howling wind. He and Katerina had flown into Split on a short flight from Rome. Tourist buses had lined the airport exits, their drivers clamoring for passengers to Medjugorje. One of the men explained this was the slow time of the year. Pilgrims arrived at the rate of three to five thousand a day in summer, but that number dwindled to several hundred from November through March.
Over the past two hours a guide had explained to the fifty or so making the bus trip that Medjugorje sat in the southern portion of Herzegovina, near the coast, and that a mountainous wall to the north isolated the region both climatically and politically. The guide explained that the name
Medjugorje itself had escaped the terror. Most of the fighting was waged to its north and west. Only about five hundred families actually lived in the area, but the town’s mammoth church hosted two thousand, and the guide explained that an infrastructure of hotels, guest houses, food vendors, and souvenir shops was now transforming the place into a religious mecca. Twenty million people from around the world had come. At last count, there’d been some two thousand apparitions, something unprecedented in Marian visions.
“Do you believe any of this?” Katerina whispered to him. “A little far-fetched that the Madonna comes to earth every day to speak with a woman in a Bosnian village.”
“The seer believes, and Clement did, too. Keep an open mind, okay?”
“I’m trying. But which seer do we approach?”
He’d been thinking about that. So he asked the guide more about the seers and learned that one of the women, now thirty-five, was married with a son and lived in Italy. Another woman, thirty-six, was married with three children and still lived in Medjugorje, but she was intensely private and saw few pilgrims. One of the males, in his early thirties, tried twice to become a priest but failed and still hoped to one day achieve Holy Orders. He traveled extensively, bringing the Medjugorje message to the world, and would be difficult to find. The remaining male, the youngest of the six, was married with two children and talked little to visitors. Another of the females, almost forty, was married and no longer lived in Bosnia. The remaining woman was the one who continued to experience apparitions. Her name was Jasna, thirty-two years old, and she lived alone in Medjugorje. Her daily visitations were many times witnessed by thousands at St. James Church. The guide explained that Jasna was an introverted woman of few words, but she did take the time to speak with visitors.
He glanced over at Katerina and said, “Looks like our choices are limited. We’ll start with her.”
“Jasna, though, doesn’t know all ten secrets the Madonna has passed to the others,” the guide was saying at the front of the bus, and Michener’s attention returned to what the woman was explaining.
“All five of the others know the ten secrets. It is said that when all six are told, the visions will end and a visible sign of the Virgin’s presence will be left for atheists.
“What do we do now?” Katrina whispered in his ear.
“I say we still go see her. If for nothing else, I’m curious. She can certainly answer the thousand questions I have.”
Outside, the guide motioned to Apparition Hill.
“This is where the first visions occurred to the original two seers in June 1981—a brilliant ball of light in which stood a beautiful woman holding a baby. The next evening, the two children returned with four of their friends and the woman appeared again, this time wearing a crown of twelve stars and a pearl-gray dress. She seemed, according to them, clothed by the sun.”
The guide pointed to a steep footpath that led from the village of Podbrdo to a site where a cross stood. Even now, pilgrims were making the climb beneath thick clouds rolling in from the sea.
Cross Mountain appeared a few moments later, rising less than a mile from Medjugorje, its rounded peak standing more than sixteen hundred feet high.
“The cross atop was erected in the 1930s by the local parish and carries no significance to the apparitions, except many pilgrims have reported seeing luminous signs in and around it. Because of that, this spot has become part of the experience. Try to make a trip to the top.”
The bus slowed and entered Medjugorje. The village was unlike the multitude of other undeveloped communities they’d passed along the way from Split. Low stone buildings in varied shades of pink, green, and ocher gave way to taller buildings—hotels, the guide explained, recently opened to handle an influx of pilgrims, along with duty-free shops, car rental agencies, and travel bureaus. Shiny Mercedes taxis skirted among transport trucks.
The bus stopped at the twin towered Church of St. James. A placard out front announced that Mass was said throughout the day in a variety of languages. A concrete piazza spanned the front, and the guide explained that the open expanse was a gathering spot at night for the faithful. Michener wondered about tonight, though, since thunder rumbled in the distance.
Soldiers patrolled the square.
“They are part of the Spanish peacekeeping forces assigned to the region and can be helpful,” the guide explained.
They gathered their shoulder bags and left the bus. Michener approached the guide. “Excuse me, where could we find Jasna?”
The woman pointed down one of the streets. “She lives in a house about four blocks in that direction. But she comes to the church each day at three, and sometimes in the evening for prayer. She will be here shortly.”
“And the apparitions, where do they occur?”
“Most times here in church. That’s why she comes. I must tell you, it’s unlikely she would see you unannounced.”
He got the message. Probably every pilgrim wanted an encounter with one of the seers. The guide motioned toward a visitor center across the street.
“They can arrange for a meeting. Those usually take place later in the afternoon. Talk to them about Jasna. You’ll get more of a response. They’re sensitive to your needs.”
He thanked her, then he and Katerina walked off. “We have to start somewhere, and this Jasna is the closest. I don’t particularly want to talk with a group present, and I don’t have any needs that require sensitivity. So let’s go find this woman ourselves.”
THIRTY-NINE
VATICAN CITY, 2:00 P.M.
The procession of cardinals made their way out of the Pauline Chapel, singing refrains from
All was ready. Valendrea himself had supervised one of the last chores an hour earlier when the House of Gammarelli arrived with five boxes containing white linen cassocks, red silk slippers, rochets, mozzettas, cotton stockings, and skullcaps in varying sizes, all with the backs and hems unsewn, the sleeves unfinished. Any adjustments would be made by Gammarelli himself, just before the cardinal chosen pope first appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s.
On the pretense of inspecting everything, Valendrea had made sure there was a set of vestments—42 to 44 in the chest, 38 in the waist, size 10 slippers—which would require only a few modifications. After, he would have Gammarelli fashion an assortment of traditional white linen outfits, along with a few new designs he’d been mulling over for the past couple of years. He intended to be one of the best-dressed popes in history.
One hundred and thirteen cardinals had made the trip to Rome. Each of the men was attired in a scarlet cassock with a mozzetta encircling his shoulders. They wore red birettas and gold and silver pectoral crosses above their breasts. As they inched forward in a single-file line toward a towering doorway, television cameras captured
