IN THE VAST and intricately geared mechanism of the Roman Curia—that ensemble of ministries and tribunals which assists the Sovereign Pontiff in governing the Church, Monsignor Stephen Fermoyle became an obscure cog. As a clerk in Quarenghi’s division of the papal Secretariat of State he was given a desk in a cubbyhole on the top floor of the Vatican Palace. His office was a no-period cubicle, one of many others carved out of an attic unused until the time of Leo XIII, just before the turn of the century. Its masonry floor was covered by uncarpeted duckboards; from damasked walls originally gold-colored but now rusty and faded, two steel engravings of former secretaries of state gazed formidably at Stephen. His desk was a hand-me-down of someone’s former grandeur; its rococo legs and mother-of-pearl top contrasted oddly with the telephone, wire baskets, and Remington typewriter that went with the job.
A preliminary briefing by Alfeo Quarenghi instructed the new clerk in the large outlines of Vatican diplomacy. “The Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs,” said Quarenghi, “devotes itself to maintaining friendly relations between the Holy See and sovereign powers throughout the world. Whether these powers be monarchies, republics, or democracies makes no essential difference to the Holy See. The Church accommodates herself to all forms of governments and civil institutions, provided the rights of God and the Christian conscience are left intact. I want to make it clear to you, moreover, that the internal politics of these governments, their commercial, military, and diplomatic arrangements with other countries, are of no interest to the Vatican unless they threaten the free exercise of the Catholic faith.”
The priest in Quarenghi shone through the ecclesiastic administrator. “Supporting the entire structure of Vatican diplomacy is the frank intention to preserve and extend, through the mediacy of the Church, Christ’s promises to man. Every papal brief and encyclical, every bull and concordat, merely repeat and emphasize this motive.” One of Quarenghi’s rare smiles took the dogmatic edge off his remarks. “With these brief instructions you are qualified, Stefano, to begin making your share of human blunders as an attache of the Vatican Secretariat of State.”
Stephen’s first assignment was to sort and distribute the huge volume of mail that poured into Quarenghi’s section of the Secretariat of State. Every morning an official from the Vatican post office would deposit two or three mail sacks on the floor of Stephen’s office. Dumping an armful of letters onto his mother-of-pearl desk, Stephen would slit the envelopes, rapidly scrutinize the contents, and route them to the proper office. Thus, all communications from European governments (excluding Italy) were sent directly to Monsignor Quarenghi. Letters from North and South America were placed in a wire basket for Monsignor Guardiano, Quarenghi’s segretario or chief clerk. Communications from India, China, and Japan were forwarded to the Secretary for Oriental Affairs. Finally, all documents bearing on Italian matters were bundled together and delivered to the magnificent apartment of Pietro Cardinal Giacobbi on the floor directly below.
The mere physical handling of this huge volume of mail was in itself an education. The scope and variety of Vatican contacts with other countries amazed Stephen; even his hasty scanning of the correspondence streaming into the papal Foreign Office gave him a world’s-eye view of the Universal Church in action. Across his desk flowed a torrent of reports from Apostolic delegates, nuncios, and foreign envoys accredited to the Holy See. Skillfully phrased notes schooled him in the forms as well as the content of Vatican diplomacy. Opening a letter postmarked The Hague, Stephen might read: “Her Majesty’s Government wishes to explore with the Holy See the implication of recent Catholic missionary activities in Batavia, with a view to defining the pre-existent rights of Protestant missions in this field.” The note would go to Quarenghi, who in turn would bring the question up in his daily conference with Giacobbi. A Mexican bishop might plead for the restoration of Church property seized by the Mexican government; his plea would go to Monsignor Guardiano. The papal nuncio to Warsaw, after detailing Communist interference with a religious procession, would urge the Vatican to remind the Polish government of its engagements to the Holy See, clearly stated in the Constitution of 1919. Stephen rarely learned the final outcome of these affairs, but at least he glimpsed the nature and scope of Vatican affairs of state.
From the jigsaw puzzle of correspondence placed on his desk every morning, Stephen was able to form an over-all picture of the role played by the Church in her relationships with foreign governments. He learned that the Church, though one and indivisible, addressed mankind on two levels: by means of the sacraments she spoke to the most intimate and mysterious part of the human soul; by methods of diplomacy the Church concerned herself with such temporal arrangements as would guarantee maximum freedom in the task of preparing men for eternal happiness with God. Faced by shifting human complexities, the Vatican attempted, with varying success, to remind the world of the one unchanging, nonpolitical, and divine truth: God is.
