James Patterson - Woman of God

I looked at the beautiful people, at the grand scale of the famous hotel lobby, at the rich appointments, and I laughed, delighting in my seven-year-old little girl’s innocence and astonishment.

Gilly wasn’t in Massachusetts anymore.

Our suite, like the lobby, was appointed in ruby red and gold, hung with Venetian mirrors and crystal chandeliers. There was a terrace the length of the suite with a fireplace and endless city views. On the table in the sitting room was an extravagant floral arrangement and a note from Father Raphael.

It read: Welcome, Brigid and Gillian. I will come for you tomorrow morning at nine and bring you to the Apostolic Palace. Pope Gregory is very eager to meet you.

We kicked off our shoes, and I was looking at the room-service menu on the video monitor when the room phone rang.

Gilly answered, “Heyyyy.”

Then, “Mom. Guess who?”

I PEERED through the peephole and saw his face.

“Open up, Red. It is I, your humble scribe.”

I opened the door and told our bodyguards that Zach was a friend. I was so excited to see him-and yet puzzled. Zach insisted on making surprise drop-in visits. Why? He had a phone. I hugged my tall, journalist, book-writing friend, and Gilly flew across the room and jumped up into his arms.

“I’m a royal princess,” she said. “Would you like to see my domain?”

“I absolutely would,” said Zach.

As Gilly took Zach away, I shouted after him, “Why are you here?”

“Easter week at Vatican City. I was available to cover it.”

“Are you having dinner with us?”

“Uh. Sure. Thanks.”

I’d seen Zach every few months since he signed his book contract, and I knew him well enough by now that I could read between the lines on his face. Something was bothering him.

But Gilly had Zach under her spell. She gave him the grandest of tours. He taught her the waltz while I signed for room service that was delivered after scrutiny by our guards outside the door.

We tucked into a six-course gourmet dinner on our terrace overlooking the Spanish Steps, and after Zach pointed out the visible ancient landmarks, Gilly provided the entertainment.

“I wanted kittens for my birthday,” Gilly was telling Zach.

“Kittens and rodents are off the table,” I said.

Ignoring me, Gilly went on. “After I got turned down for hamsters and kittens, I asked for Jesus to come to my birthday party.”

I rolled my eyes. “She did not.”

“Oh. How did that turn out?” Zach asked her.

Gilly reached down into the front of her dress and pulled up a gold chain. “Look,” she said, showing off her new crucifix.

“Beautiful,” said Zach, looking over Gilly’s head at me.

I said, “Gilly, do me a favor? Get me my sweater? The pink cardigan.”

While Gilly was gone, I said, “Zach, something is bothering you. What is it?”

“Why don’t I just get right to it,” he said, looking miserable. “Maybe you caught it on CNN.”

“What? No.”

“There’s been a credible threat of violence against a JMJ church here in Rome.”

“Oh, no. I hadn’t heard. When did this happen?”

“Early this morning.”

“That’s horrible. Was this because of my visit?”

Zach forced a smile.

“Don’t know.”

“Why does the pope want to see me?”

“Don’t know that, either. But, whether he wants to or not, he’ll like you. Even if he’s made of marble, he’ll like you.”

Zach looked at me for a moment too long.

I cleared my throat, refilled his wineglass.

“I want you to take this seriously. Look at me, Brigid. It’s not safe for you here. This is Rome. It’s Easter week. You’re a woman priest going against the Catholic Church. These are unsettling times. You know what I mean?”

Of course I knew. The deepening planetary crisis-rampant terrorism, mutating disease, dramatic weather patterns every year…none of these patterns were good. Science-fiction fantasies of a self-driving car in every garage and a top doctor on the other end of every phone had not come true on this ravaged planet, which was one downed airplane away from an apocalyptic war.

Even clean air and water and food, basics that people had once taken for granted, were in short supply. People asked why. Some answered that this was because of lack of faith in God.

Lifelong believers and the newly faithful were coming back to religion, and some saw JMJ as an attempt to overthrow the two-thousand-year reign of the Roman Catholic Church.

That had never been our goal. Never. We only offered an alternative to those who felt excluded by canon law.

“I hear you, Zach. I understand. But I couldn’t refuse an audience with the pope, could I? He’s assigned bodyguards to us. I’ll be back in Cambridge before you know it.”

Gilly brought me my sweater, and after a barely tasted chocolate-and-peanut “exotic passion” dessert, Zach said he had to go. Cheek kisses were exchanged all around, and then, with a tight smile, he left our room.

Gilly asked, “Is Zach okay?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t think so?”

“I think he loves you, Mommy.”

“He loves you, too, Gilly. Hey. Let’s unpack. Hang up our clothes and go to bed. Tomorrow we have an audience with the pope.”

For once, she didn’t argue with me.

I WOKE up four or five times that night.

Each time I looked at the bedside clock, it was an hour closer to my private audience with His Holiness Pope Gregory XVII.

I tried on worst-case scenarios: he would say that I wasn’t a priest. He would tell me that none of the sacraments I had performed were valid: not marriages, Communion, last rites. He would tell me I was endangering mortal souls.

Was I doing that?

I groaned and shifted in the bed that I shared with Gilly. Along with having concerns about meeting with the pope, I was shocked at the anger we’d touched off with our breakaway church.

Zach was right. It was dangerous here. I should never have taken Gilly with me to Rome.

Gilly poked me with her elbow and told me to stop flopping around on the bed, to stop sighing. “Just think of fluffy clouds or something and calm down.”

“Thanks, peanut.”

“If Daddy were here, he would say exactly the same.”

We slept, and in the morning, we dressed in black, which was definitely a new look for my little girl and me. Thanks to my father, from whom I’d heard it, I remembered what Henry David Thoreau had written: Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Still, black dresses and headscarves were proper protocol for women meeting with the pope.

Giuseppe and Alberto, our dedicated gendarmes, picked us up outside the hotel without incident, and soon our sleek car, flying triangular, yellow-and-white Vatican flags from a pole on the hood, was speeding toward Vatican City.

During the time I’d lived in Rome, I’d learned the city, but to Gilly, this was all new, and it was grand.

Our car took us on Viale della Trinità dei Monti, passing the Villa Borghese gardens on the right. From there, we crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Regina Margherita, and not long after that, we turned onto Via della Conciliazione toward St. Peter’s Square, where preparations were being made for the expected millions on Easter Sunday.

And that was when my apprehension vanished, leaving behind something like sunny optimism.

I realized that I had been imagining the pope as another version of my supercritical father. But the pope had invited me to the Vatican. He had made me very comfortable and welcome and safe. Meeting with him was an honor, a privilege, and an extraordinary opportunity to tell him about my experience as a priest. I would tell him about my overwhelming acceptance and could cite examples of other woman priests in the many breakaway churches who were having a positive effect on their congregations.