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Second
Spring by Andrew M. Greeley Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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O’Malleys Return Consistent to a fault, Father Andrew
Greeley reprises characters from
earlier novels without missing a beat, losing a thread, or changing
personalities. Greeley returns to the crazy O’Malleys in his latest novel, Second
Spring. Most of the action takes place in Rome, where Chuck and Rosemarie
observe the happenings around two papal conclaves in 1978. Since Greeley has
written non-fiction about that time and place, readers can be sure that the
fictional version holds up to measures of accuracy. Here’s an excerpt (pp.
200-207): We
arrived at the Vatican about eleven-thirty, after attending Mass at the
Trinita dei Monte at the top of the Spanish Steps. I confess that much of my
attendance at the Eucharist was distracted by a sense of lost opportunity
last night. I had neglected my wife badly. There was something seriously
wrong with me. The Piazza and the top of the Conciliazione were
already crowded with people dressed in their Sunday best—parents and children
and many family dogs who amused themselves by pretending to fight with one
another. They came, I suspected, because the weather was splendid and the
Piazza was the place to be. They really didn't expect white smoke the first
morning. But they didn'twant to miss it either. We crossed over the street which ran behind the
left colonnade, where we found a good view of the chimney on the top of the
chapel. Just as we worked our way into the colonnade, white smoke appeared
from the chimney. The throng went wild. "E bianco, ebianco!" I reflected that the smoke signal and the
excitement it generated seemed to fit perfectly into Italian culture. Then the smoke turned black. A vast sigh arose from
the crowd. "They still can't get it right," I said
to Rosemarie, touching her arm. I had resolved to keep her at the fringes of arousal
all the day long. She didn't seem to mind. Then
it turned gray. For a long half minute it was clearly white. The crowd
cheered, but with a sense of reservation. Then it was definitively black. The
crowd groaned its displeasure and quickly broke up. A couple of people near
us, who had Radio Vaticana on their handheld sets, turned it off in disgust. "Basta!" one elegant Roman woman
exploded. We wandered over to the Sala Stampa, where a
Canadian reporter was telling everyone that Siri had won fifty votes in the
first ballot and that by afternoon he would have half the votes. After that
he couldn't be stopped. "Do you believe that, Chuck?" Rosemarie
asked. I looked over the scratch sheet I had prepared. "I don't see how he could have got more than
thirty-five, forty at the most. Then, if the history books are right, his
plurality will begin to decline." "How did the word leak out, I wonder." "Our friend Rae Adolfo, if he were here, would
say that such matters can be arranged. I can't imagine that there are not
communication links both ways. If almost everything around here is corrupt,
why not the restrictions on the conclave?" "What good does it do?" "Someone might send a message inside that the
people out here were delighted because they want Siri." "That seems truly weird." "Rosemarie, my love, where are we?" "Right . . . Nothing here is weird." We sat there for a while, holding hands and
listening to the director of the Sala Stampa explain why there was a
confusion about the smoke signals. "Chuck O'Malley, Chicago," I said,
raising my hand. "There doesn't seem to be any historical record of this
happening before at earlier conclaves. Has modern technology made it more
difficult to produce the right color smoke?" "Chucky!" my wife whispered. The man, an insecure and nervous priest who was
trying desperately to protect his job, erupted into a long lecture in
feverish Italian. "What did he say?" "That the Vatican has the very best of modern
technology." "Like
the television studio it doesn't have." Someone else asked him about the report of fifty votes for Siri. He erupted again. There could be no reports from
inside the conclave. All reports were false. Our driver, whose respect had been won by
Rosemarie's generosity, promised that he would be back by five. "White tonight, no?" he asked. "Just
like last time." "Maybe," I said. We lugged our equipment back up to the suite and
collapsed into bed. My wife was, as always, right. We did need a nap, pure,
you should excuse the expression, nap. We slept so deeply that we would have missed the
smoke if our driver hadn't rung us at a quarter to five. We were both logy
and irritable and snapped at one another as we dressed. "Why didn't you wake me up?" herself
demanded. "I can't do everything in this family." "You're the mommy," I replied. "It's
your job to wake me up." "Bullshit." That is language she never uses. We went down to
the car silently. "Thank you for calling, Martino. We were both
very tired." "Si, signora, tiring times for great artists,
no?" I almost said that I was not a great artist, but I
thought better of it. We arrived at the Piazza at 5:40. The crowd stood
around listlessly. Nothing had happened. The sky was quickly darkening. A
searchlight focused on the rickety old chimney. It will be hard to tell in
the dark. What did they do in the days before searchlights! The system is that they burn the ballots which will
normally send up white smoke unless wet stuff is added to the fire to make it
black. By six tension had increased. The last time this
had been the decisive ballot. Was something going wrong inside? Much
later we would learn that the two "scrutinies" (four ballots) had
tested the relative strength of the Siri and Benelli forces and that neither
had been strong enough. Siri had begun with fifteen more votes than he had at
the previous conclave. The curial propaganda had given him an impressive
boost. The leaders of the European coalition were worried. Toward the end of
the day, hewas losing votes to Colombo. Many of the American cardinals would
go to bed that night convinced that the Holy Spirit was directing them to
vote for an infirm seventy-six-year-old man. An orange moon rose over the Tiber and stood for a
few minutes at the bottom of the Conciliazione, a perfect setting for white
smoke. At 6:05, the smoke went up again. It sure looked
like it was white. We turned on our portable radio. "E nero,"
the announcer of Radio Vaticana said firmly. The smoke continued to pour out, alternately white,
black, and gray. The crowd groaned and dispersed. "Drat," my wife said. "I wanted to
go home tomorrow or Tuesday." "Let's have a real dinner," I replied.
