The Accidental Pope (2 page)

The unique circumstance of this conclave, made much of by the record number of journalists covering the Vatican, was a single statistic no one had overlooked. There were 120 members of the college of cardinals under eighty years of age and thus eligible to vote, the precise number stipulated by Pope Paul VI in his 1975 Romano Pontifici Eligendo (The Election of the Roman Pontiff). Expert observers sensed a quick decision.

The one voice most popular on the TV shows was that of Father Ron Farrell. An American, he was a sociologist by bent and skilled at getting to the bottom-line feelings of ordinary people. He was a frequent self-appointed Vatican spokesperson and envoy to the four corners of the world. Farrell was good copy; he could discuss people, analyze situations, and describe the religious controversies behind them, and, in the words of a famous baseball announcer, “He comes across as exciting and immediate as the seventh game of the World Series.”

“History is being made! A moral battle for the soul of the Catholic Church is going on behind these walls,” Farrell announced to the TV audience, pointing to the Vatican, where as he put it, “the world's most exclusive men's club—the college of cardinals—is meeting behind locked doors within the Sistine Chapel. Soon the princes of the Church will elect the two hundred and sixty-fifth pontiff in the Catholic Church's two-thousand-year history, after Jesus Christ himself named St. Peter to be his vicar, his rock on earth, and commanded him to build his Church.” Farrell knew what the media wanted to hear, and he was always ready to accommodate, particularly since the exposure shamelessly promoted his racy, Church-based novels.

Perhaps it was unfair for a member of the curia, the Vatican bureaucracy, to call him a shameful self-promoter. It was obvious that many envied his friendship with the press. “He's good copy and gives us red meat,” said a CNN spokesperson.

Perhaps the only absolute fact to emerge out of the guessing game played by the media and churchmen alike was the conclusion drawn by the highly respected CBS anchorman Don Mather. After seemingly endless interviews and discussions he concluded, “We really have no idea what will happen and what surprises may be sprung at that conclave, once the doors are closed and those men of God take on the awesome responsibility of electing the leader of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. As for front runners, you go in a front runner, you come out a cardinal.”

History would prove him more right than he could ever have imagined.

2

THE FISHERMAN

“Dad, come quick,” Meghan Kelly shouted excitedly in the direction of the boat dock. “Uncle Brian is on TV. Hurry!” It was six
A.M.
in the fishing village of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, twelve noon on the last day of September in Rome, where most networks were telecasting worldwide the opening of the conclave. The Kelly family was up early to watch the proceedings at the Vatican.

Bill Kelly headed up the long wharf where his fishing trawler was moored. Briskly he mounted the steps up the hill to the home he had, with his own hands, transformed from a Cape Cod cottage into a spreading colonial-style house. Room by room, he had expanded it as his family grew—until a tragic illness took his wife, Mary, from them. As he walked through the front door, his oldest daughter, Colleen, called out, “Look, Dad. There they are all entering the conclave.” Her voice took on a slightly scornful edge. “Don't they look just grand in their beautiful colored robes!”

“Hey, Colleen,” Roger shouted as his finger touched the TV screen, “there's Uncle Brian near the middle of the bunch. Isn't that him, Dad?”

Bill smiled reminiscently and strode toward the sofa in front of the television set. “Yes, that's him. I'd recognize that ugly mug anywhere.”

“Dad,” Meghan, the second youngest of his four children, retorted, “Uncle Brian is not ugly. He's a handsome Irishman.” Then, after a pause, “Just like you.”

As Bill flopped down on the sofa next to Colleen, who seemed bored with the pageantry being telecast from Rome, Meghan squeezed in between them. Roger returned from his side of the TV set to sit on the arm of the sofa by his dad. Colleen turned to scold him. “Roger, get off. You'll break it.”

Bill reached an arm out and wrapped it around his young son. “We'll buy your sister a new one if it breaks.”

“I was Roger's age when Mom picked it out at Jordan's Furniture.” As Colleen turned back to the TV, the picture was focused in on Father Farrell describing the scene via CBS. “There go the cardinals in all their splendor. Soon the doors will be closed behind them and sealed until a new pope is elected. All are focused on one issue: Whom will they choose to fill the shoes of St. Peter as pope? Only time will tell.”

