The Making of a Pope

It was the year of the three Popes, a year of shattering changes in the papacy. The cardinals assembled in August, took a big gamble and won, more spectacularly, perhaps, than they had expected. Then death wiped out the September smile and the cardinals went back and took an even bigger gamble. At the present moment, they seem to have won that one, too.

Cardinals are not usually high-stake gamblers.

Rereading my notes from the years of research before August 1978, I can trace the pattern of events that produced the dramatic moments of late summer and early autumn of that year. In retrospect, the hints were all there. As George Orwell would have said, all Vaticanologists are wrong, but they are wrong in different ways.

I have not attempted to hide the mistakes I made in trying to put together this story--the bad predictions remain here alongside the good ones. My journal of the events as they unfolded appears in regular type; the insights I gleaned later from confidential sources appear in italics.

The purpose of this story, though, is not to set up a ledger sheet of successes and failures in predictions. It is, rather, an essay in understanding, an attempt to grapple with go-for-broke cardinals, a Pinocchio-quoting Pope, self-destructive curialists, and then a Polish Pope who writes learned philosophical articles and canoes down turbulent rivers.

It will be evident that I don't like the way the Catholic Church has been run--great comedy but poor church. However, my criticism is not that of a detached outsider but of a passionately committed insider--an American priest, who is also a sociologist and a journalist. Composed of humans, the Church will have human faults, but those who love it are committed to reducing those faults, not covering them over. We wash our dirty linen in public because that is the only way to get it clean.

It is just as well that I could not interview all the cardinals. It is part of the conspiracy of dishonesty and secrecy that surrounds papal elections and papal government that cardinals are not supposed to tell the truth. There are exceptions, thank God. I learned about what happened from "sources" whose lives and careers would be destroyed if their names were revealed (I thought of calling one source Deep Purple). So much for an institution whose Founder talked about working in the open and speaking from the housetops. The reader will have to accept the fact that my sources are well informed, and that I quote them accurately. I have so obscured their identities, however, that it would be pointless for anyone to try to break through the disguises. In using material from confidential sources that was critical of the various actors in the conclave drama, I followed the Washington Post--Wood--ward--Bernstein rule of not including allegations that could not be confirmed by two independent sources. In several cases, I asked some of those in a position to know about such allegations to read hem in manuscript form to correct any inaccuracies that might have crept in. I Omitted one particularly juicy raw dossier on an Italian cardinal--given to me by a major Vatican agency--even though I was able to obtain partial confirmation. I simply was not satisfied with the precision of the documentation.

This is the true account, as best I can tell it, of the year of the three Popes. I tell it in the conviction that, as Pius XI said, "The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from the truth."

Rome, Friday, May 12, 1978

My feelings driving into Rome today were mixed, more sharply ambivalent than they've been at any other time here. It was a lovely day, robin's-egg-blue sky, soft sunlight, green fields. Weather in the high 60s. The country between Fiumicino and Rome (once doubtless part of the Mediterranean sea bed) is flat and kind of nice-looking, and the city glows in the distance. It is one of the loveliest cities, I think, in the whole world.

On the other hand, they just buried Aldo Moro, as much a martyr to the Christian Democratic Party's coalition with the Communists as a martyr to the Red Brigades. Coming in from the airport, I passed various roadblocks of cops, with machine guns at the ready, though whatever earthly good they were doing, I can't fathom. For anyone with any experience of this country at all. It's not surprising they couldn't find Moro or his kidnapers. Indeed, what's surprising is that anything works here at all.

Then there's the Holy Roman Catholic Church, this year busy celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, the 15th anniversary of Paul VI and the tenth anniversary of his encyclical Humanae Vitae. Talk about a downhill slope.

The Roman authorities have sent out word that they want celebrations of the encyclical. It seems to me to make as much sense as celebrating the sinking of the Titanic, the Johnstown flood or the Chicago Fire. Still, Pope Paul clings to the papacy, apparently too weak now to see any visiting bishops, and the Church drifts aimlessly.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the amount of spontaneous paranoia to be found in Italy. The typical Italian driver, for example, believes firmly that the things going on on the highway around him are part of an organized conspiracy. "They" are out to get him, and their behavior on the highway only confirms his suspicions. It is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course, because if everyone is out to get you, you've got to get him first. So you cut in front of him, switch lanes on him before he can do it to you.

The same thing goes on in the Vatican. The thought of a well-organized curial conspiracy is something that can only be dreamed up by quasi--fiction writers like Malachi Martin. There's not enough trust in the Curia to generate a systematic plot. A curial scheme to reverse the effects of the Vatican Council is as much fiction as is organized crime in the United States. The effects are the same as if there were a plot, but there is no "grand conspiracy" and no evil genius behind it. There does not have to be.

Saturday, May 13

I had dinner tonight with a weary and discouraged friend, Father Adolph [not his real name]. Paul VI has been slipping badly week after week. Adolpho says he does not see how he can last another year. This is the same Adolpho who said last fall that Paul could go on for four or five years.

The Vatican, Adolpho tells me, has ground to a halt. Decisions don't get made. In Pope Pius XII's declining days, Madre Pasqualina, the German nun, was running the Church. With Cardinal Giovanni Benelli now in Florence as archbishop, nobody is running the Church. Monsignor Pasquale Macchi, the secretary, is concerned about the Vatican library and the Vatican museum; Cardinal Jean Villot [who died on March 9, 1979], the Vatican secretary of state, is ineffective. It used to be said that Villot had no power because Benelli had it all; it now turns out, according to Adolpho, that Benelli had all the power because Villot was incapable of exercising power. Archbishop Giuseppe Caprio, who is Benelli's replacement as Substitute of the Secretariat of State and the only one besides Macchi who sees the Pope every day, is a pleasant and well-meaning fellow, not terribly intelligent and certainly not motivated to make any hard decisions. Everybody is waiting, biding his time.

Adolpho had complimentary things to say about Il Signor Cardinale's [another confidential source] management of his congregation. He said he's the only one who really runs an efficient congregation in the Curia. He also said he's a very shrewd man. I mentioned that Cardinal Corrado Ursi (archbishop of Naples) was the cardinal's candidate, and Adolph said he and Ursi were close personal friends, that Ursi is a nice man but terribly, terribly sensitive and easily goes off into rages over hurt feelings. Cardinal Albino Luciani, the patriarch of Venice, whom my friends of this afternoon thought the Romans were pushing, would be a nice, pleasant man but very unconfident.

At lunch, Father Micheli [pseudonym for another of the author's confidential sources] showed me some raw-data files from a curial office (which apparently are being passed around to everyone in Rome) containing the most vile accusations against one of the candidates, accusing him of cronyism, corruption, venality and greed. I have had some slight confirmation of these charges from a hint given to me by an American bishop, but it would be irresponsible to set down even in these notes the charges or the candidate's name. To provide some idea, though, of the nature of the charges, one of the women who are supporting this cardinal's candidacy for the papacy in Rome is described as the "slut of priests"; that is to say, someone who is readily available, even though she is married, to supply affection to various curial cardinals who need affection. Lots of juicy, raw meat, but thank you, no, I don't want any.

