The reporter had always aspired to make a difference. His
agrarian upbringing gave him both a strong work ethic and very pure sense of
right and wrong. Some would say he was
obsessed with his job, but his efforts had paid off. He’d reached what he
believed was the pinnacle of his craft: the pope beat.
He spent countless hours researching every last angle,
pushing the Holy See Press Office to “give up the goods”, to the point of
alienating his sources. He was a man possessed. And now, through the modern version
of “Deep Throat”, he was about the break the story of a lifetime – a corruption
scandal that promised to shake the foundations of the Catholic establishment.
And while the alienation he created now would almost
certainly cost him dearly in the future, his questions were creating movement
from deep within the walls of the Vatican.
***
The scandal weighed heavily on all involved, and in
particular, those in the leadership hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The pope called a meeting with his most senior cardinals under the pretenses of
reviewing status, but kept the true agenda to himself, preferring to control
the process in his own way.
As the cardinals filed in, they sought to break the tension
by engaging in small talk as they assembled around a table.
“Have you ever heard of Ice-T?” asked one cardinal of
another.
“You mean the drink?” responded the other.
“No, I mean the entertainer. I was watching a television
show where he was speaking to another man and he said ‘What do you do when your
dishwasher breaks?’ and then, after a pause, he said ‘Kick her ass.’ It seems
people yearn for the old ways…”
Another cardinal was puzzling over American football. He and
a small group were huddled around his smartphone watching a video clip of a
recent game and were trying to understand the strategy and rules:
Video on the cardinal's smartphone
“The players all seem very large, fit, and skilled, but I
don’t understand how you would practice this ‘move’. They must have spent many
hours perfecting it. Do you suppose that additional points are scored hitting
one’s head on your teammate’s backside? Is the object to wedge the ball between
the buttocks of your teammate?”
Another in the group piped up. “Great question – I don’t
understand the game either. It’s so complex… On a lighter note, did you hear
that they have a team that actually calls themselves the ‘Rams’?” and the group
burst out into vigorous laughter.
The pope arrived and the cardinals took their places at the
table. The pope had just returned from a tour of Africa. Hale and hearty, he
was tanned and reinvigorated. “All right, let’s come to order,” he said, and
then asked, “What do we have on the docket for today?”, and the cardinals
presented a summary of the mundane activities that come with running the
pontificate – official statements, expenditures, and triaging of requests from all
and sundry.
And then, just as the meeting appeared to be winding down,
the pope revealed the true purpose of the gathering: “There’s one last issue we
need to resolve. We all know about the leak. But it points to a larger issue:
corruption. We must root out those responsible and fix this. And as you develop
a plan to correct these transgressions, let your work be guided by the
following tenet:”, and pulling from his seemingly endless store of Richard
Nixon-isms, said, “If the Pope does it, that means it is not illegal,” and the
other cardinals nodded thoughtfully and fingered their rosaries.
Having washed his hands of the problem, the pope rose to
leave, and the cardinals, seeking to curry favor, began feigning interest the
Pope’s trip; the pope obliged them by saying, “Did you know that the Popemobile
has four-wheel-drive AND a snorkel? N’uff said.” And with that, he was gone like
fumata bianca in a brisk wind, leaving the remaining cardinals with a tricky problem
and no solution.
Remaining at the table, they were six.
At the head of the table sat the most senior cleric. He was
uniquely skilled in administration and relied on his lieutenants for technical
support and implementation of his vision. Even of keel, he never seemed to lose
his composure, taking everything in stride.
To the senior cleric’s right sat a powerfully built swarthy
man of tremendous intellect. In his youth he had toyed with the idea of
becoming a thespian, and, because of his appearance, in re-enactments of
“Spaghetti Westerns” with his like-minded friends he was made to “wear the
sombrero” because of his complexion. He was quick to size up social situations and
he always said the right thing at the right time.
Next to him sat an elderly cardinal; having committed his
life to the Church but possessing limited ambition, he had reached the apex of
his career decades earlier and had “plateaued” at an important yet non-mobile position
in the hierarchy. And perhaps this static position had subconsciously affected
him: He colored his silver locks a dirty brown to divert attention from the
fact that his career appeared to be in a state of permanent suspended animation.
At the end of the table, facing the senior cleric, sat a
tall, dark-haired cardinal with grey Mitt Romney-esque temples, and his smooth
and supple skin suggested a much younger man than his years. Having found the
bureaucracy oppressive, he had chosen to quit the Catholic Church altogether to pursue
his life’s work elsewhere. This would be his last contribution to the church he
had devoted so much to.
