Free The Omega Scroll by Adrian D'Hagé Page A

corridors of power and stall his growing reputation. More importantly, it would give Petroni a channel of communication and a measure of control over this unwanted secular program. Petroni smiled thinly as he put a line through one of the priest’s names and substituted that of Father Giovanni Donelli.
    In answer to Archbishop Petroni’s summons Giovanni paused before knocking on the door to the inner office. He collected his thoughts and went over the issues that he thought might be exercising Petroni’s mind. This week the Curial Cardinals and the Archbishop would again be discussing Vatican II and contraception. He knocked and entered the office.
    ‘Have a seat, Father Donelli.’ Archbishop Petroni waved his right hand towards the high-backed chair that had a permanent position in front of his desk. Petroni had arranged for his desk and his own chair to be raised several centimetres so he could look down on whoever was sitting in the chair opposite.
    ‘The Curial Cardinals will be meeting tomorrow to receive a progress report on Vatican II.’ As he spoke, Archbishop Petroni absentmindedly examined his fine bony fingers. Giovanni recognised the ploy – one of feigned indifference – and he was instantly on guard.
    ‘You’ve served in a small parish, where was it again?’ Petroni asked.
    ‘Maratea, Excellency. It’s a small village south of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea.’
    ‘Ah yes, I remember. Tell me, how did the parishioners react to Vatican II?’ It was a fearfully loaded question. In 1962 when Pope John XXIII was asked why the second Vatican Council was needed, His Holiness had got up with a twinkle in his eye, opened a window and said, ‘I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in’. Faced with that sort of logic the Curial Cardinals had been careful to support Vatican II in public, but in private their opposition had been scathing. Concepts such as the possibility of ordinary people gaining salvation outside the Catholic Church seriously threatened the power of the priesthood.
    ‘When Vatican II was introduced I had only just been made an altar boy, Excellency.’ Giovanni’s mind flashed back to the little fishing village of Maratea where he had grown up in the Faith. His first day as an altar boy was not only a defining moment for himself; it had been a cause for celebration for his whole family.
    High above the fishing port of Maratea, the parish church of the Addolorata nestled amongst the terracotta roofs of the houses on one of the Apennine ridgelines that tumbled into the Golfo di Policastro and the emeralds and blues of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
    Giovanni Donelli was robed in the white cassock his mother had stayed up sewing the night before. He glanced at his family who had arrived half an hour before the service to make sure to get the front pew. Papà was beaming, Mamma quietly proud, and his younger brothers Giuseppi and Giorgio were trying to look uninterested. The old wooden pews protested as the congregation settled back and Father Vincenzo Abostini prepared to address them all. The beautifully kept little church didn’t have a pulpit, but Christ and his Mother Mary would have certainly approved. The altar was covered in the finest white lace, which le donne of the village laundered every week. High on the wall behind the altar between two marble pillars was a life-size statue of Mary, standing watch over the little congregation, six gold candlesticks at her feet. Giovanni could still remember sitting on the marble steps that led up to the chancel, listening to Father Abostini, a quiet gentle man with an ample waistline, thinning hair and flushed, pudgy cheeks.
    ‘I have a message from the Holy Father himself,’ Father Abostini began, grasping the sides of the lectern. On Sunday 14 October 1962, the same message was being read in tens of thousands of Catholic parishes around the world but Father Abostini had the ability to make it seem