That ends the first day's notes. The two interviews give somewhat different messages: Micheli thinks that there will be a long delay before the Pope dies. Adolpho feels it will be a rather short time. I am sure that Micheli's position is far more common in Rome than Adolpho's. However, those folks don't get a look at the Pope every week.

Sunday, May 14

I spent an hour and a half talking with Pat Kelly, member of the staff of one of the lesser Roman agencies set up since the Vatican Council to go through the motions of honoring the council and still not make any trouble for anybody in the real Curia. Kelly confirmed that Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Bishops, is making a vigorous power play right now for the papacy. He wants it so bad he can taste it. (Incidentally, in Rome, he's known as "Viaggo Baggio," a Roman pun meaning "Baggio the traveler.")

Kelly also confirms the hatred of Villot for Baggio. The people in the secretary's office are doing everything they can to blacken his name, so if there is so much being expended in Rome to destroy the cardinals who are likely candidates, Adolpho may very well be right. The curialists smell a conclave and are getting ready for it by attacking their opposition. You get told over here that the Curia is factionalized, and you begin to believe it when you hear stories of the sort that I've been hearing the past couple of days about the character assassinations.

I'll be heading back home tomorrow with the conviction that. the conclave is near.

Chicago, Friday, August 4

Sebastiano Baggio has been in our city. In a secret stop on his way to a meeting in Latin America, he visited Cardinal John Cody with a "request" from the Pope that Cody yield power. The cardinal is already telling people about the visit. I hear there was a fierce shouting match most of one night at Cody's villa on the grounds of the seminary at Mundelein, with the cardinal adamantly refusing to go along with the request. This is Rome's most recent attempt to act on the dossier of charges that has been collected against the cardinal--charges alleging racism (in fact, Cody is hardly a racist, but he closed several inner-city schools, many attended largely by non-Catholic blacks, because he feels the Church has no mission to educate non-Catholics); financial maladministration (among other things, failure to account to Rome for the investment of some $60,000,000 in parish funds); poor administration; conflict with the clergy; unpopularity with the laity; and "extraordinary" personal habits (tales of his involvement in complex political and military machinations, vindictiveness, a passion for secrecy and mystery). While it does not have the resources to sort out fact from fiction in these rumors, Rome operates on the assumption that where there is so much smoke, there must be some fire.

As one Roman said to me, "Any bishop on whom they had all that material would have been a chaplain in an old people's home five years ago." But Rome is reluctant to move against a cardinal, no matter how bad the case and how great the potential scandal.

So Paul VI approached his final days knowing that he had a major unsolved problem in Chicago and that one of the men likely to vote for his successor was a man on whom a huge negative dossier had been prepared by staff members who were normally anything but squeamish about the aberrations of highly placed ecclesiastics. Most human leaders are prone to the temptation to ignore unpleasant issues if they possibly can. No one should be shocked that Popes do the same thing.

Sunday, August 6

The Pope had been worn out even before he left Rome for Castel Gandolfo on July 14. During the 15-mile ride, he had said to his staff, "We are leaving, but we do not know if we will return or how we will return." On Friday, August fourth, he did not feel well, and his doctor, 70-year-old Mario Fontana, diagnosed the ailment as a return of the bladder infection that had recurred several times since his prostate operation.

As a precaution, Dr. Fontana ordered the Pope to bed in his damask-walled room overlooking the castle gardens. Fontana checked with the urologist in Rome and began treating the infection, uneasy because of the Pope's age and generally weakened condition but not yet seriously worried. Monsignor Macchi urged him to announce on Saturday the cancellation of his noonday Angelus blessing on Sunday. The bladder infection worsened on Saturday; Sunday his fever continued to be moderately high, but he was awake and alert, and the doctors were not unduly alarmed. Macchi began Mass for the Pope at six o'clock Sunday evening in the chapel next to his bedroom. Father John Magee (his other secretary, Irish born), a doctor and a few other members of the household were present at Mass. Just before Communion, the Pope became extremely agitated but pulled himself together to receive Communion and then lapsed into semiconsciousness. His blood pressure now began to vary greatly, first high, then low, then high again. The doctor diagnosed the seizure during Mass as a heart attack. The Pope was put into an oxygen tent and Villot, the camerlengo (the man who would be acting Pope during the interregnum), was summoned from Rome. The Pope's brother, former Senator Ludovico Montini, was also called. The heart attack was announced to the world, but the Pope was still conscious when Villot arrived. Villot spoke with him privately for five or six minutes. Then the Pope's breathing grew more labored and he said, "We have arrived at the end. We thank..."--using the formal "we" almost to the end. A little later, he said simply, "Pray for me." Now everyone was present who should have been there--Villot, Caprio, Macchi, Fontana, Magee, the Pope's nephew, Marco Montini, and four sisters who cared for the papal household at Castel Gandolfo. At 9:40 p.m., Sunday, August 6, 1978--quietly, almost as though he were falling asleep--Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI, came to the end of his life.

•

Rome, Tuesday, August 8

Rome is almost a deserted city. Everyone, as someone said to me, was away on vacation when the Pope died--even the Pope. There were apparently only four cardinals in Rome; now all the cardinals are hustling from all over the world. The funeral won't be until Saturday--a seven-day wake, too much even by Irish standards. They are going to bring the Pope's body down from Castel Gandolfo tomorrow evening.

The Italian papers are already filled with speculation about who the next Pope will be. They are talking about Villot, who is almost 73 years old; Benelli, who is 57; Baggio, who is 65; Cardinal Eduardo Pironio (one of the most influential of the progressive Latin American bishops), who is 57; Cardinal Johannes Willebrands (archbishop of Utrecht), who is 69; Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli (most widely traveled and most progressive of the curial cardinals), who is 68; and Cardinal Franz Koenig (archbishop of Vienna), who is 73. Koenig himself, however, has said, in effect, that he does not choose to run and that the next Pope (continued on page 96) Making of a Pope (continued from page 92) should be a young man and non-Italian.

The cardinals are starting to arrive in Rome. They really have so little time. They know, relatively speaking, so little of one another. They are being pulled away from vacations. It's likely to be hot here in Rome (though the weather has been lovely today and is already cooling off this evening). The requirements of secrecy, prohibitions against explicit campaigning, the protocol that forbids the cardinals to admit their real differences of opinion--all of these are going to restrict and inhibit the wisdom of their decision even more.

Only 12 men have been in the conclave before. Inexperienced men without the time or the preparation or the freedom of discussion are going to make perhaps the most critical choice that a group of cardinals has made in the past half millennium. I have the knot of fear in my stomach once again.

