The Last Pope (10 page)

“Your Eminence, you can’t imagine what an honor it is to have you here,” the old nun said, walking slowly and with difficulty. “Sister Lucía is waiting for you. She has expressed her desire to talk with you and to ask for your blessing after Mass.”

“Of course. It will be my honor, Sister.”

After Mass, Albino Luciani and Diego Lorenzi walked through the convent corridors, guided by the same nun who had welcomed them. They crossed through the enormous iron grate that reached to the ceiling and enclosed the cloister. In that jail-like atmosphere, the Carmelites received visits from relatives and friends. The prelate from Venice and his assistant, however, weren’t going to meet Sister Lucía through those annoying bars, which made obscured faces and caused more bitterness and pity than religious piety in a meeting between Christians. Don Albino Luciani and Father Lorenzi entered the Carmelite cloister under the arches that helped mitigate the summer heat outside.

“Very baroque, Don Albino,” Lorenzi said, trying to relieve the heavy silence of those corridors.

“Yes,” Luciani agreed, smiling. “No architects were involved in building this place. It was the work of a discalced Carmelite priest, more than two centuries ago.”

“That’s right,” the sister confirmed. “We are so pleased to have Your Eminence honoring us with your erudition about our modest convent.”

“Please don’t exaggerate, Sister.”

“Oh, Your Eminence. Your great humility is well known even here,” the sister protested, her hands raised in a sincere gesture.

“Please don’t make me blush, Sister.”

“Nothing could be further from my intention, Your Eminence. But it’s true that this convent is more than two hundred years old. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had an easy existence, and only recently has had active, future projects.”

“The republic,” Don Albino reminded his assistant, by way of explanation.

“How was that?” Lorenzi asked, feeling he had missed something.

“His Eminence is referring to the establishment of the Portuguese republic in 1910. That same year, on October 10, the convent was violently invaded and all the nuns were thrown out.”

“Incredible!” Lorenzi exclaimed.

“Actually, Father Lorenzi, the republicans were only continuing a brutal tradition,” the sister added. “The dissolution of religious orders had already started during the monarchy with the rise of liberal politics. This convent was kept open under a special license granted by Queen Mary II, valid until 1910. I didn’t really mean to get into a political discussion, Father Lorenzi, but this is my understanding.

“In the face of those calamities, the nuns sought shelter with relatives and friends, later joining Carmelite convents in Spain. But by 1933 conditions in Portugal were more peaceful; certainly there was less animosity toward religious orders. Three of the nuns who had been thrown out came back to Coimbra and tried to restore the Carmelite community. Since the convent was occupied at that time by the military, the sisters had to rent a house and faced many hardships. In 1940 it was rumored that the military was going to abandon the convent, and the sisters did all they could to get it back. That finally happened in 1947. Of those who’d been expelled, only two were nuns still alive. One of them was our reverend mother, who in due course received the keys to the convent.”

“It’s a very moving story, Sister,” Luciani remarked.

“I’m sure Your Eminence already knew it.”

“I did, but this is the first time I’ve heard it directly from a Carmelite nun from Coimbra. And I appreciate it very much, Sister.”

Beyond the cloister, the three of them continued their tour through the interior corridors of the convent, behind the high walls that helped preserve a sort of somber freshness against the implacable sun outside.

They reached a smallish room with a pious, austere décor—just a simple oak table and a bookcase with a few books, some old chairs, and several pieces of furniture that had seen better days, probably going back to the founding of the community. They stopped to look at the large, stark crucifix that dominated one of the walls—just two crossed pieces of rough wood, with no figure of Jesus—infusing the room with a holy air.

“Sister Lucía will be joining you soon. Would you like something to drink? Perhaps a cup of coffee or a soda?”

“I’d like some coffee, Sister, if you’d be so kind,” Don Albino said.

Father Lorenzi also accepted, and they both remained seated, waiting for Sister Lucía.

“We’ll finally meet Sister Lucía, Don Albino! I’ve heard so much about her,” Lorenzi said, with sincere admiration.

