for going after a celebrity.
The Apostolic Penitentiary was the senior of three Vatican tribunals and dealt exclusively with excommunications. Canon law proclaimed five reasons a person could be excommunicated: Breaking the confidentiality of the confessional. Physically attacking the pope. Consecrating a bishop without Holy See approval. Desecrating the Eucharist. And the one at issue today—a priest absolving his accomplice in a sexual sin.
Father Thomas Kealy of St. Peter and Paul Church in Richmond, Virginia had done the unthinkable. Three years ago he’d engaged in an open relationship with a woman, then in front of his congregation he’d absolved them both of sin. The stunt, and Kealy’s scathing comments on the Church’s unbending position regarding celibacy, had garnered a great deal of attention. Individual priests and theologians had long challenged Rome on celibacy, and the usual response was to wait the advocate out, since most either quit or fell into line. Father Kealy, though, took his challenge to new levels by publishing three books, one an international best seller, that directly contradicted established Catholic doctrine. Michener well knew the institutional fear that surrounded him. It was one thing when a priest challenged Rome, quite another when people started listening.
And people listened to Thomas Kealy.
He was handsome and smart and possessed the enviable gift of being able to succinctly convey his thoughts. He’d appeared across the globe and had attracted a strong following. Every movement needed a leader, and church reform advocates had apparently found theirs in this bold priest. His website, which Michener knew the Apostolic Penitentiary monitored on a daily basis, scored more than twenty thousand hits a day. A year ago Kealy had founded a global movement, Catholics Rallying for Equality Against Theological Eccentricities—CREATE—which now boasted over a million members, most from North America and Europe.
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
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?”