Wednesday, August 9

The Pope's body was brought back tonight. I'm sure the papers tomorrow will speak of the large crowds of people--"Throngs Mourn Pope," the headlines will say. But there weren't throngs, there was only a thin line of people along the barriers and several thousand clustered up in the front of St. Peter's, where a brief service took place. There's no way to sort out how much of this is indifference to the papacy, how much of it is indifference to Paul VI and how much of it is simply August. However, despite the vacations, there are still a lot of people in Rome, and the sidewalk cafés in the streets a few blocks away from St. Peter's seem to be filled with people, and there are young folk going in and out of the moviehouses. Of course, what else should they do on a cool, lovely summer evening?

There is a meeting tonight on the Via della Conciliazione long after darkness between the Brazilian cardinal Agnelo Rossi (who works in the Curia) and the ineffable Cardinal Pericle Felici, prefect of the papal appellate court. Rossi has come as a delegate of Pignedoli, who proposes an alliance with Felici to protect Pope Paul's status quo. Two men, clad in black cassocks so that they will not be recognized, talk briefly as they walk along the sidewalk close to the walls of the buildings that line the street. Felici dismisses the proposal out of hand.

Pignedoli is a lightweight; he wants no part of him.

There will be no such deal. Rossi nods noncommittally and says that he will convey Felici's refusal to Pignedoli. Felici returns to his apartment near the Vatican and relaxes on his favorite couch and continues to make phone calls. There is no real support, he is convinced, for either Baggio or Pignedoli among the foreign cardinals. He and his allies in the Curia trust neither of the men. They can easily be stopped. But who, then, to nominate--Cardinal Paolo Bertoli, the 70-year-old former diplomat who has been on Paul VI's shelf? A difficult and contentious man, too rigid in his principles, but at least not a lightweight like Pignedoli or an unpredictable opportunist like Baggio. There must be support for Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, archbishop of Genoa, on the first ballot, of course, for old times' sake. But Siri cannot win. Felici thinks briefly of Luciani, his good friend from Venice. The dean of the College of Cardinals, Carlo Confalonieri, who will not be able to vote because he is over 80, has also spoken of Luciani as a good and gentle man. Luciani's holiness would doubtless be attractive to foreigners: Since he has gone to Venice, he has proved quite responsive to curial instructions. Doubtless he could easily be persuaded to see to the promulgation of a new code of canon law to which Felici has devoted so much of his time in the past decade. Yes, Luciani might be a good compromise candidate. Perhaps Felici briefly thinks of his own chances and then dismisses them. The foreigners are too unpredictable. There is no way of knowing what they will want.

Thursday, August 10

Today is the first day of the papal wake in Rome. The cardinals continue to arrive. Koenig has repeated his idea that the next Pope ought to be a young man and non-Italian, possibly non-European. Cardinal Leo Suenens, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, has suggested that it might be a good idea to have four Popes, one for each part of the world. The Third Worlders are being very discreet but sounding tough. Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro of Pakistan, for example, observed that it would be all right if it were an Italian Pope, so long as he was chosen by the Third World cardinals. Half of the American cardinals are here; the others, including Cody, are arriving today. The American reporters are trying to get an answer from our cardinals as to why everything has to be in secret. The cardinals are trying to answer, but the only real answer is that the secrecy is intended to keep the influence of the Austrian emperor out of the election. At least that's the official historical explanation, but no cardinal will dare say that, because it makes the secrecy sound as absurd as it is. Indeed, the cardinals do not know where the other cardinals will be--nobody provides them with an address list. If they want to find out where someone else is staying so they can invite him to supper, they just have to ask around.

The London bookies are giving odds on the election, with Pignedoli as a front runner. Their own man, Cardinal George Basil Hume, is somewhere around 50 to 1, which strikes me as being a not unreasonable estimate.

I'm now in the line for the Pope's wake, having overcome my untypically Irish reluctance to attend. I'm sorry, but the whole thing reminds me of the King Tut exhibit in Chicago. Though, unlike the King Tut viewing, you move quickly in and out of this one. There's lots of curiosity, but no sign of mourning or grief.

The northern European cardinals, by the way, are taking their sweet time coming down here. Either they are very confident about their ability to organize things in a few days or they haven't thought about organizing. If the former is the case, then they are presumptuous; if the latter, they're irresponsible. No wonder people are saying that Felici is in a euphoric mood. No wonder Rossi vigorously denounced the collaborators and staff of Paul VI. The absence of any organization among the foreigners or the progressives is enabling the local right-wingers to feel their oats. They may think they've already got things sewn up. Lord, what a disaster for the Church that would be.

The cardinals and their assistants are shuttling around the city now in their black cars, discreetly ducking in and out of colleges and seminaries, not campaigning, since that is not permitted, but "consulting"--all things here must be done with elegance and grace. Right now, the best guess is no guess at all.

But one thing can be said with confidence--the winner will be a compromise candidate. The fact is built into one critically important mechanism of the election: the two-thirds-plus-one majority (75 votes) required to elect.

I hear from my sources that so far the (continued on page 199) Making of a Pope (continued from page 96) cardinals who are here are talking in generalities in their formal sessions in the morning, trying to hammer out some kind of a job description, and then, in the afternoons and evenings, at their informal sessions, they are very discreetly, very elegantly and very informally trying to fit people to the description.

Pignedoli, whose cooks, two Canadian nuns, are said to be superb--the best pasta in Rome, one hears--is already tooling his campaign up by having people over for dinner. He is running like mad. Some people here who basically support his position think he's hurting himself by being too obvious.

Friday, August 11

In one of the most bizarre events in the history of papal elections, the process of the "making of the Pope" has ground to an unexpected halt. The cardinals will not go into conclave until August 25 and will not start voting until August 26, three weeks after the death of Pope Paul VI. Some cardinals are actually leaving Rome to go home in the interim; others are dispersing to the countryside.

It is the longest delay in modern history--a ten-day wait occurred before the conclave that elected Leo XIII in 1878, the same period for the Pius X conclave, 12 days to the beginning of the Benedict XV conclave, 18 days for Pius XI.

A bitter Roman official commented, "The man is as difficult in death as he was in life." Some Vatican experts see the delay as a curial plot to give the Italian cardinals more time to manipulate the foreign cardinals. One can never tell about curial conniving, but the delay also gives a non-Italian--particularly such charismatic types as Hume, Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider of Brazil and Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila--time to put together a coalition.

In fact, the decision to delay was made by only 32 cardinals (the ones present at the meeting in which the date of the beginning of the conclave was set)--and mostly because of the inability of the camerlengo. Villot, to impose any order on discussion and debate. Villot is also blamed for the long delay before the funeral, which spread out the crowds and made each day seem poorly attended. One Vatican type told me, "Whatever chances Villot had to be elected went down the drain in those decisions." But don't bet on it. In the Vatican, anything can happen.

