The Good Shepherd (28 page)

“But we proceed - like trusting pilgrims - toward the light.” Cronin led them down the nave at something very close to a run. They arrived breathless before the magnificent marble and bronze
baldacchino,
or canopy, over the high altar. Cronin ignored it and pointed up, into the immense dome.
“Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.
Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” translated Bishop Cronin. “That is what we see, when we first look up into the light. I always enjoy reading it, because it isn’t even an accurate quotation. As usual, the Curia left out the most important thing. Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it - that’s the one thing all Christians believe.”

Turning, he poked a finger at Goggin and said, “We have here the noted young scriptural scholar, the Reverend Andrew S. Goggin, S.J. When, Father Goggin, did that quotation begin to play a major role in the Church?”

“Not until the fourth century, and even then the popes had rough going. Everyone east of Athens gave them the horse laugh when they claimed it proved that they were Number One. It took them about another 500 years to build up a following, and even then they probably never would have done it, if it weren’t for the forged decretals of pseudo-Isidore.”

“The forged what of what?” Dennis asked.

“The forged decretals of pseudo-Isidore, you Americanist heretic,” Goggin replied in his severest scholarly tone. “In the ninth century, some bright fellows here in Rome turned up a treasure trove of documents that
obviously
proved that the Bishop of Rome had been universally acknowledged as the teaching authority of the Church, from the first century. Popes immediately began using them to beat down opposition everywhere. Only trouble was, we now know 115 of them are total forgeries and another 125 are semi-forgeries.”

By now, Dennis had his brain in gear and began remembering some of the church history he had studied as a Jesuit. “This isn’t exactly news,” he said. “Weren’t they discovered by the German Protestants around 1588?”

“Yea, verily,” said Goggin, “but in the 1918 revision of the code of canon law, of 324 passages quoted from the popes of the first four centuries, 313 of them are from the forgeries. However, this is minor compared to the way these fakes made history when they got incorporated into the
Summa Theologica
of old Tom Aquinas. That’s where they created the philosophic background that in turn created Vatican I’s declaration of papal infallibility.”

Now even Cronin was listening closely. “By the eternal fires,” he said, “this beanpole has some useful things in its topmost knob. We must have a conference or two before we leave. But now - on with our tour! This is only the first stop.”

He gestured to the baldacchino with the incredible web of children’s faces woven into the bronze pillars. “Magnificent as this altar and canopy are above St. Peter’s tomb, the eye, if you will go back down the nave a few dozen feet, is not drawn to it but to that.” He pointed between the baldacchino’s twisted columns into the western apse. “There is where Bernini, the Jesuit’s favorite architect, wanted your eye to go, to the Cattedra Pietri, or, as ordinary folk call it, Peter’s Chair. This was a nice piece of solid oak in which the apostle sat while taking his ease in the house of Pudens, a good Christian, who gave him free room and board when he first visited Rome. At least, that’s the story they tell. There’s not a word in writing about this holy chair until the year 1217. At any rate, it was a simple enough thing. It had four good legs of yellow oak, and the back and crest were of acacia wood. ‘Twas a perfectly ordinary chair, which even Constantine did not see fit to meddle with. It sat in the baptistry of the old cathedral. See what the Jesuits’ boy did with it.”

They strolled around the baldacchino and over to the cattedra to gaze up at its baroque splendor. High above the altar the Chair of Peter was encased in black and gilt bronze. At its feet were four huge statues. These, Cronin explained, were the great doctors of the Church. On the right, wearing a bishop’s miter, was St. Augustine, and on the left, similarly attired, St. Ambrose. Behind them, without miters, overshadowed by them and by the chair itself, stood two fathers of the Eastern Church, Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom. “You will notice,” said Cronin, “that the Greeks are not given miters. The implication is, whatever they say has no authority. But here, my children, here you see what the popes aimed at all along by heaping up so much marble and brass and glass. Not to glorify St. Peter, a poor sod with scarcely brains enough to catch a fish. But this, a throne. A simple chair, sat upon by a fisherman, has become, thanks to the genius of the greatest artist of his day, a veritable explosion of spiritual arrogance.”

