Kirbys. They attended a rollicking family reunion in Clonakilty and stayed overnight with Gerry Collins on his Buttlerstown farm. The following morning they visited cemeteries where many Kirby and Collins family members were buried, including the grave of the “big guy himself,” third cousin Michael Collins, the great Irish patriot who had been killed in nearby Bael Na Mblath.

Kirby also touched the grave of one of his personal heroes, Terence MacSwiney, once Lord Mayor of Cork. His death in 1920 after a hunger strike in London's Brixton Prison had drawn international attention. People like MacSwiney and Gandhi of India had inspired Kirby's personal drive for social justice and commitment to civil and human rights.

Ed and Kathy Kirby traveled in company with International Concern founder Father Aengus Finucume of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Dublin. Together Kirby and Finucume had visited the ravaged parts of east and central Africa with the previous pope and had worked together on world humanitarian issues. Stopping at a Kerry pub on their way to Mayo, where they would meet the pope, the two ordered a beer while Kathy went shopping.

“I would have thought you'd be with the pope, but I'm happy to have this time with you,” the weathered old priest said.

“That old son of a bitch Paisley, a throwback to Trevelyan and Cromwell, would have made the pope's life impossible if I'd been along.”

Aengus wanted to talk about human rights in various parts of the world and after a long swallow started in on the more depressing aspects of his findings. “Look, Ed, we don't get involved in politics. Who the president, prime minister, or dictator is doesn't matter to me. I only care how God's children are treated, and it's not very good from what I see.” Grumpily Father Aengus swallowed another long draft of bitter. “Your president and Congress are playing footsie with dictators in countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia. Special trade deals and White House dinners with bums who are putting the screws to their people.” Fiercely he gulped another measure of the amber drink.

Ed couldn't let the priest blame it all on a White House that had appointed him. “The queen of England entertained some pretty nasty African dictators recently.”

“Pay no heed for the queen,” Aengus muttered. “America's human rights record is a bunch of you-know-what-makes-the-grass-grow-green. I have priests and nuns being beaten and killed, and nurses raped by these government-sponsored puppets. And then we are told that nothing can be done about it! My priests can't celebrate Mass in Beijing unless they clear the text with the government. They can't wear the Roman collar. You heard Father Leo Shea of the Maryknoll Order tell us in Rome about China, that most of the food and medicine sent into the provinces for peasants on the verge of starvation is stolen by the officials and never reaches the sick and hungry. Yet when I look at the TV news I see these U.S. businessmen and politicians kissing that Chinese Communist chairman's fat rear end at lavish parties. It makes me sick. I've brought this to your attention before, Ed. You have seen it yourself, yet nothing changes.”

Father Aengus took another swallow of his beer as though to calm himself down. “Ed, I know you discussed this business with your president and secretary of state. But the letter you got back laying out the official U.S. position is a joke. I hate to say this, but your country is more concerned with trade than with humanity. Or, as we settle into the third millennium, your country is concerned about human rights if, and only if, it does not conflict with big trade deals.” Again a long pull on his jar quieted the priest for a moment.

Uneasily Ed noticed a bespectacled intellectual type down the bar listening to every word the exercised old priest was saying. As Aengus continued to air his grievances, Ed had the distinct impression that the young man, definitely a journalist type, recognized him as the ambassador to the Vatican.

“I'm sorry to put this on you, Ed, but I know how strongly you feel about it. The pope and the president will meet sometime soon. Could this be a topic of concern between 'em?”

Kirby was sipping his beer, listening to his friend, and watching the TV coverage of the pope's visit up north. He was also following what the bartender and customers were saying about the pope's trip, what it meant to both the republic and Northern Ireland. A photo of the pope playing darts in a Belfast pub had been ripped from the front page of the
Cork Examiner
and hung behind the bar for all to see.

After Aengus got his grievances off his chest they left the pub and caught up with Kathy. “Find anything interesting at the shops?” the straightforward but likable priest asked in his deep Irish brogue.

“I did,” Kathy snapped. “I found that no matter where you two go, whether in the jungles of Africa, the poverty-ravaged streets of Calcutta, or even visiting the dead in an Irish cemetery, you'll ultimately manage to find a pub.”

Their chauffeur, Tom, a retired bus driver, was waiting in the parking lot reading the paper when Kathy, Aengus, and Ed got in the car. “How long will it take to get to Mayo?” asked Kathy.

“Without stopping, about four hours, but the way these two lads are going”—nodding to the ambassador and Father Aengus—“we won't be there till after the pope concludes his High Mass in Knock.”