Felici is not the only one who can use the telephone. Already, the Church leaders in the Low Countries, France, Spain, Austria and Germany, as well as some in Italy, are talking to one another discreetly on the telephone. They ignore the foolish speculations in the Italian newspapers and agree that neither the Baggio nor the Pignedoli candidacy is satisfactory to them: they begin to sense in one another the desire to have a Pope who is pastoral in his orientation, an "experienced pastor," and has nothing to do with the Curia. Anticurial feelings among the Europeans are strong, and at least some of them know from their travels that many of their non-European colleagues share their feelings.

Saturday, August 12

Today, the day of the Pope's funeral, a number of American cardinals are being quoted in the press; their statements are profound. New York's Terence Cooke says we want the best possible man, and Boston's Humberto Medeiros says we want a Pope just like Paul VI. The current betting odds in London are five to two on Pignedoli, seven to two on Baggio, seven to two on Ugo Poletti (cardinal vicar of Rome), four to one on Benelli, eight to one on Willebrands, 12 to 1 on Pironio, 16 to 1 on Koenig, 25 to 1 on Hume, 33 to 1 on Cordeiro, 33 to 1 on Lorscheider and 33 to 1 on Suenens. I wouldn't bet on any of them at this stage of the game.

Monday, August 14

I had a dream last night. I was in the Sistine Chapel with all the other cardinals. I had a card in my hand, on which was printed "Eligo in summum pontificem"("I choose as Supreme Pontiff"). Unable to control my dream, I found my hand writing the words "Daniel Patricius Cardinalem Moynihan." I walked up to the altar, where the somber faces of the cardinal scrutineers (vote counters) were watching me, and dropped my folded card into the chalice, taking an oath that this was the one I thought should be elected. At that point, Michelangelo's Last Judgment fell in on me.

I told one of my friends about voting for Senator Moynihan and he said, "You've been here too long--but we could do worse."

I finally got a chance to see Adolph today. He told me that the Vatican information services were preparing biographies for 34 cardinals, each one of them a possible winner--things are that uncertain. The curial strategy is apparently putting Siri first, then Felici, then Bertoli, and Baggio after Bertoli. Baggio is quite low on the list--though the Curia might ultimately settle for him. However, the whispering campaign against him has been especially vicious--he is described as a lover of jewelry and expensive clothes. Pignedoli is still not taken seriously here, and it is thought that his friends from the Third World will desert him after the first couple of ballots. That's the Monday-morning line, at least in Adolpho's view of things.

The whispering campaigns continue to be intense and almost all of them are started by people in the Curia. Some examples: Koenig was in an auto accident last year and has not been able to work for a sustained period of time since then; Lorscheider's health is even worse than is publicly admitted; Cardinal So-and-So is not emotionally stable; Cardinal Such-and-Such has close womenfriends, etc., etc. Apparently, most of these rumors originate in Villot's office, though that gentle little man has nothing to do with the rumors and may even be unaware that they are being spread.

Tuesday, August 15

The papal election is a horse race, with a large number of front runners bunched together. No one here wants a deadlocked conclave; the cardinals, the massive press corps, the citizens of Rome--everyone wants to get back to the last precious clays of August vacation. A long conclave is therefore unlikely. Yet no one minimizes the difficulties the cardinals face as they busily "consult" with one another and prepare to be locked up in the Vatican Palace.

Felici discreetly raises the name of his friend Luciani with some of the foreign cardinals. So does Confalonieri, forbidden by age to enter into the conclave but permitted to attend the general congregations. The name at first seems to stir little interest. Most of the foreign cardinals do not know him. He is thought not to have traveled widely. For a day, some of the Italian newspapers mention his name, and rumors about him percolate around the Vatican Press Office. But then Felici and Confalonieri seem to drop the idea. In fact, Luciani has traveled to both Uganda and Brazil, where his diocese has missions, and has paid frequent visits to Paris and Vienna and the Low Countries. Lorscheider and Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns (archbishop of Sao Paulo) were greatly taken with him during his trip to Brazil.. Suenens and the French are delighted by his charm, his wit and his broad cultural background. Many ecumenical meetings are held in Venice; this is because Luciani is always extremely friendly and hospitable, inviting the visiting churchmen to his house for dinner or visiting them in their meetings with several bottles of wine in his hands. 1)r. Philip Potter, the secretary general of the World Council of Churches, says to Willebrands at one of these meetings that Luciani would make a superb Pope, and Willebrands agrees. Luciani is not as unknown as he at first appears. The non-Italian cardinals are not organized yet; they are busy trying to elaborate their job description. The Luciani trial balloon is reported by Benelli loyalists in the Secretariat of State to Florence, where Benelli is amused to discover that he and his bitter enemy Felici are supporting the same candidate. Benelli consults with Suenens and finds him in agreement.

Wednesday, August 16

The campaigning is subtle, occasionally blunt and once in a while ruthless.

There are times when it reminds me of the way the Cook County regular Democratic organization chooses its chairman. All appearances of conflict are avoided; decisions are made often by what is not said rather than by what is said; understandings are implicit; commitments, such as they are. are at most gentlemen's agreements; loyalty to friends and allies is taken for granted: and occasionally someone says something vigorous to the press, just to keep the pot boiling.

If a man says, "The Church must be deeply concerned about the needs of the small countries of the world and must have leaders who speak many languages," he is indicating his support for a multilingual Pope (thus endorsing men like Salvatore Pappalardo of Palermo, Bertoli of the Curia, Baggio and Pignedoli, who have traveled widely--and indicating opposition to men like Ursi of Naples or Poletti of Rome, who speak only Italian).

If a man says, "We must be vigilant in our fight against communism," he is warning against Cardinal Koenig of Vienna, who has dealt diplomatically with the Communist countries. Or a comment like Koenig's in favor of a younger man could mean he was supporting Pironio or Benelli or Hume.

Thursday, August 17

Little was done during the latter half of this week to promote the development of the coalition, partly because the European leaders were still in their dioceses and partly because some of them (certainly Suenens) were urging restraint. The Latin American cardinals, in particular, must be given time to develop and crystallize their own ideas about the papacy. For the rest of this week, curialists sent up trial balloons, only to have them shot down by other curialists. The non-Europeans stayed out of Rome: the Latin Americans talked discreetly among themselves; and Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli gave great dinner parties.