By now Jim McAvoy was frowning severely. “We never heard a word about any of this when we toured Saint Peter’s with the Cardinal.”

“Of course not,” said Bishop Cronin, “he’s much too kind-hearted to tell the whole truth about this place.”

“Are you trying to tell us that the whole idea of a pope, the successor to St. Peter, is a mistake? A lie?”

“Let’s call it an exaggeration,” said Bishop Cronin. “An exaggeration that became first a distortion and then a disaster.”

“I think it’s very exciting,” said Madeline McAvoy. “I don’t completely understand it. But it’s exciting. Where did you learn all this, Bishop? Is there a book you could recommend?”

“He’s going to write it,” said Bishop Cronin, pointing to Dennis. “Now let’s take a quick look at the only piece of sculpture worth discussing in this godforsaken place.”

He led them back around the baldacchino to confront a black marble statue of St. Peter. The simply robed saint sat in a humble chair staring straight ahead, the keys in his left hand and his right hand raised in a blessing.

“This is one of the few things left over from old Constantine’s basilica. It’s really a statue of an ancient philosopher. The Pope’s boys put another head on it and stuck those keys in his hand. No matter, this at least is a man. If you want to get a good laugh, you should come in here when they put a papal cloak of silk and gold around the poor guy and slap a triple tiara on his head. You’ve never seen anything more ridiculous in your life.”

“Do you think it’s worth kissing his toe?” Madeline McAvoy asked. “You’re supposed to get an indulgence for it, aren’t you?”

“I could use one,” Jim McAvoy said defiantly. He had obviously made up his mind that Bishop Cronin was not going to convert him. He marched forward and kissed the worn right foot

“You’ll never catch me performing that unsanitary act,” said Cronin. “It was all started by him in the 1860s.” He pointed to a mosaic of a pope on the pillar above St. Peter’s head. “That’s old Pio Nono. He had his picture put up there, to announce that he was the first Pope who reigned longer than St. Peter’s twenty-five years. We’d all be better off if he’d only lasted twenty-five days.”

“Why do you say that, Bishop?” asked Madeline McAvoy.

“Because, my dear lady, I thought it was time they elected an Irishman.”

Madeline McAvoy smiled. “Do you think they’ll ever do that?

“If they do, my dear girl, say your prayers because the next thing you hear will be Gabriel’s trumpet.”

Bishop Cronin about-faced and led them down the nave toward the doors. Without warning, he stopped at the Chapel of the Presentation where, he told them, there was the only monument he had come to see. At first, Dennis thought he meant the body of Pope Pius X, which was exhibited beneath the altar, the death-withered hands and face covered by silver shields. “Pay no attention to old Pio Cento there, he was a time server without an idea in his head but daily Communion. I mean up here, man.”

Dennis followed Cronin’s finger and discovered a large bronze relief of Pope John XXIII on the chapel wall. While a squadron of angels descended from above, the Pope, in his tiara and robes, blessed a humanity that struggled to reach him from behind bars. To Dennis’s amazement, Bishop Cronin knelt down in front of it and bowed his head in prayer.

Glancing over his shoulder at them, he said, “Come now, all of you. Say a prayer with me here.” They knelt down beside him, the McAvoys on the right, Dennis and Goggin on the left. Dennis made no effort to pray. He was a spectator here, nothing but a spectator.

“It’s good, very good and very fitting,” Cronin said. “He visited the jail here in Rome, you know, his first year as Pope. Right into the maximum security section he went, surrounded by killers and rapists. A murderer fell on his knees before him and asked him if there was any hope of forgiveness for him. The old boy simply lifted him up and held him in his arms.”

Cronin was silent for a moment, then looking from left to right, he said, “Well, here I am, surrounded by the Church militant and the Church reluctant. Holy Giovanni,” he said, looking up at the memorial, “help us to know the difference and care about it.”

Suddenly, Dennis felt frighteningly tired. Last night’s sleep had not been much more restful than the night on the plane. He suddenly remembered Mike Furia complaining that the jet lag always ruined his sleep for a week. With the wave of exhaustion came an almost unbearable tightness in his chest. He tried to take a deep breath, and it came out in a long ratchety gasp. Was there a chill in these shadowy chapels? What else would bring on an asthma attack now? The doctor who had treated his last attack carefully explained to him the psychological connections, noting how often his attacks coincided with a visit to or from his mother. But why should he sense smother love in the terrible things old Davey was saying about this gigantic parade of marble and bronze and gold?

