the Third Secret

black lettering: ELIGO IN SUMMUM PONTIFICEM. I elect as supreme pontiff. The space beneath was blank, ready for a name. Valendrea felt a special attachment to the ballot, as it had been designed by his beloved Paul VI.

At the altar, beneath the agony of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Ngovi emptied the silver chalice of the remaining names. They would be burned with the results of the first balloting. The African then addressed the cardinals, speaking in Latin, reiterating the voting procedures. When he finished, Ngovi left the altar and took a seat among the cardinals. His task as camerlengo was drawing to a close, and less and less would be demanded of him in the hours ahead. The process now would be controlled by the scrutineers until another ballot was required.

One of the scrutineers, a cardinal from Argentina, said, “Please print a name on the card. More than one name will void the ballot and the scrutiny. Once done, fold the ballot and approach the altar.”

Valendrea glanced to his left and right. The 113 cardinals were wedged into the chapel elbow-to-elbow. He wanted to win early and be done with the agony, but he knew that rarely had any pope won on a first scrutiny. Usually electors cast their initial ballot for someone special—a favorite cardinal, a close friend, a person from their particular part of the world, even themselves, though none would ever admit that. It was a way for the electors to conceal their true intentions and up the ante for their subsequent support, since nothing made the favorites more generous than an unpredictable future.

Valendrea printed his own name on the ballot, careful to disguise anything that might identify the script as his, then folded the paper twice and awaited his turn to approach the altar.

Depositing ballots was done by seniority. Cardinal-bishops before cardinal-priests, with cardinal-deacons last, each group ranked by date of investiture. He watched as the first senior cardinal-bishop, a silver-haired Italian from Venice, climbed four marble steps to the altar, his folded ballot held high for all to see.

At his turn Valendrea walked to the altar. He knew the other cardinals would be watching so he knelt for a moment of prayer, but said nothing to God. Instead, he waited an appropriate amount of time before rising. He then repeated out loud what every other cardinal was required to say.

“I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

He laid his ballot on the paten, lifted the glistening plate, and allowed the card to slide into the chalice. The unorthodox method was a means of ensuring that only one ballot for each cardinal was cast. He gently replaced the paten, folded his hands in prayer, and retreated to this seat.

It took nearly an hour to complete the balloting. After the final vote slid into the chalice, the vessel was carried to another table. There, the contents were shaken, then each vote was counted by the three scrutineers. The revisers watched everything, their eyes never leaving the table. As each ballot was unfolded, the name written upon it was announced. Everyone kept his own tally. The total number of votes cast had to add up to 113 or the ballots would be destroyed and the scrutiny declared invalid.

When the last name was read, Valendrea studied the results. He’d received thirty-two votes. Not bad for a first scrutiny. But Ngovi had amassed twenty-four. The remaining fifty-seven votes were scattered among two dozen candidates.

He stared up at the assembly.

Clearly they were all thinking what he was.

This was going to be a two-horse race.

FORTY-TWO

MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

6:30 P.M.

Michener found two rooms in one of the newer hotels. The rain had started just as they left Jasna’s house, and they’d barely made it to the hotel before the sky exploded into a pyrotechnic display. This was the rainy season, an attendant informed them. The deluges came quick, fed by warm air off the Adriatic mixing with frigid northern breezes.

They ate supper at a nearby cafe crowded with pilgrims. The conversations, mostly in English, French, and German, centered on the shrine. Someone remarked that two of the seers had been in St. James Church earlier. Jasna was supposed to appear, but had failed to show, and one of the pilgrims had noted it was not unusual for her to remain alone during the daily apparition.

“We’ll find those two seers tomorrow,” he told Katerina, as they ate. “I hope they’re easier to get along with.”

“Intense, wasn’t she?”

“She’s either an accomplished fraud or the genuine thing.”

“Why did her mention of Bamberg bother you? It’s no secret the pope was fond of his hometown. I don’t believe she didn’t know what the name signified.”

He told her what Clement had said in his final e-mail message about Bamberg. Do with my body as you please. Pomp and ceremony do not make the pious. For me, though, I would prefer the sanctity of Bamberg, that lovely city by the river, and the cathedral I so loved. My only regret is that I did not see its beauty one last time. Perhaps, though, my legacy could still be there. But he omitted that the message was a last statement from a pope who took his own life. Which brought to mind something else Jasna had said. I have prayed for the pope. His soul needs our prayers. It was crazy to think she knew the truth about Clement’s death.

“You don’t actually believe we witnessed an apparition this afternoon?” Katerina asked. “That woman was strung out.”

“I think Jasna’s visions are hers alone.”

“Is that your way of saying the Madonna wasn’t there today?”

“No more than she was at Fatima, or Lourdes, or La Salette.”

“She reminds me of Lucia,” Katerina said. “When we were with Father Tibor, in Bucharest, I didn’t say anything. But from the article I wrote a few years ago, I remember that Lucia was a troubled girl. Her father was an alcoholic. She was raised by her older sisters. Seven kids in the house and she was the youngest. Right before the apparitions started her father lost some of the family land, a couple of sisters married, and the remaining sisters took jobs outside the home. She was left alone with her brother, her mother, and a drunk father.”

“Some of that was in the Church’s report,” he said. “The bishop in charge of the inquiry dismissed most of it as common for the time. What bothered me more were the similarities between Fatima and Lourdes. The parish priest in Fatima even testified that some of the Virgin’s words were nearly identical to what was said at Lourdes. The visions at Lourdes were known in Fatima, and Lucia was aware of them.” He took a swallow of beer. “I’ve read all of the accounts from four hundred years of apparitions. There are a lot of matching details. Always shepherd children, particularly young females with little or no education. Visions in the woods. Beautiful ladies. Secrets from heaven. Lots of coincidences.”

“Not to mention,” Katerina said, “that all of the accounts that exist were written years after the apparition. It would be easy to add details to give greater authenticity. Isn’t it strange that none of the visionaries ever revealed their messages right after the appearance? Always decades pass, then little bits and pieces come to light.”

He agreed. Sister Lucia had not provided a detailed account of Fatima until 1925, then again in 1944. Many asserted that she embellished her messages with later facts, like mentioning the papacy of Pius XI, World War II, and the rise of Russia, all of which occurred long after 1917. And with Francisco and Jacinta dead, there was no one to contradict her testimony.

And one other fact kept circling through his lawyerly mind.

The Virgin at Fatima, in July 1917, as part of the second secret, talked about the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. But Russia at that time was a devoutly Christian nation. The communists did not rise to power until months later. So what was the point of any consecration?

“The La Salette seers were a total mess,” Katerina was saying. “Maxim—the boy—his mother died when he was an infant and his stepmother beat him. When he was first interviewed after the vision, he interpreted what he saw as a mother complaining about being beaten by her son, not the Virgin Mary.”