Saturday, August 19

The places where the various cardinals are meeting to sit down and talk informally are now pretty well known to me. The French meet in Villot's office in the Vatican; the Germans at the Collegio Germanico; the Africans meet in Cardinal Bernardin Gantin's office in the Commission for Justice and Peace in the Piazza di San Calisto; the curialists, of course, meet in their Vatican offices. All the Americans live out at the Villa Stritch, but they seem to be sitting around, waiting for the Holy Spirit to tell them for whom to vote. Most of the cardinals who are not living in their own national colleges are living in the religious-order houses, a triangle bounded on the south by the Janiculum, on the north by the Borgo Pio and on the west by the Piazzale Gregorio VII, a rather small district in which it is fairly easy to move in a car or on foot by side streets and hardly be noticed. So if you want to consult with a cardinal who is a friend or who thinks like you do, you can talk with him on the telephone, scurry down a side street or take a very quick automobile ride. At these informal gatherings of two, three, four or five cardinals, after an exchange of generalities about the needs of the Church, the participants get down to brass tacks and begin to discuss specific candidates. We know whom they are discussing in the Curia, because there; Ire pipelines from the curial offices to the Italian press, but whom are they discussing at the religious houses near the Vatican or at the Piazza di San Calisto or in Villot's apartment? About that, as yet, Here isn't the slightest hint.

On Saturday, Arns and Lorscheider decide that they have delayed long enough and that it is a time for a larger meeting to hammer out a clearer description of the characteristics the new Pope should possess. Phone calls are made and a meeting is arranged for Sunday afternoon.

Sunday, August 20

The critical meeting took place at the Brazilian college on the Via Aurelia (where Lorscheider had stood me up last year during the synod). Arns, the more "evangelical" of the two Franciscan cardinals from Brazil, presided over the meeting, the charismatic Lorscheider ("loosing to stay somewhat in the background. The cardinals worked out a detailed description of the kind of Pope they wanted, heavily emphasizing a pastoral orientation, personal holiness, openness to the poor, along with an ability to exercise a world-wide appeal and a commitment to more collegiality in the Church. The final document is stated in very general terms and will be distributed the next day to all the other cardinals. They do not decide to endorse a specific candidate, since the leadership feels that it is too early to attempt such a tactic and fears it will lose some of its potential coalition members. It will line up support for a candidate short of the last minute. Privately, at least some of them have designed a strategy in which they will support Arns on the first ballot and then Pironio on subsequent ballots--as a show of strength to counter the curialists and perhaps to impose a compromise candidate of their choosing and not of the Curia's choosing. The Sunday-afternoon group is virtually unanimous in its implicit rejection of any candidate who has been a curial cardinal. Thus, Baggio and Pignedoli have lost their support on the left and are already vetoed on the right. After. Sunday afternoon, their candidacies cease to be important.

Late in the Evening

I've just learned from one of my sources that the anti-Bertoli sentiments are picking up steam. He is said sometimes to grow so angry that he must stay in his room for several days to calm his temper, so that he will not blow up in public. I wonder who's spreading this rumor. Perhaps Benelli or Benelli's allies in Rome. Since there is no love lost between those two, if there is anything to Bertoli's temper, Benelli certainly would have had a chance to watch it in Paris, where they were once assigned together. The trouble with a campaign by character assassination is that sometimes the stories may be true and sometimes they are not; you have no real way of telling the difference, even if you are a cardinal, since you are not really likely ever to have seen Bertoli under strain.

Benelli learns of the meeting at the Brazilian college when he returns to his house in Florence. Even before he gets the letter, he knows what's in it. He also knows from his friends at the Secretariat of State how the draft speech for the new Pope is emerging, a more precise summary of the cardinals' thinking than any of the rest of them have available. He is now convinced that Luciani can be elected. He is a candidate who has something for everyone: collegial with his priests, simple in his personal life, a man of the. poor, a whole life of pastoral work, a charming personality--all of that will appeal to the progressives and the foreigners. Solid in doctrine, loyal on Church discipline, firmly anti-Communist--that will appeal to the conservatives. Has not Felici already suggested him? Anyone who can win both Felici's and Benelli's support must be a saint, after all. But the foreigners do not know him well enough. So a dossier must be prepared of some of his recent statements, to be distributed, not to all the cardinals but to some of the key leaders, emphasizing his intelligence and his "fit" with the model prepared at the Brazilian college. Benelli places phone calls to some of his younger protégés in Rome. They will begin speaking with key cardinals in the next couple of days, showing them a Luciani dossier. The coalition is beginning to fit into place.

The next day, Suenens speaks with the Brazilians, the Dutch and the French and discovers that they are becoming more and more sympathetic to the Luciani candidacy. The secret is well kept and the forces have now been set definitely in motion that will lead to next Saturday's quick conclave. Three spokes go out from Suenens: one to the Low Countries and France, eight voles; one to Arns and Lorscheider and the Third World progressives, perhaps 20 votes; and one to Berne Pappalardo and some of the other Italian residential bishops, six or seven votes. Something like 35 votes for Luciani on the second ballot--almost, though not quite, in the bag. Benelli and Suenens do not push their respective constituencies. There is still time. Besides, Felici can be counted on to deliver half a dozen more votes, taking them away from whoever the curial candidate may be (unless it is he himself) when Luciani gains momentum.

Monday, August 21

This is not an easy day to be proud to be an American. Three American cardinals gave a press conference today at the U.S.O. They said very little that was newsworthy, but the stories will go out of here, anyhow, quoting Cardinal Terence Cooke as saying that there are no formal discussions among the cardinals about the next conclave and that the cardinals are meeting in a "brotherly, friendly atmosphere." Cardinal Timothy Manning added that they haven't organized special luncheons with other cardinals to pull everything together. Cardinal Humberto Medeiros said that the outcome of the conclave ought to be left in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

There was a meeting at the Brazilian college yesterday afternoon of about 20 cardinals, doubtless led by Lorscheider and Arns, to devise a strategy, a program and a candidate profile for the conclave. The American cardinals weren't invited to that and probably wouldn't have gone if they had been invited--they may even be unaware that such meetings occur. Perhaps they are telling the truth when they say that there are no meeting's because the meetings that occur they simply don't know about. The secrecy requirements that Paul VI imposed on the cardinals are, indeed, rigid, as are the requirements against campaigning, but he certainly did not forbid meetings and conversations. The American cardinals seem to be content with putting the strictest possible interpretation on the rules of Paul VI, and thus avoiding all conversation even amongst themselves as to what will happen when the conclave begins Friday night. The Italian journalists are already making fun of what the American cardinals said. Many American reporters were equally skeptical. One non-Catholic reporter said to me glumly. "They're lying: they can't expect us to believe that baloney."

He was wrong. In their pious conviction that they ought not to prepare for the conclave by active discussion, the Americans are being their honest, sincere and, I must confess, likable selves.

They are decent men. fair, kind and dedicated. Unfortunately, they believe that everyone else, including the frantically campaigning Italian curialists, is playing by the same rules. They also believe that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit works most effectively, not when you've prepared to the hilt but when you're not prepared at all.

Like so many other cardinals here, they are lambs being led to the curial slaughter.