Gradually Stephen’s duties were increased. Quarenghi began asking him to make condensations of diplomatic documents and to prepare lists of dubia, or questions that might rise in his mind concerning them. (These questions guided Quarenghi in his later discussions with the Cardinal Secretary of State or the Supreme Pontiff.) To condense and translate a report required from six to twelve hours; the preparation of carefully conceived dubia was even more exacting. Stephen spent long days in the Vatican library, making researches that would enable him to frame the queries that would high-light matters for his chief.
ALONG with junior attachés of other congregations, Stephen lived in the Camera di Diplomazia, a kind of ecclesiastical boardinghouse in Trastevere. It was a polyglot crew that gathered around the dinner table every evening; although Italian was the dominant tongue, an international babel always arose when the talk became controversial. At the head of the table sat Monsignor Miklos Korbay, an iron-throated Hungarian attached to the Sacred Congregation of the Fabric of St. Peter’s. Korbay’s duty was the maintenance and repair of the great Basilica—a task demanding special knowledge in a field lying somewhere between architecture and engineering. Long command over an army of repairmen had given the Hungarian the manners of a drill sergeant and the voice of a badly cast bell. He was animated by two notions: first, that St. Peter’s dome would collapse unless he, Korbay, personally supervised its repair; second, that all nobility except Hungarian was nouveau if not spurious. On these two themes he was compulsive; Stephen never heard him discuss a general idea. Once, however, while making a sightseeing tour of the Basilica, Stephen saw the Hungarian suspended on an aerial scaffolding in the vast cupola, some four hundred feet above the cathedral floor. Cassock tucked under the belt of his trousers, Korbay resembled a high-wire trapezist performing his act without benefit of a net. Then and there Stephen decided that the Hungarian had a right to brag, if he wanted to, about his special relations with the dome.
At the foot of the dinner table sat Alphonse Birrebon, a bilious little Frenchman, whose training in canon law made him a priceless secretary to the Rota, but a frightfully pedantic legalist in matters of table talk. His pedantry was offset by the Celtic wit of Padraic Logue, who sat beside him. Next to Logue sat Monsignor Carlos Mendoza y Tindaro, a gloomy Spaniard attached to the Sacred Congregation Rites. Monsignor Tindaro took a dark view of democracy, and predicted that it would one day overwhelm the twin institutions of throne and altar. He held stubbornly to the Hapsburg formula that the tide should, indeed ought to, be swept back with repressive brooms, and listened sourly when Stephen suggested that there was no necessary contradiction between the ballot box and a lively devotion to the sacraments.
Most attractive to Stephen was Roberto Braggiotti, subsecretary of the powerful Consistorial Congregation. Braggiotti was a native Roman of old family; born in an ancient palace halfway between St. Peter’s and the Quirinal, he had no desire to scale the social ladder because he was already perched on its topmost rung. This captivating Roman in his middle thirties was unquestionably the best informed man at the table. His volatility and intense patriotism reminded Stephen of Orselli, but the brilliant churchman possessed intellectual and moral dimensions that the Florentine Captain lacked.
The talk that spring turned chiefly on the impending collapse of the Italian government. Events were sliding down an inclined plane; apparently nothing could stop them. The long-serviceable coalition between great landowners in the south and manufacturers in the north was cracking under pressure of popular demand for reform. Successive Quirinal ministries, unable to withstand postwar assaults on throne and lira, had crumbled pitifully. Meanwhile down the length of the peninsula, Mussolini’s voice was thundering:
“Leaders, legionaries, Blackshirts of Milan and Italy! A day of glory is coming for the Italian people. We must conquer. Fascism demands power and will have it. Viva Italia! Viva fascismo!”
“Who is this firebrand?” asked Stephen one night at supper. “Is he demagogue or man of destiny?”
“Neither,” rasped Korbay. “He is an arriviste … a man of no family. …”
“Whose battle hymn,” added Tindaro, “merely hastens the day of rabblement.”
Logue slid his thrippenny bit across the table. “God preserve the man from cross cows and rabbit holes. The Sinn Feiners will rally round his broomstick after he cleans up Italy. … Speaking of broomsticks, have you heard the one about the Catholic priest who caught an old woman sweeping her front steps on Sunday?”
