Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: Last week, Rackham and Phoebe pulled off a bit of industrial espionage, aided by some clever technology. In Msgr. Hawkslaw's Wilshire Boulevard high-rise on a Saturday night when Hawkslaw is out to dinner, they download the entire contents of Hawkslaw's personal computer and discover records that reveal kickbacks that Hawkslaw has been getting from a number of major textbook publishers, plus a file labeled Pretty Young Men and another marked FOG. They make a narrow, harrowing escape. Then he and Phoebe decide to go directly to the beach house at Malibu where Mahony and the A-team have been spending the weekend—to face the music. Now here's Chapter Twenty Three...

23: Music

MAHONY ADDRESSED RACKHAM, not Phoebe, because he had a hunch Rackham was the guiltier of the pair and anyway he intended to take her aside later. "Okay, Mister Eye-for-an-Eye," Mahony said, "What have you done?" He was livid, and the others on the team didn't look very happy either. They were sitting at a 20-foot oval oak table in the great room of the Riley beach house when Rackham and Phoebe dragged in at 9:30, both of them exhausted.

"Yeah," interjected Pike, "when you didn't return my calls, I drove all the way back from San Diego. What the hell you been doing? You look like shit."

Rackham wheeled his chair to the far end of the table, heaved a huge sigh and said, "you better take a look at the contents of this laptop." He motioned for Pike to come down and take his tote bag. "In the meantime, I need a glass of gin."

"Yes, we have no gin," said Sunnyhill. "Settle for a glass of beer?"

Rackham said a beer would be fine.

"Me, too," said Phoebe. "I need a glass of beer."

"You don't drink," said Juana Margarita Obregón.

"I do now. And can I have a salami sandwich or something? I am starved. Ted, we forgot to eat today."

"Turkey okay?" said Juana Margarita Obregón.

"Me too," said Rackham. "I'm starved too. Turkey sandwich and a glass of beer."

"What's in your laptop?" asked Pike, unzipping the bag.

"Just the entire contents of the Hawk's desktop computer."

That drew cries from the whole crew, all of them except Mahony talking at once.

"The Hawk?"

"Monsignor Hawkslaw?"

"His computer?"

"Outrageous."

While Pike was opening Rackham's laptop, he said, "I need your password."

"RACK321. Upper case R-A-C-K. Open a directory called Hawkslaw. look at all the documents marked 'TODAY.' Among them, you should find the records of under-the-table kickbacks the Hawk has been getting from the textbook publishers since 1986."

Pike took several minutes to look while the others watched in silence. Finally, Pike announced, "Hundreds of thousands of dollars each year! Along with explanatory notes to himself! They're kickbacks all right."

Now more curious than angry, Mahony asked Rackham, "How'd you get all this?"

Rackham shot back, "you are more interested in the how than the what?"

Mahony backed off. Now not so livid, he said, "Okay, first tell us what you have. Then you can tell us how you got it."

"I just told you. The Hawk has documented his thievery, going back more than twenty years."

"Looks like it," said Pike, keeping his eyes on the computer screen. "It also looks like Hawkslaw has been helping other chancellors pursue the same kind of tricks."

"How many chancellors?" asked Sunnyhill.

"I see ten others," said Pike, "from the largest archdioceses in the country."

Rackham took a long sip of Heineken's, straight from the can. "Hawk only demanded five percent of their annual take, which, for him, meant another half-million a year. I think we can conclude he taught most of 'em how to canoodle with the textbook people. Otherwise, why would he expect a cut from them? You can see all the numbers right there."

Pike was scanning another folder, a list of deposits in a Geneva bank. "Yes, I can. Hawkslaw kept good records. Four bank accounts that add up to, let's see, seven million and some change. And a lot of e-mail traffic from chancellors in Boston, New york, Cleveland, New Orleans, St. louis, Denver, Detroit."

Sunnyhill said, "But not Philadelphia?"

Rackham said, "It appears that Grandeur himself took the kickbacks in Philadelphia."

Still scanning the computer records, Pike announced, "Hawkslaw has been quarterbacking the whole thing."