Tuesday, August 22

I saw Adolpho this morning. In a deadlock situation, he observed, just watch Benelli become the kingmaker. supporting some relatively unknown Italian cardinal like Luciani or Giovanni Colombo. and then emerge himself as the power behind the throne.

Adolpho was right. Benelli did leave a compromise candidate, but rather than Trail for a deadlock, he had anticipated it. The coalition was growing. Its existence was still absolutely secret. Not a single Italian newspaper got wind of it.

There were enough paradoxes in the Luciani choice to fill several cases of empty Roman wine bottles. The coalition candidate was an Italian who had come prepared to vote for a non-Italian (Lorscheider). He was thought to be a right-winger but had the massive support of the progressives. The anti-Roncalli [Pope John XXIII], anti-Montini curialists first mentioned him, but Benelli, a man who was forced into exile by those folks, was now his strongest supporte. He was being presented as a simple, holy, pastoral man, bid he was, in fact, a complex, cultivated and well-read thinker, who had once said that if he were not a bishop, he would be a journalist, and that Saint Paul, if he were alive, would probably be the head of Reuters or A.P. He was a long shot (he pat himself on the C list), but he went into the conclave as the candidate of a (though silent and un-self conscious) majority consensus.

•

Inside the Apostolic Palace--

Wednesday, August 23

A conclave is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. It's not quite as crowded as the enlisted men's section on an aircraft carrier, but if you have any liking for fresh air or breathing space, stay away from the Vatican Palace. All the windows are sealed and either painted over or draped. The plastic chairs in the dining room in the Sale Borgia look like a discount-store bargain sale. The rugs they put in the Sistine Chapel (floor raised 80 centimeters above the usual level) are of cheap felt and will be filthy after the first group of cardinals walks down the aisle to vote.

Each cardinal is issued one roll of toilet paper (Danau Star), two ballpoint pens that barely work and maybe ten sheets of writing paper in a reprocessed folder. Each also gets a plastic wastebasket out of a dime store, a washbowl and pitcher, a red-plastic glass, a tiny bed lamp, one hard-backed chair and an even harder-looking kneeler. To make it clear that he ought to get out in a hurry, he gets only one bar of soap and two very tiny towels, which will drive the Americans up the wall.

A second-class pensione it is not.

The beds are the worst thing I've seen since the seminary, and they ought to be, because they were borrowed from a seminary. They are very narrow, with thin, hard mattresses over wire mesh. Some of the floors are parquet, but most are slippery marble. All have tiny rugs with exactly the same flower design on each, some red and some brown. There is, it would seem, about one toilet for every five or six voters, and I couldn't find many showers at all, which is probably the reason for the small towels. Save for an occasional walk in a tiny courtyard, the electors are going to have to live in a hot, stuffy, dense atmosphere until they send up the white smoke.

There are traffic signs at various intersections in the conclave area showing the way down the narrow corridors to the dining hall, the Sistine Chapel and the various bedrooms. But it is easy to get lost, as I did (and was almost locked up in the conclave by mistake!). If you want to find a colleague for a "discussion" (one doesn't conspire in conclaves), it's likely to take a bit of doing.

You're going to have to wander down some corridors and climb some steep staircases, and heaven only knows what other wandering "discussers" you are going to meet slipping discreetly down the corridors, quite possibly lost, too.

By Thursday night, Felici and Confalonieri persuaded a number of Italian curialists that after a complimentary vote to Siri on the first and perhaps the second ballot, they ought to shift to Luciani. All things considered, it was the best you could possibly expect. News of this decision reached Benelli by Friday morning. In the course of Friday, there was a communication between Arns and Benelli through Suenens confirming that after a complimentary vote on the first ballot, a substantial number of Third World cardinals would vote for the patriarch of Venice. The French and the Lowlanders and Koenig have already more or less committed themselves. Benelli could afford a momentary sigh of relief. Everything had gone according to plan. Perhaps 35 votes on the second ballot, 40 to 45 on the third, into the 50s on the fourth ballot and election before noon on Sunday.

Friday, August 25

This is the day they go in, and tomorrow morning they begin to vote. They had the Mass this morning for the election of the Pope; 110 cardinals standing, the Samoan cardinal, Pio Taofinu'u, with his sore foot, sitting. Villot preached the sermon. I avoided recording the various sermons, because they're generally pretty dreary affairs.

The procession into the Sistine Chapel has a certain drama. The cardinals look solemn, serious and responsible, some of them quite vigorous, some of them very haggard and infirm. There is a long, long wait while people scurry around, fulfilling their various requirements. Now, finally, the papal master of ceremonies, Monsignor Virgilio Noè, says "Extra mimes" in a reasonably firm voice and, with Villot standing by, the door is slowly and dramatically swung shut.

Despite the reports that there was great tension and nervousness among the cardinals, it was quite peaceful, if already very stuffy, inside the conclave the first night. The cardinals seemed relaxed, now that the long period of waiting was over and at last they were getting on with their task. Conversation at the evening meal was subdued but friendly. Most of the electors retired to their rooms early, some of them wandering in confusion down the wrong corridors as they searched for the right room. If there was any consultation in the nighttime hours, it was done very quietly. The rooms were hot and the full cardinalatical robes already were beginning to show the telltale effects of human perspiration.

Saturday, August 26

The concelebrated Mass over and a light breakfast eaten in the refectory (at other times part of the modern-art gallery of the Vatican Museum), the cardinals, with mounting tension, proceed to their chairs in the Sistine Chapel. First of all, voting cards are distributed by the master of ceremonies to the cardinals, two or three to each elector. Then by lot are chosen the names of threeinfirmarii(who collect the votes of any sick cardinals, though there was no need for such this first day) and of three revisors (in effect, recounters).

The cardinals grow somewhat impatient now. The long, tedious ceremonies have begun to wear on their nerves and they wish to get down to business. The upper half of the card contains the printed words"Eligo in summum pontificem"("I choose as Supreme Pontiff") and the lower half has a space for writing the name of the person chosen. The card is designed so that it may be folded in two and be about one inch in size (Paul VI was not one to leave a single detail to chance). After the cards have been distributed and before the writing may begin, the various functionaries--the secretary of the conclave, the master of ceremonies, the assistant masters of ceremonies--must leave the chapel. The doors are shut and finally the cardinals are able to vote. Paul VI was careful to remind each of them that he had to write down the name of his candidate secretly, even to the extent of disguising his handwriting. He also wanted them to write no more than one name, as that would make the vote invalid. With some awkwardness and embarrassment because they are seated so close together, the cardinals write a name and fold a ballot, trying to reassure one another by gazing rigidly straight ahead that they are not trying to peek at other ballots.

Then, one by one, in order of precedence (oldest in terms of service first--cardinal bishops before cardinal priests, cardinal priests before cardinal deacons), they walk down the aisle, holding up their cards so that the others may see them, to the altar, where the scrutineers are standing, upon which is placed a chalice covered with a plate. When each reaches the altar, he kneels, prays for a short time and then rises and pronounces aloud yet another oath, "I call to witness Christ, the Lord, who will be my judge that my vote is given to the one who, before God, I consider should be elected."