“So have I, Lorenzi. Fátima means a lot to the Church. It’s very hard to know exactly how everything happened and why. But her visions were connected with decisive events. And she is still keeping a secret.”

“The third secret.”

“Yes, the third secret.”

“Could it be the most important?”

“The others were very important. There was only one secret, but Sister Lucía divided it into three parts, and then revealed only the first two. That unknown part is what’s being called ‘the third secret.’ ”

“The first two parts of the secret of Fátima referred to the First World War—a hellish vision—and to Russia’s adoption of Mary’s Sacred Heart. Sister Lucía never wanted to reveal the third secret to anyone.”

People were naturally curious. Who wouldn’t want to know the third secret of Fátima? It was rumored that it had to do with terrible cataclysms, perhaps even the Apocalypse, the end of the world, the extinction of the human race. People fond of secrets and conspiracy theories rejoiced. The Church had to be prudent, and tried to avoid promoting unnecessary scandals.

“Sister Lucía has lived thirty years in this convent,” the Venetian patriarch observed.

“A whole life devoted to Jesus Christ.”

“Like ours. Like many. It’s a despicable sign of vanity to think we’re more deserving for devoting our lives to the Lord. No matter how much evil comes to us, all that counts is whatever good we can do for others.”

“Wise words, Your Eminence,” they heard a feminine voice say.

Sister Lucía, unannounced, dressed in the habit of
teresinha
nuns, had glided into the room without a sound.

“How are you, dear Sister?”

“Fine, Your Eminence, by the Lord’s grace.”

Lucía knelt to kiss the cardinal’s hand.

“Please, Sister, we are the ones who should kneel before you,” Don Albino said in perfect Portuguese, Sister Lucía’s mother tongue. He could have chosen Italian, English, French, or Spanish, since they both spoke all of these.

Sister Lucía seemed vigorous for her age. She had enjoyed better health than the other two visionary young people, for whom Our Lady foretold short lives. Francisco and Jacinta, while still children, succumbed to a flu epidemic in 1919 and 1920, respectively. Only Lucía had survived.

It was long before that that the three little shepherds, as the press called them, had taken their flock as usual to a remote place known as Cova da Iria, in Portugal. The Basilica of Fátima and the Chapel of Hope and Aspirations stood in that same spot now. There, on May 13, 1917, the three children saw Our Lady, Christ’s mother. Only one of them, Lucía, got to talk with Our Lady. Jacinta was able to see and hear her, but Francisco only saw her. The Virgin asked them to return there on the thirteenth day of every month, and to pray very often. And so they did. These events caused a great commotion in the region, and a great controversy arose around the three kids who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary. That August there was another apparition nearby, on a different day, the nineteenth, because on the thirteenth the little shepherds were taken into custody by the skeptical mayor of Vila Nova in Ourém. In September, Our Lady promised a miracle that could prove to all—including the incredulous Church—that her apparition to the three little shepherds was real. A month later, on October 13, the last wonder occurred. The Virgin appeared as Our Lady of the Rosary and asked that a chapel be built there in her honor. But most important, the Virgin announced the end of the war—the First World War, of course—which was still raging at the time. The wonderful miracle promised to the thousands of devout believers who attended the weekly meetings afforded an incredible view of the sun gyrating and oscillating.

Those present said the sun seemed like a fiery star rushing down toward Earth. The 70,000 men and women gathered knelt before such a prodigy, driving away all doubts from their souls. That event seemed like a biblical passage, and became known as “the Miracle of the Sun.” Christians saw it as irrefutable proof of the power of the Divinity.

In fact, the war ended a few months later, exactly as Lucía, the visionary of Fátima, had predicted.

As the miracles occurring in Fátima gained fame around the world, Lucía de Jesús became more and more cautious. After joining the school of the Sisters of Santa Dorotea in Oporto in 1921, she traveled to Spain, where she spent a few years to allow her religious vocation to ripen. In 1946 she joined the Carmelite religious order, finally becoming a nun in 1949 in the Convent of Santa Teresa.

