Berry, Steve: the Third Secret

Kealy’s bold leadership had even spawned courage among American bishops, and last year a sizable bloc came close to openly endorsing his ideas and questioning Rome’s continued reliance on archaic medieval philosophy. As Kealy had many times pronounced, the American church was in crisis thanks to old ideas, disgraced priests, and arrogant leaders. His argument that the Vatican loves American money, but not American influence resonated. He offered the kind of populist common sense that Michener knew Western minds craved. He had become a celebrity. Now the challenger had come to meet the champion, and their joust would be recorded by the world press.

But first, Michener had a joust of his own.

He turned from the window and stared at Clement XV, flushing from his mind the thought that his old friend might soon die.

“How are you today, Holy Father?” he asked in German. When alone, they always used Clement’s native language. Almost none of the palace staff spoke German.

The pope reached for a china cup and savored a sip of espresso. “It is amazing how being surrounded by such majesty can be so unsatisfying.”

The cynicism was nothing new, but of late its tone had intensified.

Clement tabled the cup. “Did you find the information in the archive?”

Michener stepped from the window and nodded.

“Was the original Fatima report helpful?”

“Not a bit. I discovered other documents that yielded more.” He wondered again why any of this was important, but said nothing.

The pope seemed to sense what he was thinking. “You never ask, do you?”

“You’d tell, if you wanted me to know.”

A lot had changed about this man over the past three years—the pope growing more distant, pale, and fragile by the day. While Clement had always been a short, thin man, it seemed of late that his body was retreating within itself. His scalp, once covered by a thatch of brown hair, was now dusted with short gray fuzz. The bright face that had adorned newspapers and magazines, smiling from the balcony of St. Peter’s as his election was announced, loomed gaunt to the point of caricature, his flush cheeks gone, the once hardly noticeable port wine stain now a prominent splotch that the Vatican press office routinely airbrushed from photos. The pressures of occupying the chair of St. Peter had taken a toll, severely aging a man who, not so long ago, scaled the Bavarian Alps with regularity.

Michener motioned to the tray of coffee. He remembered when wurst, yogurt, and black bread constituted breakfast. “Why don’t you eat? The steward told me you didn’t have any dinner last night.”

“Such a worrier.”

“Why are you not hungry?”

“Persistent, too.”

“Evading my questions does nothing to calm my fears.”

“And what are your fears, Colin?”

He wanted to mention the lines bracketing Clement’s brow, the alarming pallor of his skin, the veins that marked the old man’s hands and wrists. But he simply said, “Only your health, Holy Father.”

Clement smiled. “You are good at avoiding my taunts.”

“Arguing with the Holy Father is a fruitless endeavor.”

“Ah, that infallibility stuff. I forgot. I’m always right.”

He decided to take that challenge. “Not always.”

Clement chuckled. “Do you have the name found in the archives?”

He reached into his cassock and removed what he’d written just before he’d heard the sound. He handed it to Clement and said, “Somebody was there again.”

“Which should not surprise you. Nothing is private here.” The pope read, then repeated what was written. “Father Andrej Tibor.”

He knew what was expected of him. “He’s a retired priest living in Romania. I checked our records. His retirement check is still sent to an address there.”

“I want you to go see him.”

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“Not yet.”

For the past three months Clement had been deeply bothered. The old man had tried to conceal it, but after twenty-four years of friendship little escaped Michener’s notice. He remembered precisely when the apprehension started. Just after a visit to the archives—to the Riserva—and the ancient safe waiting behind the locked iron grille. “Do I get to know when you will tell me why?”

The pope rose from his chair. “After prayers.”

They left the study and walked in silence across the fourth floor, stopping at an open doorway. The chapel beyond was sheathed in white marble, the windows a dazzling glass mosaic fashioned to represent the Stations of the Cross. Clement came every morning for a few minutes of meditation. No one was allowed to interrupt him. Everything could wait until he finished talking with God.

Michener had served Clement since the early days when the wiry German was first an archbishop, then a cardinal, then Vatican secretary of state. He’d risen with his mentor—from seminarian, to priest, to monsignor—the climb culminating thirty-four months back when the Sacred College of Cardinals elected Jakob Cardinal Volkner the 267th successor to St. Peter. Volkner immediately chose Michener as his personal secretary.

Michener knew Clement for who he was—a man educated in a postwar German society that had swirled in turmoil—learning his diplomatic craft in such volatile postings as Dublin, Cairo, Cape Town, and Warsaw. Jakob Volkner was a man of immense patience and fanatical attention. Never once in their years together had Michener ever doubted his mentor’s faith or character, and he’d long ago resolved that if he could simply be half the man Volkner had been, he would consider his life a success.

Clement finished his prayers, crossed himself, then kissed the pectoral cross that graced the front of his white simar. His quiet time had been short today. The pope eased himself up from the prie-dieu, but lingered at the altar. Michener stood quiet in the corner until the pontiff stepped over to him.

“I intend to explain myself in a letter to Father Tibor. It will be papal authority for him to provide you with certain information.”

Still not an explanation as to why the Romanian trip was necessary. “When would you like me to go?”

“Tomorrow. The next day at the latest.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Can’t one of the legates handle the task?”

“I assure you, Colin. I won’t die while you are gone. I may look bad, but I feel fine.”

Which had been confirmed by Clement’s doctors not less than a week ago. After a battery of tests, the pope had been proclaimed free of any debilitating disease. But privately the papal physician had cautioned that stress was Clement’s deadliest enemy, and his rapid decline over the past few months seemed evidence that something was tearing at his soul.

“I never said you looked bad, Holiness.”

“You didn’t have to.” The old man pointed to his eyes. “It’s in there. I’ve learned to read them.”

Michener held up the slip of paper. “Why do you need to make contact with this priest?”

“I should have done it after I first went into the Riserva. But I resisted.” Clement paused. “I can’t resist any longer. I have no choice.”

“Why is the supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church without choices?”

The pope stepped away and faced a crucifix on the wall. Two stout candles burned bright on either side of the marble altar.

“Are you going to the tribunal this morning?” Clement asked, his back to him.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“The supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church can pick and choose what he wants to answer.”

“I believe you instructed me to attend the tribunal. So, yes, I’ll be there. Along with a roomful of reporters.”