He places the card on the plate--nothing so hasty as putting it into the chalice--and then drops it from the plate into the chalice. He bows to the altar and then returns to his place. The tension grows perceptibly as this tedious process continues. Benelli wonders if the Luciani strategy will really work. The first ballot should give at least some hint.

Finally, the 111th card is in the chalice. A scrutineer shakes it several times in order to mix the cards (Paul VI was quite careful to make sure that they wouldn't forget to shake the receptacle) and the last scrutineer counts the ballots, picking them out of the chalice in full view and depositing them in another chalice. Fortunately, the number of cards is 111, and there is no need to burn the cards and start over.

The three scrutineers sit at a table and begin the count itself. The first opens a card, notes the name on a piece of paper, passes the card to the second, who does the same, then, in turn, passes it to a third, who finally announces the name on the card and also writes down on his tally sheet the name of the candidate. The process continues, with the last scrutineer piercing each card with a needle and thread through the word eligo (again, nothing left to the imagination). As the names are read, there is visible relaxation among the Luciani supporters. Nothing unexpected is happening. Siri and Luciani are getting about the same number of votes. The others are spread out: Pignedoli, Baggio, Koenig, Bertoli, Pironio, a couple for Lorscheider and Felici.

After the names have been read from each ballot, the ends of the thread are tied in a knot and the scrutineers count the votes on their tally sheets. Siri has the most votes, 25. Luciani is behind him, but only by a few votes; Pignedoli has fewer than 20 votes; the others are widely distributed, with Baggio, Koenig, Bertoli, Pironio, Lorscheider and Felici all having fewer than ten votes. The coalition leaders relax. No surprises, everything according to plan. Pignedoli and Baggio hide their emotions. Luciani frowns. How could it be possible that he got so many votes? He shakes his head, mutters something under his breath that a cardinal near him thinks sounds like the word absurd.

They look at their watches. The whole process took only an hour. It seemed longer. The revisors hastily recount the ballots, check the tallies. The count is accurate. They proceed to a second ballot. Again, the tension increases slightly. The first ballot was exploratory: Compliments were being paid, feelings were being protected--though the feelings of Pignedoli and Baggio are beyond protection. But the second ballot is the serious one. Will it be Siri or Luciani who gains the votes? They are now going to drift away from the other candidates. Halfway through the count, it becomes clear what is going to happen and Luciani is visibly upset. It is truly absurd. There is absolutely no reason why he should be Pope. Cardinal Antonio Ribeiro, the handsome young patriarch of Lisbon, leans over and whispers to him, "Courage, the Lord gives the burden. He will also give the strength to carry it." And on the other side, tall, thin, bespectacled Willebrands, one of Luciani's many close friends, whispers to him, "Don't worry. All over the world, everyone is praying for the new Pope." The ballots are counted, the tally sheets are added up, totals are announced and a sense of relief passes through the Sistine Chapel. The job is virtually over, the task has been done. It turned out to be easy, after all. The conclave will be over before the sun goes down. Tonight will be the last night.

Tomorrow they will be out of the purgatory of the Vatican Palace and the Sistine Chapel. Luciani has gained votes and now has 55. Siri supporters remain unmoved with their solid block of approximately 25 votes. Pignedoli has slipped back now to 15 votes and Lorscheider has risen to 12. In the afternoon, surely, enough of the Lorscheider and Pignedoli votes will switch to Luciani to guarantee his election. The ballots and the tally sheets are placed in the stove at the back of the chapel and black smoke goes up. The cardinals again look at their watches and smile. It is earlier than most people believe possible for them to have finished two ballots. Many are going to be caught unawares over in the piazza. Someone whispers in Luciani's ear. "The next time, it will be white." He smiles hollowly. Lunch is affable and relaxed. Pignedoli is cheerful; Baggio smiles and chuckles; Luciani tries awkwardly to ignore what is happening; Benelli, Suenens, Arns, Lorscheider exchange pleased smiles. Felici decides that he and his less than completely intransigent curial allies have stayed with the Siri ship long enough. Luciani is a happy solution to the problem.

The patriarch of Venice goes back to his room, room 60, and tries to take the brief siesta that is his daily custom, but he does not sleep.

Back in the chapel in the late afternoon, the cardinals are in an almost frolicsome mood. The Holy Spirit is working among them. Particularly happy are the electors from the disorganized middle, who really had no idea of the candidate for whom they ought to vote. Cardinal John Carberry of St. Louis will speak later of a feeling of revelation. It was clear on the first ballot that Luciani was most likely going to be the winner, so many of the uncertain cardinals in the middle promptly jumped onto his band wagon. The coalition leaders expected to pick up 15 more votes. They got double that number. Perhaps the third ballot would do it, certainly the fourth. It was easier than anyone had expected. The coalition of the left and the moderate right against the far right and the disorganized center had now won over much of the center, too, and was about to elect Albino Luciani as Pope.

But not quite. Some of Pignedoli's supporters and some of the Siri supporters (including Felici) turn to Luciani on the third ballot, but not quite enough. He still falls five or six votes short. The cardinals are smiling, happy and carefree. The next ballot is a formality. Luciani will certainly win and the conclave will be over. A sense of peace and joy flows through the Sistine Chapel. The Holy Spirit has done his work well. "Now," says Luciani to a colleague smiling warmly, "it begins to get dangerous for me."

The cardinals have now dispensed with taking the oath each time they vote (thus frustrating Paul VI's cautious safeguards against the possibility that a cardinal would on a later ballot not vote for the man he thought was best suited for the job). As the third scrutineer reads off the votes, only Luciani's name is heard. At 6:05, the 75th Luciani vote is recorded and the cardinals applaud enthusiastically. The Swiss guard posted outside is startled. A Pope so soon? There are some 90 votes for Luciani, one dogged ballot for Lorscheider (the new Pope himself, of course) and 20 blank votes cast by the stubborn Sin supporters, who are sending a message in this election just as they (lid in the last, so that the new Pope would not have a unanimous mandate--but they are dissenting more gently than their predecessors did against Montini. (Later they will try to claim they voted for him much earlier in the day and that it was the Pignedoli supporters who stuck it out until the end.)

The doors of the chapel are opened and the various masters of ceremonies come in to accompany the smiling camnerlengo, Villot, to the speechless, flustered Luciani. His face beaming with joy, Villot says the words required by Paul VI's constitution. "Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?"

Luciani replies, "May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard." Having reached into his memory for a quotation out of the past for which he would later apologize, he then adds, "Accepto" ("I accept").

"By what name do you wish to be called?" asks Villot.

"John Paul," replies the now smiling Luciani. The cardinals are delighted; the name is marvelously appropriate.

