“Captain,” Dolor turned at the head of the stairway; the eyes looking up at Don Vincente were as dead as a statue’s. “I cannot confer more rank upon you, yet you must be firmly in charge here. You must accomplish this by the force of your personality and resolve. Do not fail me in this. I cannot tarry here; being in Palma does not move me closer to achieving my objectives.”
And for the last time that day, Don Vincente Jose-Maria de Castro y Papas suppressed a facial reflex, in this case, a surprised blink. Dolor’s words were innocuous on the surface, but his tone hinted at ambitions and desires that went far further, and were far more personal, than whatever skullduggery he had to settle for Borja in Italy. “I see,” Don Vincente answered simply.
Dolor nodded. “I hope you do.” Then he started down the stairs alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Just inside the entrance of the upstairs parlor that was rapidly becoming known as the Garden Room (the reference was to Gethsemane, not the barely visible vegetable plots behind the villa), Sharon put a hand on Larry Mazzare’s arm as he passed.
The village priest-turned-cardinal started, noticing the ambassadora and her husband for the first time. “Oh. Hello, Sharon. Ruy.” Antonio Barberini the Younger, with whom he had been talking, went on into the Garden Room.
Sharon kept her voice low. “Before you put on the gloves for round two, Larry, I just wanted to congratulate you on winning that all-important first battle. I’d have said so sooner, but we haven’t seen much of you for the past week.”
Larry smiled crookedly. “Trying to write a defense of up-time canonical doctrines from memory is pretty time-consuming, Sharon. Sorry I haven’t been around too much.”
“Not to worry, Larry; I’m just grateful that you proved we’re not demonspawn. Of course, you put us all at risk of auto-da-fe in the process.”
Larry’s smile faded a bit. “Okay, now; let’s not overstate the case, Sharon. Debating in every era, and particularly this one, recognizes a tendency to paint in broad strokes when making a big point. But yeah, I’m glad that one is over; it’s tough walking the rhetorical line between this century’s presumed fire-and-brimstone literalities of Satan, and my own more symbolic beliefs.”
Ruy nodded somberly. “I understand, but you are doing what you have to, Cardinal Mazzare. And that first victory was necessary for you to be able to continue this decisive war of words.”
Larry nodded in return. “I grant you, I felt I was pretty much the favorite for winning round one. The judgment of the common people, and Urban’s own actions, all point to an unspoken judgment that, whatever else we are, we are not infernal agents. But up until now, he’s never proclaimed anything about our origins ex cathedra. If he does so, Urban will be committing the Church to a position that’s going to earn him some real enemies.”
“Yes, but most of those will be in Spain. Where he already has few enough friends, I think,” appended Ruy with a smile.
Mazzare shrugged. “I suspect that’s one of the reasons he’s willing to let all this issue come to a head, now: all the people who will hate that pronouncement are already on Borja’s side. But I think Urban’s consciousness has become less political and more spiritual since the massacres in Rome. I think he wants to be sure-absolutely sure- that in trusting us, he’s doing the right thing for the Church.”
“Which makes him a good pope,” averred Ruy.
“Yeah,” interjected Sharon, “but like one up-time songster said, ‘only the good die young.’ And Borja certainly seems determined to use Urban to prove the truth of those lyrics.”
“Ambassadora!” cried the delighted voice of Urban from the doorway. “I only heard the very end of your exchange-I can discern that I missed the best parts of it, alas-but I am still vain enough to relish the thought of one so vibrant as yourself considering me ‘young.’” He beamed and winked. “I am in desperately short supply of such flattering opinions, so I am doubly glad that I did not have to declare you a devil. Now, let us take our places.”
Vitelleschi began with his signature abruptness. “Today we resolve two issues. The first, that of the correctness of the up-time doctrine of papal infallibility. This has been conceded nolo contendere by Cardinal Wadding.” The father-general’s eyes sparked with what looked like amusement. “Of course, as he is a good Franciscan, I expected no different.”
Sharon whispered to Ruy. “Huh?”
“He is referring to the dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans that gave rise to the entire notion of papal infallibility.”
Sharon, no more edified than before, simply said, “Oh.”
Vitelleschi had not even stopped to breathe. “Cardinal Wadding has also inspected Cardinal Mazzare’s documentation on the principle of the dogmatic infallibility of papal councils as articulated under the convention of the Sacred Magisterium. He also accepts this nolo contendere, conceding that it has been recognized, albeit less formally, since the time of Justinian.
“However, since Cardinal Wadding has already conceded this day’s points of debate involving infallibility, he wishes to use his time to discuss whether the up-time ecumenical council known as Vatican II, or the papal decrees which emerged from it, can be presumed to enjoy such absolute authoritativeness. He has asked to be the first speaker. Cardinal Mazzare, will you consent to giving him the first word?”
“He is as welcome to the first word as he is to the last,” Mazzare replied with a thin smile.
Wadding rose. “Even the sparse documentation available here reveals that the convener of Vatican II, Pope John XXIII, did not want the results of the ecumenical council to be perceived as having the impress of either consular or papal infallibility. Specifically, he expressly enjoined the council not to promulgate any dogma, but instead, to merely reaffirm the truths of the church in the idiom of that time, the mid-twentieth century.”
Larry Mazzare smiled. “Yes-probably because he figured it was the best way to skin that particular canonical cat.”
Wadding blinked. “I’m sorry; what do you mean?”
“I mean if the Council had been free to promulgate dogma, it would never have ended. As it was, Vatican II went on for over three years, and its resolutions took eighteen years to emerge as a series of Apostolic Constitutions. John averted the possibility of a complete impasse by-technically-constraining the scope of the deliberations.”
Wadding shook his head. “I take it that you are implying that even though John XXIII restricted the council to simply rewording Church doctrine, he was nonetheless hoping that this would produce de facto changes in how the doctrine was applied and practiced.”
“Something like that,” said Larry with a smile.
Wadding made a dismissive gesture. “Even if true, that still does not change the significance of his exhortation: that Vatican II was to refrain from promulgating new, or revising old, doctrine. And insofar as that the council might believe itself infallible since it was convened by a papal injunction, John XXIII famously said of himself ‘I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible.’ How much more explicit could we ask him to be in indicating that the pronouncements arising from Vatican II were not to be deemed infallible?”
Mazzare nodded. “John XXIII did say that about himself. However, although the infallibility of a papal council originally derives from that of the summoning pontiff, it does not continue to depend upon or defer to that imprimatur. More significantly, the pope who ultimately issued the numerous Apostolic Constitutions arising from Vatican II-John Paul II-did not declare the same limitations upon his own exercise of the Extraordinary Sacred Magisterium of papal infallibility. Rather, he decreed new canon law and a new catechism from out of the corpus of Vatican II. More significantly, in the bulls whereby he announced the Apostolic Constitutions, John Paul II repeatedly emphasized that the authority of the documents was also traceable to their origins in a papal council. Lastly, the language he used when issuing the relevant decrees leaves no doubt as to his intent.”
Mazzare picked up a sheet from the small table in front of him. “In the In Sacrae Disciplinae Lege, he lists himself as ‘The Supreme Pontiff Pope John Paul II’ and writes: ‘I order today, January 25, 1983, the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon Law.’ And he clearly tells us by what authority he orders this. ‘Trusting therefore in the
