To Kill the Pope (27 page)

“I see,” Tim said, pensively. “That's very interesting. And I'm glad you mentioned it, but I still don't know what to make of it. Like who killed the Colonel and why? And why Sainte-Ange was annoyed when you asked him about de Marenches . . . Oh, well, let's not ruin our dinner with this whole mess.”

Their evening elapsed in the blink of an eye. They each were eager to learn about their respective lives, their narratives flowing smoothly and quietly. Angela told Tim about her childhood, the convent school, her decision to take the vows and abandon secular life—more, she realized as she spoke, than she had ever told anybody, except perhaps her mother, a long time ago. Tim spoke of his youth, the university, the CIA, Egypt, Vietnam, and Phoenix, his rebellion against the Delta killings, his resignation from the Agency, and the process that had led him to turn to the priesthood and become a Jesuit. To Tim, if was like a conversation with an old friend, catching up on their pasts after a long separation.

As they said there good-byes, Tim said, “Of course, we'll keep in touch—and not only over my work.” “Yes,” Angela answered, “we'll
always
keep in touch.”

*  *  *

Tim had informed his Jesuit hosts in Paris that he was planning to spend a vacation in the South to immerse himself in the beauty and romance of the ancient lands below the Pyrenees' chain, and visit medieval castles dating back to the days of the savage papal
crusade against Cathar “heretics.” Arrangements were made for Tim to stay at the Jesuit Residence in Toulouse, an edifice next to the Church of St. Stanislaw that also housed a school as well as an excellent historical library. Tim found it preferable to a hotel, hoping that the local Jesuits might in some way assist him with his research in that corner of France. And he was curious about the contemporary Church in the south, given its tortured and violent history.

From the newspapers he read on the train en route to Toulouse, Tim also learned more about the increasing face-off between the official French Church and conservative Catholic rebels, the “Integrists.” Tens of thousands of these “Integrists,” the Catholic equivalent of Muslim fundamentalists, fought the full range of Second Vatican Council's Church modernization, from the decisions on religious freedoms and Christian ecumenism policies to the legitimization of the vernacular Mass instead of the traditional Latin. Their leaders were priests, like Archbishop Julien Leduc, who had been at swords' points with the Holy See for decades, earning a suspension, but still escaping excommunication, and Catholic intellectuals like Professor Jean Guitton, who had written in
The Spiritual Genius of St. Thérèse
that all the Church's troubles since the council were caused by “the extinction of the mysterious and mystical aspects of liturgical prayer.”

Not only had the “Integrists,” Tim read, occupied the church in the town of Chamblac in protest for a number of days, but thousands of them had marched eighty miles from the great cathedral in Chartres to Paris to celebrate a Mass of defiance in front of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre church. They carried signs calling for “A Prayer of Victory, A Rampart of Christianity” in tribute to the victorious naval battle of Lepanto against the Turks in 1751, “Down with the Muslim State!” and “Down with the Hypocritical Enterprise of Subversion of the Church!” The French were clearly addicted to lengthy messages on their posters. But Tim also learned that the Bishop of Evreux, a hero of “Liberal Catholics,” had been deprived of his diocese for advocating artificial contraception, anti-AIDS measures, tolerance for Muslims, and acceptance of homosexuality. He was offered, instead, the post of a prison chaplain.

To the “Integrists,” the true destiny of France lay in the wartime
pro-Nazi Vichy regime, as Tim had been told by friends in Paris, and the rightist author Louis-Fernand Céline, actually an immensely gifted writer of the prewar years, was their ideological hero. This was the realm of Joan of Arc and the spirit of the Middle Ages. Yet, this was part of the French Church milieu that had produced Gregory XVII.

*  *  *

From the Toulouse railway station, Tim went by taxi to the mid-town Jesuit Residence. There, he was stepping into history. Toulouse, called Tolosa by the Romans, was founded not later than the second century
B.C.
, and ironically had a bad reputation from the very beginning. After its temple had been pillaged in 106
B.C.
, the famous Latin proverb,
habet aurum Tolosanum,
was coined as an allusion to ill-gotten gold. In the fifth century
A.D.
, Toulouse, straddling the Garonne River, became the capital of the great Teutonic kingdom of West-Goths that spread from the Rhône to the Atlantic and from the Loire Valley to the Rock of Gibraltar. Soon, however, Toulouse was captured by Clovis, the first Christian king of the Franks, but it prospered nevertheless and was made the capital of South Aquitaine. Next, Charlemagne conquered it, appointing his son Louis the king of Aquitaine. In the mid-ninth century, Raymond I emerged as the count of Toulouse, launching the aristocratic dynasty whose successive heads were the most powerful lords in southern France and under whose reign some of the greatest horrors in contemporary Europe were to occur.