"That nice little place over by the Gregorian University." We found a table despite the crowd because the
owner recognized my wife. Naturally. The restaurant was filled with American Jesuits
from the Gregorian and American journalists. We hid in our little corner and
listened. "It'll be Colombo first thing in the
morning," one young Jesuit with a Boston accent informed the reporters
who were hanging on every word. "They beat back Siri today but don't
have enough votes for Benelli. He's angered too many people. Colombo will be
the last Italian Pope, another elderly transitional papacy." He was wrong, as it turned out. But much later,
many of us found ourselves wishing that he'd been right. We went back to the Hassler and made leisurely and
peaceful love, restoring the union which had existed before my sickness. How could a man with such a wonderful wife worry
about his future? He should just go home and work on the People
exhibition and our book on the conclaves. The next morning the routine of white, black, and
gray began early at 11:15, just as we arrived. However, someone had the
bright idea of linking Vatican Radio with the powerful public address system
which dominated the Piazza. "E nero!" the voice said, almost casually. Later
we would learn that a line had been set up between the door of the conclave and
Vatican Radio. Someone just outside would pick up a signal from someone just
inside about the color of the smoke—one if by land, two if by sea or
something like that. It was an interesting way to deal with a conclave
that was appearing on worldwide television. Still later we
heard of the dramatic
events inside. Before the ballot sheets could be
collected, Giovanni Colombo rose to announce that he would not accept if
elected for reasons of health and age. The cardinals were thunderstruck. He
had scuttled their nice little compromise. Then Franz Koenig, Archbishop of
Vienna, broke all the rules of the conclave and proposed that they proceed to
the second ballot AND elect Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Cracow. Koenig
praised his education, his intelligence, his sensitivity, his leadership in
the reconciliation between the Church in Gernany and the Church in Poland. He
said no one could doubt his anti-Communism, but it was a sophisticated
anti-Communism, that if a man who understood both the weakness and the appeal
of Marxist philosophy. The other cardinals were thunderstruck. No one
doubted Wojtyla's intelligence or abilities. Very few realized how young he
was. Most knew that he had been an important figure in
the Vatican Council. All knew that Koenig, one of the great men of the
Council, would not recommend someone who did not stand for the same ideas of
ecumenism and collegiality. They cast their second ballots under the influence
of a passionate appeal which broke all the rules of the conclave. Wojtyla
fell sliort of the two-thirds by only one or two votes. In the afternoon they
would elect him and the conclave would end. Tie voice of Koenig was the voice, they firmly
believed, of the HolySpirit. ln the ensuing years, Franz Koenig might
have had second thoughts. When it was time for him
to retire as Archbishop of Vienia, the Pope appointed a Benedictine abbot who
had impresed him at a Mariological conference, without bothering to consult
Koenig. When that man retired from the Archdiocese and from the College of
Cardinals under pressure of pedophile charges, JohnPaul named as his
successor a young aristocratic Dominican who, for all his personal charm, was
a reactionary. His Holiness's idea of loyalty and the one in which we were raised in
Chicago were very different. Franz Koenig had locked the Church in for the rest
of the century and beyond by that illegal intervention. He is, I am told, not
a man to have second thoughts. We were back in front of St. Peter's at
five-thirty. The crowd was smaller—it was a workday—but enthusiastic, as if
it knew that tonight we would have a pope again. The sky was clear, the
weather was soft and warm again, and once more the orange moon hung over the
Tiber as if it were waiting with bated breath for the announcement. At 6:08 the smoke went up, unmistakably and
permanently white. "E bianco!" said Radio Vaticana. The atmosphere changed at once to hilarity. We were
all talking to one another happily. The main subject of conversation was
whether the new pope would be a straniero, a foreigner. Some of our
newfound friends were horrified at this possibility. Others thought it was
high time. A well-dressed and cultivated gentleman who spoke
excellent English said to us, "I have a store of the best sparkling wine
in Rome. If we rid ourselves of the Italian papacy, I will go home and break
open that store and with my family drink to the future of the Church in
Italy." "What do you think, Chucky? No hedging your
bets now." "I don't think Colombo quite made it. That
leaves only a foreigner. I'm betting on a Polish pope." She considered me with glowing blue eyes that make
my heart melt and my loins tighten. "No bet." The powerful lights went on behind the doors of the
loggia of the Basilica. We continued to wait. They certainly knew how to drag
out the suspense. Then the door swung. The cross bearer and the acolytes
emerged, then Cardinal Felici appeared: "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum!" The required ecstatic cheers. "Habemus Papam!" Oh great, we weren't expecting that. "Carolum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem.