Rackham called down the table to Pike. "Take a look at the directory called CHILD PORN."

Pike did so, then hooted. "This came from Hawkslaw's personal computer, too?"

"Uh huh. Phoebe saw me download it all. Also the folders called PRETTY YOUNG MEN and FOG."

"A folder on Grandeur?" asked Mahony. "you don't mean?"

"Yes, I do," said Rackham.

"This changes everything," said Mahony.

"You still want to know how we got all this?" said Rackham.

Mahony paused for ten seconds. "No, not really," he said.

"Good," said Rackham, "because Hawkslaw could go to the LAPD and have me arrested in a New York minute."

"For what?"

"Breaking and entering. Burglary. Theft."

Mahony laughed, but with a pained look. "My bishop friends will never believe I had nothing to do with this."

"They'll never find out," said Rackham.

Mahony shook his head, "I've learned that whenever anyone says, 'They'll never find out,' they always find out."

ON MONDAY MORNING, Hawkslaw showed up as planned at Roger Mahony's office in the archdiocesan headquarters, dressed as smartly as always, but without his usual strut. "Okay, Roger," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let's have it."

"Last week, I think, you were reporting some demands from Cardinal Grandeur," said Mahony. "You said he wanted us to fold up our plans for Baltimore. Or else."

"I don't think he's in a position to make any demands at all," said Hawkslaw. "Not now." He shook his head. He took a seat and folded his hands. "He can't withstand your counterattack."

"What counterattack?" Mahony was all innocence.

"You've got plenty of ammunition to launch one."

"Ammunition, maybe, but I haven't locked and loaded."

Hawkslaw had been holding his breath. Now he exhaled. He knew his apartment had been burgled on Saturday night. He'd noted activity on his computer for almost two solid hours from 6:49 to 8:27. He even knew who the burglar was. He had a copy of the man's driver's license. It was Ted Rackham, the cardinal's organizer, a man who had now seen too much. Hawkslaw said, "You're not going to shoot Grandeur down?"

"No," said Mahony. "Nor you either."

Hawkslaw looked like he wanted to cry. "Not me either?"

"I could, you know."

"Uh huh."

"You've been spying on me for months now. I have proof of that."

"It was for the good of the Church, you must realize that?"

Mahony laughed. "You sound like the kind of cleric I used to be. Save your tears, huh?"

"Well, you could throw the book at—"

"I am going to ask you for restitution, Hawk. Those kickbacks—millions in kickbacks—should go right into our textbook fund, for the kids who can't afford textbooks."

"You know how much I took. I can't argue that."

"I know how much you've invested, too." Mahony slid his own G6 Powerbook over to the middle of his desk, and, with one tap of the space bar, brought up some of Hawkslaw's financials. "Pretty nice portfolio. General Mills, General Motors, General Electric." He looked up at Hawkslaw and smiled. "You like the generals, huh?"

Hawkslaw shrugged. "Blue-chip. little risk. Except maybe for General Motors, now."

Mahony put his palms together, as if in prayer. "How much of your investments, Hawk, do you need to keep?"

Hawkslaw didn't respond, because he didn't know where the cardinal was going with this.

Mahony said, "You're going to resign as chancellor, of course. And then you can find a place to retire to. Maybe get a chaplaincy at some convent. Your choice."

"You're going to take everything I have?"

"No." Mahony did some mental calculations. "You'll have your pension from the archdiocese, of course. It's not generous enough to keep you in that penthouse on Wilshire. But let's say we give you a retirement bonus in addition to your pension." He grabbed a yellow legal pad, and wrote a number on it. "An annuity to keep you in somewhat the style to which you've become accustomed." He slid the pad across his desk.

Hawkslaw said. "That's a generous number, Roger."

Mahony smiled. "I just don't want to see you working with Cardinal Grandeur."

"Oh, you won't, you won't."

"You talk to Grandeur? Tell him what happened?"

"I had a long chat with him yesterday. He said to tell you, he'll be good—if you're good."

"What does 'good' mean?"