True to his professional conviction that he needed to know and fully understand the history of the places and the people where he pursued his mission, Tim Savage read volumes at the Jesuit Residence on the story of Toulouse, its emperors, kings, and counts, discovering in the process that the region was the birthplace of the romantic
troubadours
of the Middle Ages and their songs of love, passion, and courage. Reading their songs in French—he could not quite follow the original texts in the native Language of Oc, from which Languedoc derives—Tim found himself wishing that Angela were there to share the
troubadours'
romances with him. She was very much on his mind, even more after their Parisian encounters than before, in Rome. And the word
Oc
means “yes.”

Languedoc, as Tim discovered, is both a legend, dating back to Roman occupation, and a modern-day reality, a most relevant fact to him. A vast swath of France, it stretches west from Montpellier on the Mediterranean, bordering on Provence, through Béziers and Narbonne to Carcassonne and the lands beyond Toulouse. It reaches the valleys of the upper Loire in the North. The foothills of the Pyrénées from Perpignan to Foix are part of Languedoc, which in many ways has always been a country unto itself. Belonging officially to France since the mid-ninth century and one of her oldest provinces, it was virtually independent of Paris until the seventeenth century, ruled by great aristocratic—quasi royal—dynasties like the counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Carcassonne.

The proud and stunningly beautiful province over the centuries had fought its own domestic political and religious battles as well as wars with France and England, survived a murderous papal religious crusade among its towns and castles, its own crusades in the Holy Land, a short-lived union with Catalonia, Moorish conquest, and Moorish defeat—the
reconquista
—and subsequent French royal and republican sway. Languedoc nurtured its own culture through the language of Oc, music, and poetry—and the tradition of being the oldest wine-producing region of France, with some rather remarkable wines.

Much as France remains rich in assertive regionalisms and nationalisms, Languedoc's may be the strongest though in its own quiet fashion: French men and women from elsewhere are simply called “people of the north,” in a somewhat derogatory manner. Languedoc, however, is not inhospitable to the ever-growing Muslim immigrant populations, a significant contemporary political reality. It also is a land of deep religious mystery and mysticism.

Though Tim's immediate concern was to locate and contact Muslim leaders in the South, largely on the basis of information given him by the Paris imam, he realized that it was not as simple as swooping down on a Muslim mosque, office, or household, and proceeding like a common policeman with no-nonsense questions about the “French Brethren,” the plot to assassinate the pope, and so forth. Such an approach, he knew as an intelligence officer, would guarantee suspicion, resentment, silence, and ultimately total failure. He first had to learn more about the Muslim
milieu in that part of France to make himself acceptable in some fashion—the imam's introductions alone would not be enough—and to see how the Muslims there fitted into the broader picture of religious life in the South. His instinct told him again that nothing exists in a vacuum, including Muslims in the Languedoc and the adjoining Roussillon, and that homework was required before he plunged into active detective work. Tim, apart from being a history buff, believed that history and religion were vital in his pursuits.

Actually, Toulouse had rich religious roots. St. Sernin, or St. Saturnin to some scholars, the first preacher of gospels in Toulouse, was martyred in the third century A.D. His body had been dragged through the streets by a bull until he died. Tim was now so conditioned to the subject, that even a mere mention of martyrdom immediately aroused his attention. This, too, applied to the massive massacres in the thirteenth century during the papal Albigenois crusade against the Cathars. Strolling around Toulouse, Tim came upon the eleventh-century church of St. Sernin, the largest Romanesque basilica in the world, and St. Stephen's cathedral dating back to the same century. He found it interesting that St. Sernin was canonized by Pope Urban II, a Frenchman, in 1096. It began to dawn on Tim that, in more ways than one, Roman popes had touched on the destiny of Toulouse—or had been touched by it. Since his mission dealt directly with a pope, Gregory XVII, all that past was relevant to his endeavor.