Rounding the corner of the table, another cardinal,
embodying the “Peter Principle”, had bumbled his way to this point by asking simple-minded
questions that his cleverer fellow men-of-the-cloth would answer, a Socratic-method-on-the-down-low,
if you will. In doing so, they did all the heavy lifting while the cardinal
remained unthreatening and diminutive. Unless he went off the reservation and
jabbered stupidly.
And, seated to the left of the senior cleric, sat the sixth
cardinal: He had quit the church earlier
for personal reasons but had recently rejoined and vaulted up the ladders of
power with such haste that he had amassed over half the responsibilities of
overseeing the whole church. To outsiders he seemed an unlikely commander of so
many because of his youthful appearance; to insiders, the brilliance of his
appointment was clear. When he spoke, it was done with purpose and subtlety and
cleverness. And, if you looked closely at his eyes, you might notice that one
of his pupils was larger than the other.
“We need to take an organized approach,” said the senior
cardinal. “Suggestions?”
The elderly cardinal spoke up: “Well, okay, the way you fix
a situation like this is to use the lessons of the past. You should be able to
figure out what’s going on by looking to the past, okay? Most of the lessons
you need to follow can be found in that famous book ‘Everything I needed to
know I learned in the 70s’ – you know? Okay, lets see what we can do here. The
butler took the pope’s documents and gave them to the reporter. What you do in
this situation is gather the data and store it all in hanging manila folders,
okay?”
A silence descended across the other cardinals as a look of
puzzlement settled into each of their faces. Taking this as encouragement, the
elderly cardinal continued: “Well, okay, the way you fix a situation like this
is to use the lessons of the past. You should be able to figure out what’s
going on by looking to the past, okay? Most of the lessons you need to follow
can be found in that famous book ‘Everything I needed to know I learned in the
70s’ – you know? Okay, lets see what we can do here...”
The lead cardinal broke in, “Thanks very much for your
suggestions, cardinal. Next?”
From the opposite end of the table, the Romney-esque
cardinal weighed in: “As you know, we’ve gone over this many, many times. For
all of our issues, we have some of the most morally upstanding people in the
world in our employ – committed, all, to the teachings. Take young Vladimir,
for example: a Catholic boy genius with the work ethic of a Protestant,
absolutely committed to the church. And it’s not like he’s in some cesspool of
moral turpitude like Las Vegas drinking beer and daydreaming; he’s here innovating,
achieving incredible things in the holiest of places. We need to empower him to
take ownership and create the process so that we might place all of the
information at our fingertips and set these accounts straight.”
The bumbling priest ventured, “How might we do this? The
accounts are a virtual labyrinth, with minotaurs behind every corner!”
The cardinal of the imbalanced retinae cleverly interjected,
“Sounds like an ‘Inconvenient Truth’,” and chuckled.
The swarthy priest, hands folded across his chest, began
with a low chuckle as well, and said, “An ‘Inconvenient Truth’, indeed. It
isn’t like all of this just happened yesterday. It’s an accumulation of many
small transgressions that have snowballed and now it’s out of control. Our
preliminary investigation has revealed the degree of the problem, but it has
also shone a light on the specific mechanisms that have polluted our system,
uncontrolled and dangerous to us all. And it might seem as if you could make a
broad appeal to the congregation as a whole, but I think we know what the right
thing to do is.“
As he spoke, the intensity in his voice had risen, and now
all eyes were trained on him. He continued: “We have no choice. We must follow
process. Control of this must be centralized. And Vladimir must lead.” And, as
if in an Arby’s commercial prepared for a Mexican television audience, a
sombrero-shaped halo formed above his head.
The effect on the other cardinals was immediate. “Amen!”,
proclaimed the one-big-one-small retinaed cardinal. “Hallelujah!”, proclaimed
the Romney-esque cardinal. “L’chaim!”, proclaimed the bumbling cardinal, and
thought clouds with three question marks in them formed above the heads of the
other cardinals. Oblivious, he continued: “We have the moral authority to do
this. Indeed, we have the moral obligation – we are at the vanguard, the
keepers of the flame. We aren’t motivated by the fear of hell – like that
circle inhabited by those engineers in Mexico enslaved by drug traffickers to fix
their telecommunication networks – we are doing it for the glory of God. And
while we’re on the subject of that other sausage-fest called engineering, at
least we’re…” and he searched for the right term, until it came to him in a
flash of inspiration, “…old!”
The rest of the cardinals were taken aback – speechless. The
bumbler took this as a cue: “Let’s do this thing!”, and the spell was broken,
and the cardinals placed their hands together and, following the lead cardinal,
they shouted in unison, “Unus, duo, tres, sit domus ferte!“ and they broke to
do the Lord’s work.