Braggiotti quietly took charge of the subject. “Remove your spectacles of bias and blinkers of wit, gentlemen. Look clearly at this Mussolini, and you will see that he is bred of historic necessity. Italy is a bundle of loose rods lying in a quagmire of defeat. Mussolini will gather up the rods of power, bind them together with cords of discipline into the ancient Roman symbol of authority.”
Patrician arrogance made Braggiotti’s voice ring like a coin of imperial mintage. “At the head of a resolute elite, Mussolini will restore Italy internally, deal harshly with her foes, avenge her wrongs, and emerge as the savior of our national honor.”
Monsignor Birrebon masked his Gallic fear of a strong Italy with the question: “How would the Church fare under such a regime?”
“Better than she has fared under the House of Savoy. Could she be poorer, less honored than during the last fifty years?”
“But Mussolini is an atheist, an avowed anticlerical,” persisted Birrebon.
“He is also an anti-Communist,” countered Braggiotti. “I saw him quell a Communist riot in Milan with only a few lightning-forked words. But these matters are accidental. Mussolini realizes, both as a patriot and a politician, that the prestige of the Church is Italy’s soundest asset.” He riddled Birrebon with the shrapnel of quotation. “Did not II Duce say in Parliament last year: ‘The development of Roman Catholicism throughout the world, the fact that four hundred million people in every land have their eyes fixed on Rome—these are matters that must fill every Italian with pride, and attract the interest of every Italian politician’?” Braggiotti delivered his coup de grâce. “A Frenchman wouldn’t understand that.”
The peacemaker in Stephen sought to snatch the argument from the pit of nationalism. “How does His Holiness regard Mussolini?” he asked.
“Realistically! How else?” Braggiotti put on the dangerous mantle of prophecy. “I predict that if Mussolini knocks on the bronze gates of the Vatican, they will be opened to him.”
“You are wrong, I tell you!” said Birrebon.
Braggiotti’s reply blasted his opponent off the table. “Non me lo dica, perchè io sono Romano” (Don’t tell me, I’m a Roman.)
Only a man with two thousand years of imperial tradition behind him could have said such a thing. It was probably the most arrogant statement that Stephen had ever heard. Yet Braggiotti had not intended to be overbearing. Unconsciously he had made the assumption that the Roman habit of mind was the criterion for all other thinking.
Comparing himself with Alfeo Quarenghi and Roberto Braggiotti, Stephen was aware of their richer texture, more profound knowledge, surer touch. What mysterious gifts had made Rome the lawgiver and moral governor of the Western world?
Stephen earnestly sought an answer to this question. He did not find it immediately or completely, but the question itself took on a sharper definition when he collided personally with the massive bulk of Pietro Giacobbi, papal Secretary of State.
THE COLLISION took place at a Thursday-morning meeting of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.
Every Thursday the Congregation met in the Cardinal Secretary’s office on the second floor of the Vatican Palace. Stephen did not usually attend these conferences, but Quarenghi sometimes invited him for the experience to be gained in watching an important Vatican committee at work. The gathering reminded Stephen of Glennon’s meetings with his diocesan consultors, except that Giacobbi’s diocese was the world, and his advisers a corps of veteran diplomats. There were other features, too, not to be found in Boston. As Giacobbi came down the corridor from his private apartment, his favorite parrot might be heard screeching: “Truffatore di carte” (you old cardsharper)—a bizarre yet oddly pertinent leitmotiv for the deliberations that followed.
On this particular May morning, as Giacobbi strode across a Bruges tapestry-carpet to his desk, he reminded Stephen of a veteran matador about to dispatch his usual quota of bulls. He sat down at his huge Quattrocento desk and surveyed his assistants, violet-cassocked for the most part, seated in a semicircle before him. Quarenghi and Guardiano, the active elements of the Congregation, occupied smaller desks at opposite horns of the crescent. Stephen, rawest of apprentices, had the end chair in the second row. The Cardinal Secretary whipped a pair of hornrimmed bifocals onto the ridge of his beaked nose and plunged without overture into the grim business of Poland.
Warsaw, early in 1922, was a source of grave concern to the Holy See. Persecution of Catholic priests had increased in severity; since the last meeting of Giacobbi’s Congregation the situation had notably worsened.
The Cardinal absorbed Quarenghi’s report on Poland in three swift glances, and addressed his colleagues with a harsh-heavy voice. “I am advised by Cardinal Puzynka that during the past week three churches were burned in the suburbs of Warsaw and seven religious schools closed throughout the country. I need not tell you, monsignori, that the Constitution of 1919 has been torn up by Soviet anticlericalists. A crisis impends.”