Luciani is led out to don the temporary white papal robes. Grinning happily now--never in his life could he repress the grin--he takes the chair in front of the altar and the joyful cardinals approach one by one to kiss the papal ring and embrace him. He has a kind and friendly word to say to every one of them.

"Holy Father, thank you for saying yes," says Leo Suenens, who has had perhaps more to do with electing him than anyone else.

The new Pope responds with his broadest grin, "Perhaps it would have been better if I had said no."

Sunday, August 27

Earlier today, as the cardinals poured out into the courtyard of St. Damascus, leaving behind, doubtless for a good many years, the cramped, uncomfortable conclave area, they seemed happy men. "It was the greatest day of my life," said Cardinal Hyacinthe Thiandoum of Africa.

"It was a grace, a gift of God," said his African colleague Gantin.

"The Holy Spirit helped us," said Austria's Koenig, who just a few weeks ago was calling for a young non-Italian Pope.

Benelli was ecstatic in his enthusiasm. "A striking manifestation of the unity of the Church supported by the presence of the Holy Spirit," he said. "The electors came from every part of the world. from every culture and with very different mentalities and, in a single day, reached complete agreement."

•

John Paul's September was a revolution. He swept away the throne, the crowning, the majestic "we," the word pontificate, the formal and aloof monarchical style of the papacy. He shook hands with the Communist mayor of Rome and promised cooperation. He walked unannounced in the Vatican gardens with Villot (throwing the Vatican security forces into confusion and disorder). He wandered around the offices of the Secretarial of State to see who was doing what. He spent long hours preparing his seemingly spontaneous homilies and Sunday remarks. He grinned, he smiled, he laughed. He quoted 19th Cent my Roman romantic poetry, as well as Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Napoleon and Saint Bernard. He asked children questions at his audiences, he charmed the simple and ordinary people of the world. But he never did quite manage to make it with the more sophisticated of the world press.

He was, according to the all-wise editors of Commonweal, the "unknown Pope." It was as though the wise and the learned of the world (and is not one wise and learned if he writes for Newsweek or Commonweal or Le Monde?) bitterly resented the Pope's ability to instantly capture the imaginations of ordinary folk. He was a peasant, a conservative, a simple man. Given more time, his true conservative orientations would have shaped a papacy perhaps not even as broad as that of Paul VI. The world, you see, was wrong and the wise folks of the press were right.

The Curia was bitter and tried to censor his speeches, reinserting the majestic "we" where he had used the simple familiar "I." It ignored him, harassed him, tried to freeze him out and complained that he wasn't doing his administrative work. Papers were going unsigned and major problems of the Church were being ignored while he prepared his Sunday homilies and his catechetical instructions for his audiences. He himself admitted that he had to get out theAnnuario Pontificioto find out who did what in the Vatican. administration, and he confessed to one of his friends that about the operation of the Curia, "I know nothing." A nice, simple, pastoral man, yes, but scarcely qualified for the administrative tasks of the Curia. The crowd applauded: the Curia murmured.

When at his first talk on faith he quoted "Pinocchio" and compared the soul in the modern world to an automobile that breaks down because it runs on champagne and jam instead of on gasoline and oil, the learned folk shook their heads in dismay. When he casually remarked that God is even more our Mother than our Father, the Italian papers produced learned articles asking if this were a change in the Church's theology and whether a fourth person was to be introduced into the Blessed Trinity (only to have the Pope come bock at a later talk and dismiss the whole controversy with a laugh by saying he was only quoting the prophet Isaiah). When he quoted Jules Verne at his audiences, the solemn Vatican protocol types shook their heads; his incorrigible habit of calling little children up to interview at his audiences dismayed those who were responsible for keeping the papacy presentable.

Thursday, September 28

The Pope had a hard day. He spoke about justice and liberation to a group of Filipino bishops in the morning and talked with Milan's Cardinal Colombo in the afternoon. Apparently, he tried to persuade someone to accept the diocese of Venice as his replacement and was rudely rejected. The Curia was still freezing him out. He huddled with Cardinal Baggio about some critical appointments and replacements in the world hierarchy. (In the interview with Cardinal Baggio, John Paul had given orders for the replacement of Cardinal Cody. The papers of the Cody case were in his hands when he died.) He saw Cardinal Villot and may have received reports from him about troubles in a certain Catholic country. After night prayer in the chapel, the staff told him about the ambush of a Communist by right-wing extremists: "They kill each other--even the young people." He shook his head and with a sheet of paper in his hands, some German notes and some appointment material left by Baggio, went into his bedroom.

At 4:30, Sister Vincenza, his housekeeper, took the usual cup of coffee and left it on the table outside his door. She went back later to take away the coffee cup and discovered it had been untouched.

There was a light on in the papal bedroom. She summoned his secretary, Father Magee.

•

Friday, September 29

The Piazza of St. Peter's at noontime--bells tolling. There are people in the square--tourists, as always, somewhat more subdued than for Paul VI, perhaps, but hard to tell. People with flight bags and cameras moving through. There is supposed to be a viewing of the body by journalists, which is why I'm down here. I don't know whether anything will come of that or not. It sounds pretty gruesome to me.

There was a simple announcement of the Pope's death in the Vatican Press office. It's only 5:30 A.M. in the United States. Americans are just waking up to find out about what happened during the night.

I'm walking down the steps away from the room by myself. I was in the first rank of the third group they let in. I walked by the casket, said a couple of quick prayers and got out. They had taken off his glasses; it didn't look like him at all. Which is, of course, a stupid Irish thing to say, isn't it? It's all very ghoulish. Reporters and photographers, chattering away, plying their professional trade in the presence of what, less than 15 hours ago, was an extraordinary human being. The frailty of all things human.

It's a whole new ball game, and while the players are virtually the same, give or take one or two, they are the same men who are now experienced conclavists, men who have lived through a month of John Paul. And that changes the whole thing. It is not enough just to pull out the notes of the previous game. They are not freshmen anymore, not rookies; and there has been a month of world experience of what the papacy can be with the right kind of man.

Sunday, October 8

Today, Benelli's secretary had lunch just off the Piazza Venezia with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Bishop Andre-Marie Deskur, Wojtyla's close personal friend, and Bishop Rubin, the Polish bishop who is the secretary general for the synod of bishops. It is not known what happened at that meeting, though there is some speculation that the message from Benelli to I Wojtyla was that the former would be prepared to throw his support to the latter as a "compromise" non-Italian. Wojtyla did not at that time consider himself a serious candidate, and if such a discreet commitment were made, he probably responded by saying that he was grateful for the compliment--but hardly expected it to be necessary for Cardinal Benelli to honor such a commitment....

"The London bookies are giving odds on the election, with Pignedoli as a front runner."

"The whispering campaigns continue to be intense and almost all are started by people in the Curia."