"He's not asking you to give up the fight. But he will fight you, fair and square."

"He expects me to be in Baltimore?"

"Uh huh. As he will."

"So, tell me, what's Grandeur going to do in Baltimore?"

"He'll oppose your people's Church, that goes without saying. He's more Roman than the Romans."

"Okay. I understand that. I couldn't expect him to do anything else. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, politics is there in the midst of us. And we don't share the same politics. I understand that. So, on political issues, everything is negotiable. I just expect him to fight fair. And he can't fight us on the media issue. We want the press inside. Or else." Hawkslaw knew what "else" was. His computer incriminated Grandeur in so many ways. "I want Grandeur's word on that right now." Mahony pushed his desk phone toward Hawkslaw. "Call him."

"I'll do it on my cell," said Hawkslaw.

"Do it on my desk phone. I want to talk to him, too."

Hawkslaw got right through to his friend Fog, and summed up Mahony's only non-negotiable position. He told Grandeur, "I'm here with Roger right now. He understands. There'll be a legitimate political battle in Baltimore, and he's okay with that. He just wants the media there. Gavel-to-gavel coverage, if he can get C-SPAN to do that. In fact, he even wants your men and women in the Philadelphia chancery to handle accreditation for the media. Yes, he knows it'll be a big job. Yes. Yes. Several thousand of them."

Now Hawkslaw was listening and nodding. He looked up at Mahony. "Cardinal Grandeur says okay on the media thing, kind of glad you will let his office handle the accreditation. Will help give him some status with the media. But he wants to talk to you, privately, on a couple other things." He handed the phone to Mahony.

"Good morning, Eminenza!" Mahony was trying to be cheery.

Grandeur skipped the small talk. "You going to Olmsted's last rites in Phoenix tomorrow?"

Mahony punched the calendar on his Treo. "Yes, if tomorrow's Tuesday. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Will I see you there?"

"Yes. We need to talk. About a lot of things."

"I think I understand," said Mahony.

CARDINAL BERTONE RAISED HIS EYEBROWS when the pope's maestro di camera phoned to say the Holy Father was on his way over to see him in his office on the third floor of the Vatican Palace. Normally, when the pope wanted to talk to him, Bertone walked the several hundred paces to the papal apartment. Subjects called on the sovereign. The sovereign didn't call on them. That was the protocol, at any rate, and he could only wonder why the Holy Father was doing it differently today, June 30, 2009.

But then, as Bertone thought about it, he was learning to expect the unexpected from Benedict XVI, who had been acting strangely for more than a year.

He had put a halt, for instance, to the granting of indulgences—no more free passes through purgatory, because, of course, His Holiness had told the world he doubted anyone, including himself, believed in purgatory any more. Benedict also reversed himself on Turkey. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he had opposed Turkey's admission to the European Union; that move would surely hasten the de-Christianization of the continent, which had become de-Christianized enough, thank you very much. Then a quick trip to Turkey in the spring of 2006, and Ratzinger, assaulted by a worldwide uproar over an offhand remark he made about Mohammed at an academic seminar in Germany, changed his position so he could make a bella figura on his trip to Istanbul.

Then there was the Hans Küng affair. Benedict had just announced he was going to give the proud Swiss theologian a Red Hat. Hans Küng had been on John Paul II's enemies list for more than thirty years and as far as Bertone was concerned, Küng should stay on the list. Why didn't the pope consult him (or indeed anyone) before he made the announcement? And why did he suggest the German bishops award Küng their highest prize, the Cross of St. Boniface?

Many of the Church's staunchest and richest supporters, including the John Paul II biographer George Weigel, had complained to Bertone about the Vatican honoring Küng, the darling of Vatican II. But what could Bertone tell Weigel, except remind him that Weigel had called Benedict's accession to the papal throne God's Choice?

Suddenly, the pope swept into Bertone's office, his white cassock flapping a bit around his knees. Bertone gave thanks to God when he noted Benedict wasn't wearing his high-heeled Pradas. Those red shoes made the pope tower over Bertone a half meter.