And what, Stephen wondered, can be done about it?
“It is the Supreme Pontiff’s desire—a desire with which I heartily concur—that vigorous representation be made to Dr. Grabowitz, the Polish envoy to the Holy See. Will you, Monsignor Guardiano, be so kind as to prepare a preliminary draft of a note to the Polish ambassador, pointing out the clauses in the Constitution of 1919 that explicitly guarantee to the Church full freedom of worship and education?”
Wordlessly, Monsignor Guardiano made a notation. The draft was as good as written.
“In the event that the note fails to produce the desired result, inform Dr. Grabowitz that the Holy Father is prepared to send a legate to Warsaw.”
Another nod from Guardiano.
“Keep L’Osservatore Romano informed of our negotiations. The full force of publicity must be employed to acquaint Europe with Soviet tactics.”
Poland disposed of, Giacobbi turned to Quarenghi for new business. “You have the folder on land nationalization in Mexico?”
“Here, Eminence.”
Giacobbi flicked through the dossier like a physician examining the chart of a tiresome old patient. “Hmm … where Cortez planted the cross, Obregon uproots it. It is one thing to nationalize the soil of Mexico, but this rascal wants the subsoil, too. Must convents be pillaged because oil is discovered a thousand feet beneath their foundations?”
“I have repeatedly put that question to the Mexican government,” said Quarenghi. “To date I have received no reply.”
“Brigands!” roared Giacobbi. “Gregory VII would have led an expedition against them. Today we have only our moral weapons. Well, the acoustics of the Church are still excellent, Monsignor. Have you explored the full possibilities of rousing public opinion in America?”
“Opinion is divided in the United States, Your Eminence.”
“Divided?” Giacobbi brought his head up with the pugnacious lift of an old ram whose authority has been challenged. “How can there be any division of opinion on such a subject?”
Quarenghi, the good subordinate, refused to lock horns with his superior. Giacobbi’s gaze traveled along the double row of chairs and settled on Stephen. “Perhaps our American member can throw some light on the peculiar thinking of his countrymen.”
Stephen had no wish to inherit the old feud between Giacobbi and Glennon. Still, he had been asked to speak. While the whole Congregation waited, he began with modesty:
“Your Eminence must realize that I have no special knowledge of Mexican affairs. The only contribution I can possibly make is to refresh Your Lordship’s memory on the subject of public opinion in the United States.”
Giacobbi’s grunt gave Stephen a new access of confidence. The Cardinal Secretary of State might have the rest of the world at his finger tips, but on this American string Stephen could teach him—tactfully, of course—where and how to pluck. “As Your Eminence knows,” he went on, “the population of the United States is predominantly Protestant. Furthermore, there exists in my country a traditional and very real separation between Church and State. Catholics do not claim the special position vis-à-vis the American government that the Church enjoys in Poland or Austria.” Stephen summed up. “In view of these facts, I believe it would be impolitic—if not impossible—to arouse American public opinion in matters domestic to Mexico.”
Giacobbi’s head was down. “It is your considered judgment, then, Monsignor Fermoyle, that the American public would view with disfavor the Holy See’s request for moral and diplomatic pressure south of the Rio Grande?”
“That is my judgment, Your Eminence.”
Giacobbi gave the yearling diplomat a toss with his horn. “How then do you account for the armed intervention of the United States in Mexico in 1916? Have you forgotten so soon, Monsignor, the shelling of Veracruz by American warships … the landing of your gallant Marines … the occupation of Chihuahua by General Pershing? What is your explanation of these activities?”
Stephen felt the horn under his ribs. “That was a punitive expedition,” he stammered. “The rights of—of American nationals had been infringed by—by Mexican bandits.”
Giacobbi gave him the other horn. “Come, Monsignor. Naivete is out of place in these councils. What are the facts? American capitalists, fearful that their oil rights were in danger, persuaded your idealistic Mr. Fourteen-Point Wilson to interfere in the domestic affairs of Mexico. I pass no judgment on the matter. I merely state it as a guiding precedent. If America could roar so mightily in behalf of oil in 1916, might it not murmur today in behalf of God?”
Giacobbi dropped his bullying tone and became the preceptor. “One final admonition, Monsignor Fermoyle. I have no desire to tread out the patriot flame burning in your American breast. But I pray you, control this preening on the subject of democracy. It is neither the ultimate nor necessarily the best form of government.”
