Chapter 1: Scandal in the Vatican

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.