As if to ignore any response Tom turned up the car radio, playing music as he drove along the main highway until they came to Charlestown in County Mayo.

Ed's party and the papal delegation all arrived at Our Lady of Knock at the same time. Knock is revered because it is where the Blessed Virgin Mary, queen of Ireland, appeared to the Irish people with a message of peace and love. Following the service, presided over by Pope Peter II and Brian Cardinal Comiskey, primate of all Ireland and successor to St. Patrick, the entire group drove the short distance to Monsignor Horan Airport in Mayo and boarded the pope's chartered Aer Lingus flagship,
St. Brendan,
back to Rome.

But before leaving Knock for the airport, Ed Kirby asked Monsignor Tim Shanahan if Father Aengus might ride with the pope to the airport. “As someone who heads a large organization of humanitarian workers in central and east Africa, he wants to give His Holiness some impressions on what needs to be done for the poor of the area.”

“I'm sure that will be OK,” Tim said. “But let me get approval.”

Once in the car, Father Aengus told Bill in a torrent of words how important it was for the Church to get a handle on the situation. “The U.S. and Russians don't give a damn about the people. Both are concerned only about oil and minerals, especially the silver and diamonds. They treat the people like dirt. I predict that more famine and tribal war will break out soon. Not even to mention the threat of Islamic fundamentalists and the Russian Orthodox jockeying for power. They see the enormous economic potential and have to control the land in order to exploit it.”

Aengus talked about the deep divisions in Africa and the hardships on the horizon for the people in the pews. “Famine, plague—you mark my words. Every kind of fatal virus infection is even now sweeping rampant through Africa.”

Suddenly the priest was caught by a thought, and he stared at the pope. “I heard from my nuns that you were exposed to some of the worst strains of virus there that we have seen. One sister said that a Russian Orthodox Serbian woman doctor deliberately did it. Are you all right, Your Holiness?”

“I hope so, Aengus.” After an unsurpassable sigh and a long reflective pause, “I found your observations sobering and helpful. Thanks.” Not that the priest had told him anything he didn't know, but it obviously made him feel better.

On the plane winging its way back to Rome, Ed Kirby filled Bill in on how well the visit up north had played in the republic. “This whole trip was very positive. The people thought you were wonderful at the pub in Belfast. Be very happy with it,” Ed declared.

*   *   *

It was only a few days later that Kirby found out how much additional trouble he had fallen into with the State Department. He was hosting an important diplomatic lunch when Seri, the Sri Lankan waiter at Villa Richardson, interrupted him at lunch and handed him a note.

Call DCM ASAP, important. State Department called this morning—concerned.

Reading the note, Kirby murmured under his breath, “What the hell are they up to now? They are always looking for a way to bust my chops!”

After lunch, Ed went down to his office at the embassy, but Cal Seed-worth, he was told by the DCM's secretary, Evelyn, was out playing tennis for a couple of hours. Ed asked her what time the State Department call had come in.

Evelyn looked at her call list. “We received no call this morning, nor did we call Washington.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ed.

“Positive,” said the always competent secretary. “Here is the log. All the calls received or made.”

While looking for State Department calls, Ed noticed two calls from the
London Star,
a tabloid newspaper. “What the hell is that rag calling us for?”

“A reporter by the name of Randolph Bradlee called yesterday afternoon asking to talk to you. The DCM told me to refer all media calls to him,” said Evelyn. “Let's see. They talked for about twenty minutes, and Mr. Bradlee called back again this morning and spoke to the DCM.” Evelyn picked up a note on her desk. “Oh, the State Department did call the DCM at his residence early this morning.”

“It seems that the
London Star
and State Department calls are connected,” Kirby muttered. “But I don't know what it is all about. Tell Seedworth I want to talk to him.”—Ed could not restrain the sneer in his tone—“whenever he gets back from his tennis. OK?”

Later that afternoon, Seedworth returned to the embassy and immediately went up to Kirby's office. “Ambassador, the State Department did call me. They received a call from the
London Star,
which has a story going that is very negative about you. It concerns an incident that took place in a bar in Kerry, Ireland, when you were drinking with a Catholic priest. They say the conversation got very loud and unruly, and your conversation was overheard by many. Your comments were critical of the queen of England. You were quoted as calling Paisley, Cromwell, and Trevelyan ‘sons of bitches.' Eyewitness sources also said you and the priest were pub-crawling throughout southern Ireland. The story further reported that you could not go north with the pope because of your less than past civility toward Reverend Ian Paisley. The reporter followed the incident up with a quote from the British government, who were outraged by the comments of the U.S. ambassador and a certain Catholic priest.”