Giacobbi ended his lecture, and proceeded to consider the affairs of Peru, Ireland, British Guiana, and Spain. Stephen sat with burning cheeks through the rest of the session. No one spoke to him as he left the chamber (although Quarenghi’s eyes followed him sympathetically to the door). Wretchedly, Stephen climbed to his office on the third floor and sat down at his mother-of-pearl desk. Not since Din had given him a razor-strop thrashing at the age of twelve had he taken such a beating. Snatches of the miserable argument, begun without his volition, and swept along by Giacobbi’s dislike of America, played back at him from the taunting record of memory. How puny, smug, his arguments had been! Then Giacobbi’s deeper analysis of the crux, “If America could roar in behalf of oil in 1916, might it not murmur today in behalf of God?”
The fugue scratched on, then branched off into searching variations. Did loyalty to the Holy See mean surrendering one’s faith in democracy? Could Stephen alter his lifelong conviction that the Church and State, in America at least, ought to remain separated? Did the United States have the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Mexico? Everything Stephen believed cried no to this last question. Yet, if intervention could be justified in terms of oil, how could it be rejected in terms of religion?
Out of the questioning fugue, out of his personal humiliation, one truth gradually emerged. Stephen saw that he was underinformed, insufficiently educated for his duties in the Secretariat of State. He realized, as a result of his run-in with Giacobbi, that he could properly serve neither the Vatican nor his country until his knowledge of both were vastly increased. He began a systematic course of reading in history and diplomacy, with special emphasis on the concordats that had marked the relationship of Rome with foreign powers. He saw how patiently (and successfully) the Holy See had battled against the nineteenth-century idolatry of the State, expressed in Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, Vienna’s Los von Rom, and the Gallicanism of France. Stephen’s political reading buttressed his realization that the Roman See was the only internationalminded organism in the modern world. He marveled at the tenacity displayed by Rome in reminding state and peoples that man was a spiritual as well as a political creature. And seeing how stubbornly the links of Peter’s chain had held through mortal storms, Stephen found no alternative to the belief that an alloy of divine metal had entered into the forging of those links.
Meanwhile, what of democracy?
After months of intense and disciplined study, Stephen came to the private conclusion that the democratic idea with its emphasis on tolerance and individualism was the most hopeful manifestation of Christ’s spirit in human affairs. And despite Giacobbi’s opinion to the contrary, Stephen continued to believe that the American phenomenon of a free Church in a free State had produced a Catholicism as stanch, loyal, and vigorous as any that had preceded it.
He buttressed his convictions on a brace of noble statements made by two great leaders of modern Catholicism. One was an Italian Pope, Leo XIII, who said in a pastoral letter to the peoples of the world: “God wills that civil power and religious power remain distinct, but He does not will them to be divided.”
The other was a statement made by the American prelate, Cardinal Gibbons:
“The separation of Church and State in America seems to be the natural, inevitable, and best-conceivable plan—the one that would work best among us, both for the good of religion and of the State. Any change in their relation would be contemplated with dread. The Church here enjoys a larger liberty and more secure position than in any country today where Church and State are united. There is deep distrust and strong dislike of the intermeddling of the State with concerns of religion. …
“As a citizen of the United States—and without closing my eyes to our shortcomings as a nation—I say with a deep sense of pride and gratitude that I belong to a country where the civil government holds over us the aegis of its protection without interfering in the legitimate exercise of our sublime mission as ministers of the gospel of Christ.”
Reading and thinking, trying always to establish a realistic balance between his loyalties to Rome and America, Stephen grew in knowledge and humility. He began his day by celebrating Mass in the Chapel of St. Martha, then worked steadily at his desk until late afternoon. For exercise he took a daily walk along the Tiber or played a game of handball in the back yard of his ecclesiastical boardinghouse. Supper was followed by a cigarette and a period of conversation with Roberto Braggiotti, who, as Stephen grew to know him, was an unfailing source of personal charm and stimulation. During long Roman twilights they talked shop, sweetest of subjects. Afterwards Stephen would climb to his room for uninterrupted hours of study. Toward midnight he would read his divine Office and, kneeling beside his iron cot, pray for himself and those he loved.
Bounded without, boundless within, regular almost to the point of monotony, Stephen’s life as a minutante seemed complete. Almost it was. And it remained so until Roberto Braggiotti invited him one evening to a social gathering at the Palazzo Lontana.