“Dad,” Meghan interrupted, “could Uncle Brian ever be elected pope? That would be unreal!”

Bill smiled. “He'd make an excellent one, but that's not likely. Probably be another Italian.”

“That's not fair. They always seem to win.”

“I don't think we should call it winning. Being pope is a lonely, exacting job. He has to do what's best for a majority of the billion Catholics in the world. But I guess the reason for Italian popes is because there are more Italian cardinals than any others.” Bill contemplated his statement. Then, “Sometimes an outsider does get elected. They've come up with at least one surprise over the last four centuries. Consider—”

Meghan interrupted her father. “If Brian got elected, could we go to see him?”

“Of course, love. We'd let the two trawlers sit here and rust while we fly off to Italy.”

“But he was your classmate at the seminary,” Roger argued.

“We all love him,” Meghan exclaimed. “I'll bet if he got elected he'd ask us to his coronation.”

“Maybe,” Bill laughed. “But I'd tell him ‘Send the plane tickets with the invitation.' Anyhow,” he sighed resolutely, “he hasn't got a ghost of a chance, according to all that Farrell has been telling us on TV. It seems the strong favorite is Cardinal Robitelli, Vatican secretary of state. Brian is young for a cardinal and that would go against his being considered, I'm sure. And he's from Ireland.”

“What do popes do all day, Dad?” Roger asked.

“I guess they meet lots of people who come to visit them so as to check up on what's going on in the thousands of Churches in the world.” Bill ruffled his son's hair. “Get ready for school.”

“Dad, we want to watch Uncle Brian,” the boy replied.

“The Vatican news is almost over, boy! Brian is locked tight in the conclave and can't get out till they elect a new pope. So get ready to have breakfast. You too, Meghan.”

As the two teens went to their rooms, Bill turned to Colleen, who was trying hard to replace her mother as the woman of the house. “Hey, young lady, do you have a big school day ahead?”

“College, Dad,” Colleen corrected her father. “Second year at the community, remember?” Bill nodded. “Dad, have you and Ryan got your nets fixed yet?”

“They'll do for the next fishing trip. I have more darn repair knots in the net than original ones!” He smiled at his daughter. “How about some breakfast?”

She stood up. “Breakfast will be ready by seven o'clock. Waffles, bacon, and in honor of the Vatican, cappuccino!”

“Wow! To what do I owe all this special service?”

“Well, you're still a close friend of God through Uncle Cardinal Brian.” Colleen gestured toward the TV set. “So I have to be nice to you—just in case there really is a God in heaven.” She had taken to obliquely criticizing dependence on religious faith.

Bill repressed the slight frown that threatened his face. He and the children had all been devastated by Mary Kelly's death from cancer three years earlier and it had affected them in different ways. Colleen had been particularly close to her mother, and the loss had instilled in her a deep sense of desertion by God. Since the funeral she had stopped going to Mass, and Bill never pressed her on the matter.

Colleen left the room for the kitchen. “Bring it in here,” he called after her. “I'll watch a bit of the TV special on the conclave just to see if Brian is in any of it.” She soon returned with a tray and placed it in his lap, then sat down beside him.

“Thanks, Colleen. Looks delicious.” He began to devour it.

“Will you stop for lunch in town?” she asked.

“Nah, too much repair work to do. Remember, I'm leaving at six-thirty tonight. We've got to be out on the banks at sunrise tomorrow or the fish will swim away.”

“But you've got to eat! We want you to stay healthy—so us kids can keep taking all your money.”

“Sure you do. So I'm thirty thousand in debt right now.”

“Don't worry, Dad.” She smiled encouragingly. “You'll make it. You always do. And just think, Ryan will handle the captain's job in a year. Won't you be proud of him then? Imagine, my brother, only twenty-one years old and captain of his own boat! Incidentally, I heard Captain Charlie is sick and can't go out on this trip. Did you find someone?”

Bill looked at her sheepishly. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Meant to tell you. His name is Ryan!”

“Dad, you didn't! You said yourself he needs time to season. He's barely three years out of high school.”

