Page 52
“Yes, it would,” Fortin said. “What I was going to say is that there is a common thread in my tentative identifications. Many of the priests and two of the bishops were Franciscans.”
“May I ask a question? Questions?” Winters asked.
“You’re supposed to,” Cronley said.
“Why was the Church involved in this?”
“You said ‘the Church,’” Fortin said. “
That suggests you’re a Roman Catholic.”
“I am.”
“Others would have said ‘the Roman Catholic Church.’”
“I suppose that’s true,” Winters said.
“What about you, Jim?”
“I’m Episcopalian. Church of England.”
“And your mother?”
“She left the Catholic Church—maybe was kicked out—when she married my father. Now she’s head of the Altar Guild at Saint Thomas’s Episcopal Church in Midland.”
The waiter returned, carrying an enormous tray with one hand.
He laid plates of Choucroute Garnie à l’Alsacienne before them. Winters saw that it was mounds of browned sauerkraut heavily laced with chunks of roasted pork. The smell made him salivate.
“My father was Roman,” Fortin said, after he’d finished his first mouthful and then washed it down with healthy swallows of the sparkling Crémant d’Alsace. “When he married my mother—an Evangalische, a Lutheran—she had to sign a document stating any children of the union would be raised as Romans. I was. My mother was in the habit of saying unkind things about the Roman Church. This invariably distressed my father, who was rather devout. Are you distressed, or outraged, Thomas, when someone questions the motives of Holy Mother Church?”
“Annoyed, usually, depending on what is said, and by whom.”
“My mother used to say that the primary responsibility of Roman Catholic Church clergy is the preservation of the Roman Catholic Church. Does that offend you, Thomas?”
Winters visibly considered the question before replying, “I’m not sure I agree with it, but it doesn’t offend me.”
“I began to be disillusioned about the Roman Church at Saint-Cyr,” Fortin said. “My fellow cadets began to say terrible things about it . . .”
“What sort of terrible things?” Winters asked.
“. . . yet seemed to get away with it. There was no lightning bolt from heaven to incinerate them where they stood.”
“What sort of terrible things?” Winters repeated.
“Well, for example, that the Pope—Popes, Pius the Eleventh, and Pius the Twelfth, who succeeded him, were, if not actually Fascists, then the next thing to Fascists.”
“Did they say why?” Winters asked softly.
“They pointed to the Vatican Concordat of 1929,” Fortin said.
“I have no idea what that is,” Cronley said.
“It was the deal struck between the Roman Church—Pius the Eleventh—and Italy—Mussolini—which made the Vatican—all forty-four hectares of it—a sovereign state.”
“A hectare is two and a half acres, right?” Winters asked.
Both Fortin and Cronley nodded, and Fortin went on.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52 (Reading here)
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189