The meeting of Sister Lucía with Albino Luciani was supposed to be just a few minutes of polite conversation, but it lasted about two hours. At no time was there any mention of the apparitions, the visions, or “the third secret.” In Father Lorenzi’s serene presence, Don Albino and Sister Lucía chose to talk about a variety of inconsequential matters. Perhaps it made little sense to bring up the serious religious, political, or national and international issues in which Sister Lucía had become involved. Facing Don Albino’s benevolent smile, the nun lamented the prevalent lack of faith among the younger generations, as well as the older people’s seeming lack of concern about it. Don Albino smiled beatifically, admitting that the world was going through complex times, but not blaming the young for their detachment and indifference.

While the two priests sipped their coffee during this enjoyable conversation, in such a peaceful room, time ceased to matter. Suddenly there was a silence, and a grave voice almost made the walls shake. A supernatural, luminous glow seemed to spread over everything for a fraction of a second, while the voice spoke.

“And as for you, my dear patriarch, Christ’s crown and Christ’s days.”

Father Lorenzi, terrified and visibly shaken, looked at Sister Lucía. He could have sworn those words had come from her lips.

Don Albino, calm and collected, looked at his secretary and then back at the old servant of God. Right away he sensed that the cryptic message was directed at him, and yet he didn’t seem disturbed at all. Quite to the contrary, he closed his eyes slowly, trying to understand what had happened.

“Don Albino,” Father Lorenzi stammered, trying to catch his breath.

But the patriarch raised his hand, commanding silence, in order not to interrupt the visionary’s trance. Don Albino wasn’t sure what was going on. Was this a premonition? A warning? Or was it mere babble uttered by someone hypersensitive to strange energies?

At that moment, someone looking at the nun might have thought she had fallen asleep in her chair, with one hand resting on the table. But Sister Lucía was not asleep, and they knew it. It was Sister Lucía, but it was also the other world speaking through her. Lorenzi had never seen anyone in a trance, but Don Albino, apparently more acquainted with such phenomena, was unruffled. He kept his hand raised, still demanding silence.

“There is a secret not yet revealed concerning your death,” the strange voice coming out of Lucía’s lips continued, in a tone totally different from hers. “God will forgive, the Lord will forgive.”

Lorenzi was aghast, caught between terror and religious fervor.

A moment later, Sister Lucía opened her eyes and recovered the sweet expression she had when she first appeared in the room.

“Would you like a bit more coffee, Your Eminence?” she asked.

“Yes, Sister, please,” Luciani responded, looking directly into her eyes, without the least indication of any reaction to what he had just heard. “You already know how much I enjoy coffee.”

 

 

AS THEY WALKED toward the car that was to take them back to Fátima, Lorenzi was watching the patriarch, half astonished, half perplexed. Finally, gathering all his courage, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer.

“Don Albino, I don’t know what to make of all this.”

The Venetian patriarch stopped, and placed a hand on Lorenzi’s shoulder.

For a few seconds he looked at him with the usual calmness he had come to expect since he became his assistant, almost a year before.

“Relax, Father Lorenzi. I’d say that Sister Lucía is a very interesting person. Wouldn’t you agree?” The prelate continued walking, discreetly tucking in his pocket a little folded paper Sister Lucía had given him.

And they never mentioned the incident again.

17

London’s darkness seemed ponderous, almost impenetrable to Sarah when she stepped out on Bridge Street, opposite Big Ben. The world’s most famous clock told her it was almost midnight. Turning left, the young woman started running toward Westminster Bridge. There were a few, but not many, people on the bridge. This reassured her, a little, as did the knowledge that London was the city with the most video surveillance per square meter in the world. Sarah resisted the temptation to take a taxi. She needed to take care of something else first. Looming in the distance was the London Eye, the city’s giant Ferris wheel.

Come on, think.

Across the bridge, and continuing on Westminster Bridge Road, Sarah turned left on Belvedere Road. Determined to enter the first phone booth she came across, she walked and walked, not letting up. In a business area near the Waterloo Bridge, she finally found one.

Picking up the handset, Sarah knew not to use her credit card this time.