*  *  *

A few days after his arrival in Toulouse, Tim was invited to dine at the residence by the very aging but remarkably clearheaded Jesuit librarian. When Tim entered the refectory, the librarian, wearing a black beret, sat at a small table, awaiting him.

“I hear, Father Savage, that you are an expert on Islam,” he said, his pale blue eyes under white eyebrows centering on Tim. “We have lots of Muslims here, and we all get along just fine, but I doubt that they have much to teach you about Islam. So what brings you here? Are you
really
on vacation?”

The old man was most perspicacious and instinctive, Tim thought, which could be either very helpful or very damaging. He could, for example, turn out to be a great gossip as so many aging
priests are. He was pleased to belong to this community of suspicious, perspicacious, learned, and gossipy men.

“Well, I
am
on vacation,” Tim told him. “But there is no rule, I imagine, against learning something new, even during vacation, is there? And, yes, Father, I do specialize in Islam and I expect to be in touch with the Muslim community here. As you know, the Holy Father is most interested in interreligious dialogue, and the thinking is that with such a huge concentration of Muslims around here we ought to help in starting up such a dialogue.”

“The Holy Father is absolutely right,” the librarian said, “and, in my opinion, Muslim elders here would be open to dialogue. However, your problem may be with much of the French Catholic clergy here. The ones known as ‘Integrists' don't have much use for the Muslims. They are frightfully right wing—they urge the government to deport the Muslims—and I don't quite see them sitting down with Muslim mullahs to debate monotheist religions. The South is an ‘Integrist' stronghold just as it is the political stronghold of the right, the Front National and groups of that ilk.”

They drank strong Languedoc red wine, and when the
cassoulet
was served, Tim said, “That's very interesting what you are saying about the ‘Integrists' and their friends. I'd like to know more about them. Can you fill me in?”

“Sure,” the old Jesuit said. “I'll be delighted. I can't stand the bastards. But I'll also tell you some things you may not know about Muslims and Christians in this neck of the woods . . .”

*  *  *

In the front room of an old abbey just below the hilltop town of Fanjeaux, once the home of St. Dominic, a young man in a gray suit knelt to kiss the old archbishop's ring in greeting and homage.

“Excellency,” he said after he was invited to sit down on a straight chair, facing the archbishop, “I've just come back from Rome. I flew directly to Toulouse, then rented a car at the airport to drive to the abbey.”

“Are you sure you weren't followed ?” the archbishop asked in his
basso profundo
voice. “We can't take chances.”

“I am sure, Excellency,” the visitor replied. “I'm pretty good at spotting tails and losing them. Years of practice, you know.”

“Very well, then. What have you to tell me?”

“I had another very satisfactory talk with my friend in Rome,” the young man said. “He is most interested in the subject and he thinks it's probably feasible. I offered him the money you had authorized, and he was satisfied, too. I assume he's now at work on it.”

“So, when ?” the archbishop inquired sharply. “Can't wait forever.”

“I would imagine it will be the early autumn, in connection with the voyage to the United States. I think it's very promising.”

T
IM
S
AVAGE SOON LEARNED
that his idea for a Christian-Muslim dialogue in southern France—or, at least, his attempt to use it as a cover for his sleuthing—was not a very original one. At best, he was nearly nine centuries late with it.

The day after their dinner, the priest-librarian had dropped off at Tim's room a book by Professor Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq of Nanterre University on
Islam and Christians of the South (XII and XIV Centuries),
in French, dedicated to the history of dialogues, in war and peace, between Christians and Muslims dating as far back as the middle of the twelfth century. These dialogues, Tim read with rising interest, had been initiated by Roman Catholic mendicant religious orders to establish contacts with Muslim Moors who had established themselves as conquerors in Spain and southern France in the closing centuries of the first millennium, with the Francs' town of Narbonne as the principal center. They first came in 719, and Al Samh Malik al-Khawlani, a Moorish chieftain, died in the battle for Toulouse in 721. But the mendicants had subsequently set in motion dialogues with Jews and Moors inhabiting the region, and in both cases the contacts were based on learning one another's languages—Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic—in schools known as “Studia Linguarum.”