. . " Charles? Who was that? "Wojtyla!" "Pope Chucky," Rosemarie giggled. The cheer was modest at best. They weren't sure who
this man with the funny name was. They knew he wasn't an Italian. "Qui imposuit sibi nomen Johannern
Paulum!" Felici did not sound very happy. "E papa nero? E papa nero?"
a man next to me asked anxiously. "Non, " my good wife replied, "E papa
Polacco!" "Magari.'" he exclaimed, clutching
his head. "Polacco?" a number of others
shouted. "Revera," Rosemarie said, "E
papa Polacco."" "The first non-Italian pope since 1522!"
I said to herself. "And we are there!" "Quick, who was the last non-Italian
pope?" "I've been sick all week." "Adrian VI, Cardinal Breakspeare!" "A Brit! "That's right, a Brit." All right, you've elected a Polish pope. What do
you do as an encore for that? The crowd did not disperse. They were hurt, angry.
They wanted to see what this new man was like. Not good losers. We elbowed our way over to the Sala Stampa. "The tradition is that he just gives the
blessing and goes back into the Sistine. His first talk is to the cardinals
at the closing Mass tomorrow." My spousal tour guide had spent the week of my
illness brushing up on the local folklore. "He'd better say something to these folks now.
They're not happy." "Pope Chucky," she giggled again.
"Your nightmare came true even if it was another Chuck." An
Italian military band struck up happy music at the edge of the colonnade. The moon
was orange again, the sky was still clear. A new era had begun in the Catholic Church. About 7:20 he appeared on the screen, a big man, not
tall (though taller than I am by a couple of inches) but broad-shouldered and
solid. "May Jesus Christ be praised," he said in
Italian. "Now and forever," the crowd replied,
somewhat surprised at the Italian. Rosemarie whispered a translation to me, through
her tears. "Dearest brothers and sisters, we are still
all grieved after the death of the most beloved Pope John Paul 1. And now the
most reverend cardinals have called a new bishop to Rome. They have called
him from a distant country, distant but always so close for the communion in
Christian faith and tradition. I was afraid to receive this nomination, but I
did in the spirit of obedience to Our Lord and in the total confidence in His
mother, the most holy Madonna. "Even if I cannot explain myself in your. .
." he paused and chuckled, ". . . our Italian language, if I make a
mistake you will correct me." Laughter from the throng. He had won them over. "Also I present myself to you all to confess
our common faith, our hope and our confidence in the mother of Christ and of
the Church and also to start with the help of God and with the help of
men." An enormous ovation leaped from the Piazza San
Pietro. After all they really had another Italian pope. One of the functionaries standing around him had
tried to silence him, whispering "basta," which the mikes
picked up. The new Pope had ignored him. Adolfo had said that the Archbishop of Cracow had
been an actor before he went to the seminary. He certainly had magical stage
presence. He had been close to tears when he spoke of being afraid of the
nomination. He had clung to the railing of the balcony to control his
emotions. The Romans loved him. For the moment. "An enormously impressive man," my wife
said to me as we rode
back to the hotel. As in prior novels, there are loving,
intimate relationships, and any of the bad stuff works itself out in the end.
Second
Spring is relaxing and entertaining. Steve Hopkins, May 27, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the June 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Second
Spring.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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