Luis Rocha - Papal decree

They invited her to enter the palace through a back hall, a large, ample area with a stairway rising to the higher floors. There was no doubt the Romans of the Renaissance knew how to build palaces. This proved it, if proof was necessary. They went up two flights.

‘I didn’t know this palazzo belonged to the Holy See,’ Sarah said to break the silence. She was panting, the result of not having worked out for a while.

‘It doesn’t,’ the cardinal replied in a friendly way. ‘Actually it’s the Italian Senate’s. We’ll see in a minute.’

‘Then why are we here?’

They reached the second floor, which opened into an immense atrium with enormous closed double-paneled wooden doors at the other end.

‘What better place for a private conversation?’ the cardinal disclosed.

The priest opened the doors.

‘Please.’ The cardinal motioned Sarah to go in before him.

Sarah accepted with a decisive step inside.

‘This used to be the library of the palazzo.’

The room had high walls, like everything else in the palace. Sarah tried to imagine it filled with bookcases from top to bottom. Now the walls were hung with paintings by artists who were unfamiliar to her, on various themes: religion, paganism, erotica, all chosen by someone who kept his reasons to himself. Two busts were placed against two facing walls. They were two men, Medicis, Popes Leo and Clement. The painting of a woman dominated the back wall. It wasn’t difficult to guess who she was… Madama Margherita of Austria.

There were in fact traces of modernity; a temporary exhibition spread across the room with paintings, parchments, and photographs.

Sarah gave herself time to get used to the atmosphere and then looked at the cardinal.

‘Why is it that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wants to talk to me?’

‘You recognized me? I’m flattered,’ the prince of the church joked.

They walked side by side. The cardinal looked at the priest assisting him, who, with an obedient motion of his head, left the room without turning his back, and closed the doors.

Sarah looked at the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith inquisitively. She was still waiting for his reply.

‘Did your book signing go well?’ the prefect asked, changing the subject with a congenial smile.

‘You tell me, Your Eminence,’ Sarah said provocatively.

‘Call me William.’

If he’d been dressed like an ordinary man in a suit, shirt, perhaps matching tie, she might have complied with the request, but not in these circumstances. Not with a man in a black cassock with a scarlet slash dominating his chest, a gaudy gold cross hanging from his neck, and a cardinal’s cap.

‘I don’t think it’s standard practice for men so prominent in the church to seek out women in their hotels, drive off with them in their cars, and bring them to a palazzo. We’ll have to talk about that eventually, Cardinal William,’ she said, settling on a half title.

The cardinal looked at Sarah and smiled. Then he stepped forward to a display that showed a poster of Jesus Christ, a common image, recognized by everyone regardless of his or her faith. At the bottom was the title of the exposition in large letters. Sarah found them curious: THE FACES OF CHRIST.

And in subtitle: Artistic Representations of Christ Through the Centuries.

An engraving dating from the first century A.D. was next to the poster. An image of the Nazarene in a somewhat crude sketch that was faithful to the idea of Christ at that time.

Curious, Sarah thought to herself.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ William asked.

‘Very,’ Sarah agreed, still looking at the artistic representations.

‘We have an image so associated with Him that we don’t realize that it came from the mind of an artist, and later from others, and so forth through the centuries,’ William explained. ‘Look at this one,’ he said, pointing to a painting in the third display that showed a powerful man with a sparse beard and his hand on the head of a kneeling man.

‘Is that Him?’ Sarah asked, curiously. ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

‘But it is. An artist’s vision.’

Sarah had not expected an evening like this, wandering through a room in a palace side by side with one of the most influential cardinals in the college.

‘Why’d you bring me here?’ she asked, a variation on the question she’d asked before, like an artist creating something different from the same motif.

William pointed at the various images in the exposition. ‘For Him.’

Sarah looked puzzled at the different representations. Maybe William had not explained himself clearly. ‘For whom?’

‘For Yeshua ben Joseph.’ He proclaimed. ‘Jesus, the son of Joseph.’

She still didn’t understand. What was she there for? She waited for William to continue.

‘Sarah has a special talent. Rare in journalists, let’s say. Discretion.’ He praised her.

Sarah decided to stay silent. She didn’t know how to respond to the observation.

‘It’s not just journalism that lacks discretion. A lot of other professions could use it. Seriousness, too.’

‘Is the church discreet and serious?’ Sarah asked.

‘There are times when it’s not, I confess. Times we don’t like to remember, but today I’m proud to belong to an institution that excels in both qualities.’

Sarah didn’t doubt that William believed what he was saying, but she did doubt the complete honesty of his assertion.

‘According to the Holy Father, Sarah also excels in those qualities.’

Would the pope speak about her qualities? This remark left her perplexed, internally; externally she remained impassive. She’d learned not to show her feelings with Rafa… Oh, forget him.

‘The Holy Father?’ Sarah smiled. ‘Surely he has more to worry about than my qualities.’

‘Everything, Sarah. The Holy Father is a man who worries about all the sheep in his flock.’

‘Please, Cardinal William. I’m sorry, but I’m not a sheep in the pope’s flock.’

‘You have two books that prove it. That show you want to know the problems, that you want them to be solved, that you worry about them,’ the prefect argued.

‘Two books that, probably, the congregation over which you preside would censure if the Index Libro-rum Prohibitorum still existed,’ Sarah replied. She never thought she’d be speaking on equal terms with a cardinal.

‘The Holy Inquisition continues to exist, my dear. And it’s important that it does. But with respect to your reply, let me tell you that the Roman Catholic Church never for a moment opposed your books. There has not been one unfavorable review or angry sermon. Nothing.’

Sarah wasn’t convinced in the least. ‘Sometimes silence is the best remedy. The church is a master at letting time erase what it doesn’t want remembered.’

‘Let me remind you that you are alive because of this church you reproach and this pope you criticize.’

Sarah respected the remark. It was true. Twice. It suited the church to intervene in her favor, but, yes, it had done so.

‘Has the time come to collect?’ Sarah asked, frowning. Was that it?

William didn’t answer. He continued to walk along, looking at the faces of Christ. Some were very similar, others added something more: an athletic bearing, a physical detail, different hair, now blond, now brown, shorter, longer, thin, good-natured, smiling, suffering, contemplative, miraculous, enigmatic, angry, frightened. There were innumerable representations of the same person, each different and yet all the same, if that were possible.

‘The church needs you, Sarah,’ William concluded. ‘We’re in a war and under secret attack. It’s not a payback but an urgent request.’