“Times are tough, Colleen. One less captain's pay will help us considerably, and I think Ryan will do OK. I noticed last trip that I shouted at him very seldom. I was reminded of the time I asked my dad when I would get to captain a boat and he said, ‘when I have to shout at you half as much as I do now—I'll think about it.'”

Bill nodded and smiled at his reminiscence. “It's true Ryan is just twenty-one, but my God, he's six foot four, weighs two hundred twenty-five pounds, and could wrestle a lion.”

“I guess he takes after his father,” Colleen laughed.

“In any case, I did tell our mate, Manny, to keep an eye on him. We'll be back in three or four days with a boatload.”

“Mom said you didn't make captain until you were thirty-eight.”

“Ten years trying to be a good priest didn't help make a seaman of me.”

“Hey, look, Dad!” Colleen exclaimed. “There's Uncle Brian on TV again!”

“Yes, yes,” Bill replied. “That's an old repeat from after the funeral. They must be running out of new material.”

“You were close, weren't you? Mom always said he was your closest friend at the seminary.”

“Yes, we were buddies, you could say. Had a lot of fun together.”

She caught the glow in his eyes as he spoke. “Dad, do you miss being a priest? Are you sorry you have four kids on your hands?”

He looked back with a steady gaze. “No, I wouldn't trade my years with your mom and you kids for anything.” He paused thoughtfully. “Naturally, there are some feelings of guilt for going back on a commitment, but I know Christ has washed away my failure in his own blood. If I have a faraway look, it is directed at Brian. Imagine … a cardinal of the Church! He could do anything.” Bill paused, suddenly remembering how talk of religion could upset his daughter. He laughed. “Except hit an inside curve ball.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I was in my sophomore year when he came out for the baseball team.” Bill stared at the cardinal answering questions on the TV screen. “He was good at anything when he put his mind to it. He'd never played baseball in Ireland, just soccer, and we didn't have a soccer team. But he worked hard and finally became a dandy second baseman and pretty good with the bat, but he always had trouble with the curve!”

Bill glanced at Colleen and chuckled at her look of relief now that he was away from the subject of religion. “I reminded him of that when he was made bishop … just to keep him humble!”

Colleen laughed. “That's sweet. He owes you one.”

“I never thought of it that way. How are your college classes coming?”

“I have a makeup exam today on Renaissance art. Missed it last week. We had a birthday party for Roger, remember? Where's Ryan?”

“Good lad. Already on the boat.”

Bill finished his breakfast and walked across the living room to look out the window at the fisherman's cove below his home. His thoughts wandered once again to seminary days and to Brian. He had always been impressed with Brian's resolve. It had inspired him after his original enthusiasm at hearing God's call to the priesthood weakened, whereas Brian's only intensified. Bill's father had accepted his son's announcement that he was joining the priesthood with little joy. He had been counting on Bill to join him in the fishing business. However, the more the elder Kelly visited his son in the atmosphere of the seminary, the greater his understanding of Bill's spiritual aspirations grew.

Brian Comiskey often spent his vacations and holidays with the Kellys and soon became one of the family. After their ordinations, Brian was sent to Rome for advanced study, and, following completion of his doctoral thesis, he was assigned to the Pontifical Institute for Justice and Peace, an important Vatican agency dealing with various worldwide humanitarian concerns of the Church. After completing his first four-year tour, Brian wanted out of the Vatican and out of Rome. He petitioned for and was assigned to a parish and a part-time professorship at Maynooth University in Ireland.

Bill Kelly had found himself teaching at a prestigious parochial high school in San Francisco but got bored and was transferred to various parishes in the Boston area. He found them interesting enough but far from the challenge he had set for himself as a missionary in some developing nation. High-strung and energetic, Bill felt increasingly frustrated and unfulfilled by the unending routines of the parishes.

In the fifth year Bill was assigned to an old Irish pastor in a predominantly Portuguese immigrant community on Cape Cod. Although a big tourist area in the summer, it was quiet the rest of the year. Here he was near his family, yet kept routinely busy in his parish, where he built a playground for immigrant children and learned to speak Portuguese. Then, as fate would have it, his old pastor sent to Ireland for a niece to act as his housekeeper.