The doctor had also warned him not to get overtired, Dennis numbly recalled as Cronin led them out of the church at the same brisk trot and paused before two great bronze doors to the right of the ones through which they had entered. “These,” said Father Cronin, “are the doors of death. The artist who did them, a fellow named Manzu, came near to cutting his throat over them. Between the time they were commissioned and when he got to work on them, he totally lost his faith. A mutual friend brought him to John, and something flowed out of the old man that stirred the atheist’s soul. He rushed home and locked himself in his studio for days and nights on end, and this was the result, a protest against death, in all its shapes and forms. See here, we have the death of Abel, then the death of St. Joseph. Then this poor fellow, hanging upside down like a slab of meat. Death by violence. Every Italian knows what this suggests in the bargain. It’s how they finished off old Mussolini.

“Next we have the death of St. Stephen. Can’t you all but feel that mighty rock smashing his skull? Next the death of Pope Gregory VII, who finished his days as a starving beggar on the side of the road. Here we have death on earth, a mother dying while her child weeps. Finally, death in space. That’s the worst of them, in my opinion. Have you ever seen anything more terrifying than that fellow’s silent scream as he chokes for breath?”

Dennis stared at the falling man, the outstretched hands, the terrified sucking mouth, and heard Goggin say, “Every one of them is universal at the same time. Pope Gregory could be Thomas Becket, about to be murdered by Henry II’s knights or Dietrich Bonhoeffer dying in that Nazi concentration camp.”

“The Curia Cardinal who was supposed to approve the whole thing wanted Manzu to put a rosary in the hand of the woman dying on earth. And an airplane behind the fellow dying in space,” Cronin said.

“Notice how Cain is dressed in modern pants and shirt, and Abel is naked,” Goggin said. “The rape of the third world. Or an industrialist beating up a worker.”

Dennis heard all this, but his eyes remained riveted on the man dying in space. The void. He found it more and more difficult to breathe. He turned and walked away from them toward the steps leading to the square. He found himself staring down at the shield of John XXIII in the portico pavement. It was rectangular, crowned at the top by a papal tiara. Running from it, to appear again at the bottom of the rectangle, was a priest’s stole. Peeping out at the four corners of the rectangle were parts of two enormous keys. But the most charming thing about it was the lion at the top, the friendliest lion he had ever seen.

Suddenly, the lion seemed to grow enormously large. Dennis realized he was falling and threw out his hands to protect his face. The last thing he saw was the lion’s childish green eyes.

Several hours later, he awoke in his hotel room. The light was fading from the window. Bishop Cronin, minus his tam-o’-shanter and his blackthorn stick, was sitting beside the bed, looking worried. Matthew Mahan was standing behind him, looking even more concerned. “How are you feeling, lad?” Cronin asked.

“Not very good,” Dennis croaked. “I’m afraid I’ve ruined your first day in Rome.”

“The devil with the day.”

“I’m having an asthma attack.”

“We know that. We’ve had Bill Reed in to look at you. Every ten minutes we’ve been clapping this oxygen mask here on your face.”

Cronin held up a plastic mask connected by a hose that ran down beside the bed to an oxygen tank.

“I haven’t had one in two years,” Dennis gasped. “An awful time to pick -”

“Stop talking,” Matthew Mahan said. “It’s my fault, not yours. I’ve just been examining my conscience, with the help of this heretic, and realized I’ve been working you like a galley slave.”

Dennis smiled forlornly. “I was doing all right until last week – 3:00 a.m. every night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Now, Matt. Who can tell you anything?” asked Bishop Cronin.

“Why don’t
you
go down and get something to eat,” the Cardinal said. “I’ll take over here.”

With a wink at Dennis, Cronin departed. Matthew Mahan took his seat beside the bed. “How did things go on your tour?” Dennis asked.

“Good enough. The laborer was worthy of his hire. Now they can say they’ve seen Rome with the world’s most expensive guide.”