Berry, Steve: the Third Secret

“Did you think the Church would do nothing while you breached your vows, carried on with a woman openly, and absolved yourself of sin?” Valendrea held the books up again. “Then wrote about it? You literally invited this challenge.”

“Do you honestly believe that all priests are celibate?” Kealy asked.

The question caught Michener’s attention. He noticed the reporters perk up as well.

“It matters not what I believe,” Valendrea said. “That issue is with the individual cleric. Each one took an oath to his Lord and his Church. I expect that oath to be honored. Anyone who fails in this should leave or be forced out.”

“Have you kept your oath, Eminence?”

Michener was startled by Kealy’s boldness. Perhaps he already realized his fate, so what did it matter.

Valendrea shook his head. “Do you find a personal challenge to me beneficial to your defense?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“Yes, Father. I have kept my oath.”

Kealy seemed unfazed. “What other answer would you offer?”

“Are you saying that I am a liar?”

“No, Eminence. Only that no priest, cardinal, or bishop would dare admit what he feels in his heart. We are each bound to say what the Church requires us to say. I have no idea what you truly feel, and that is sad.”

“What I feel is irrelevant to your heresy.”

“It seems, Eminence, that you have already judged me.”

“No more so than your God. Who is infallible. Or perhaps you take issue with that doctrine as well?”

“When did God decree that priests cannot know the love of a companion?”

“Companion? Why not simply a woman?”

“Because love knows no bounds, Eminence.”

“So you are advocating homosexuality, too?”

“I advocate only that each individual must follow his heart.”

Valendrea shook his head. “Have you forgotten, Father, that your ordination was a union with Christ? The truth of your identity—which is the same for everyone on this tribunal—comes from a full participation in that union. You are to be a living, transparent image of Christ.”

“But how are we to know what that image is? None of us was around when Christ lived.”

“It is as the Church says.”

“But is that not merely man molding the divine to suit his need?”

Valendrea’s lifted his right eyebrow in apparent disbelief. “Your arrogance is amazing. Do you argue that Christ Himself was not celibate? That He did not place His Church above everything? That He was not in union with His Church?”

“I have no earthly idea what Christ’s sexual preference was, and neither do you.”

Valendrea hesitated a moment, then said, “Your celibacy, Father, is a gift of yourself. An expression of your devoted service. That is Church doctrine. One you seem unable, or unwilling, to understand.”

Kealy responded, quoting more dogma, and Michener let his attention drift from their debate. He’d avoided looking, telling himself that it was not the reason he’d come, but his gaze quickly raked the hundred or so present, finally settling on a woman seated two rows behind Kealy.

Her hair was the color of midnight and possessed a noticeable depth and shine. He recalled how the strands once formed a thick mane and smelled of fresh lemon. Now they were short, layered, and finger-combed. He could only glimpse an angled profile, but the dainty nose and thin lips were still there. The skin remained the tint of heavily creamed coffee, evidence of a Romanian Gypsy mother and a Hungarian German father. Her name, Katerina Lew, meant “pure lion,” a description he’d always thought appropriate given her volatile temper and fanatical convictions.

They’d met in Munich. He was thirty-three, finishing his law degree. She was twenty-five, deciding between journalism and a career writing novels. She’d known he was a priest, and they spent nearly two years together before the showdown came. Your God or me, she declared.

He chose God.

“Father Kealy,” Valendrea was saying, “the nature of our faith is that nothing can be added or taken away. You must embrace the teachings of the mother Church in their entirety, or reject them totally. There is no such thing as a partial Catholic. Our principles, as expounded by the Holy Father, are not impious and cannot be diluted. They are as pure as God.”

“I believe those are the words of Pope Benedict XV,” Kealy said.

“You are well versed. Which increases my sadness at your heresy. A man as intelligent as you appear to be should understand that this Church cannot, and will not tolerate open dissent. Especially of the degree you have offered.”

“What you’re saying is that the Church is afraid of debate.”

“I am saying that the Church sets rules. If you don’t like the rules, then muster enough votes to elect a pope who will change them. Short of that, you must do as told.”

“Oh, I forgot. The Holy Father is infallible. Whatever is said by him concerning the faith is, without question, correct. Am I now stating correct dogma?”

Michener noticed that none of the other men on the tribunal had even attempted to utter a word. Apparently the secretary of state was the inquisitor for the day. He knew that all of the panelists were Valendrea loyalists, and little chance existed that any of them would challenge their benefactor. But Thomas Kealy was making it easy, doing more damage to himself than any of their questions might ever inflict.

“That is correct,” Valendrea said. “Papal infallibility is essential to the Church.”

“Another doctrine created by man.”

“Another dogma this Church adheres to.”

“I’m a priest who loves his God and his Church,” Kealy said. “I don’t see why disagreeing with either would subject me to excommunication. Debate and discussion do nothing but foster wise policies. Why does the Church fear that?”

“Father, this hearing is not about freedom of speech. We have no American constitution that guarantees such a right. This hearing is about your brazen relationship with a woman, your public forgiveness of both your sins, and your open dissension. All of which is in direct contradiction to the rules of the Church you joined.”

Michener’s gaze drifted back to Kate. It was the name he’d given her as a way of imposing some of his Irish heritage on her Eastern European personality. She sat straight, a notebook in her lap, her full attention on the unfolding debate.

He thought of their final Bavarian summer together when he took three weeks off between semesters. They’d traveled to an Alpine village and stayed at an inn surrounded by snowcapped summits. He knew it was wrong, but by then she’d touched a part of him he thought did not exist. What Cardinal Valendrea had just said about Christ and a priest’s union with the Church was indeed the basis of clerical celibacy. A priest should devote himself solely to God and the Church. But ever since that summer he’d wondered why he couldn’t love a woman, his Church, and God simultaneously. What had Kealy said? Like others of faith.

He sensed the stare of eyes. As his mind refocused, he realized Katerina had turned her head and was now looking directly at him.

The face still carried the toughness he’d found so attractive. The slight hint of Asian eyes remained, the mouth tugged down, the jaw gentle and feminine. There were simply no sharp edges anywhere. Those, he knew, hid in her personality. He examined her expression and tried to gauge its temperature. Not anger. Not resentment. Not affection. A look that seemed to say nothing. Not even hello. He found it uncomfortable to be this close to a memory. Perhaps she’d expected his appearance and didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking she cared. After all, their parting all those years ago had not been amicable.