They embraced. Bertone tried to kiss the papal hand, a move that drew this pope's customary resistance. The pope smiled. Bertone hesitated, not sure which chair he would offer the pope, his own, the one that sat on a platform behind his desk (so he could look down on everyone who came to visit), or another grander, low-slung chair across from his desk? The pope settled that dilemma by planting his right buttock on a corner of Bertone's desk and waving Bertone to his platform chair.

"I received your report on China this morning," said Benedict, smiling again, waving a sheaf of paper.

Bertone had trouble with Benedict's smile. He couldn't tell if that smile indicated pleasure or pain. Sometimes the pope smiled like that at the beginning of a concert. Sometimes, he broke into the same smile just before he signed off on the Holy Office's latest Notificazione. Bertone nodded, not sure whether the pope had come to praise Bertone or pain him. Recently, he had learned to let Benedict have the first word. And the last one.

"I think this is all wrong," said Benedict, waving the paper. Well, good, thought Bertone. No more suspense. "Am I to understand you and your diplomats walked away from a concordat with Beijing— just like that?" The pope snapped his fingers.

"We were stuck on—"

"That same old sticking point?"

"Yes, Holiness. Through all our talks, Beijing has never seemed to understand—that, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican approves all the bishops."

"'Approves,' but not necessarily 'appoints.'"

"I thought we went over all that last month. We decided the Church in China was getting out of hand. Beijing ignored us again. Ordained four new bishops without our approval. Didn't even check out the new men with Cardinal Zen in Hong Kong."

The pope grimaced. "Cardinal Zen!"

"We know," said Bertone. "He sometimes takes a too-hard line with Beijing."

"And a foolish line, too. Tell me, Eminenza, what this 'hard line,' as you call it, will mean to the future of the Church in China?"

"Quality control," said Bertone. "This is obvious. you ought to see some of these new bishops tapped by Beijing."

"If I did, what would I see?"

"Well, for one thing, they're not theologians. They never studied in Rome."

"Few Chinese bishops have studied in Rome, even those who are most loyal to Rome. For more than thirty years, most of the bishops in both the Underground Church and in the Open Church have been very careful to communicate with us, to assure us they want to be in communion with Peter. And that is the main thing. We have more than six thousand bishops around the world. And few dare call themselves theologians."

"True enough."

"Just before he died," said the pope, "John Paul II, of happy memory, seemed ready to make a deal with Beijing. He seemed quite content to let the Chinese people pick their own bishops."

"If it were only the Chinese people!" exclaimed Bertone. "Today in China, the people have no say in the matter. A few senior bishops put their heads together with the Bureau of Religious Affairs in the Beijing government, and, voilà! they create a new bishop."

"Almost the way we do it in Italy, Spain, France, germany?"

"Well, I suppose so," Bertone conceded. "Before we announce new episcopal appointments, we do confer with those countries' governments. In some Swiss dioceses, we have no say at all."

"So why don't we let well enough alone in China? If they're all Catholics—"

"But are they really Catholics? How many Chinese Catholics can explain the doctrine of the Real Presence?"

"You mean transubstantiation?"

"Yes."

"How many citizens of Rome can do that?"

Bertone raised his palms. "Madonn'!"

The pope smiled at Bertone's frustration. "Look," he said, "as much as I hate to ask you to go to the documents of Vatican II, I am going to ask you—and your capable staff—to study what the Council had to say about inculturating the gospel in mission lands. The Church in China must be Chinese. If this means we have to go along with their doing things their way, then we let them do things their way. We have to trust the people to do the right thing." He handed Bertone the document he had come in with.

Bertone took it. "So it's not acceptable?"

"Too Roman, not enough Catholic. And not enough Chinese. Go take a look at my 1969 essay 'Primacy and Episcopacy.' It appeared in the book Das neue Volk Gottes. It was about the need for autochthonous Churches in missionary lands. The Church in China must be Chinese."

Bertone nodded. He knew it was time to quit when Benedict started to repeat himself.

"My guess," said Benedict, "is that when we make it clear to the people of China—who need a spirituality in the midst of all their new prosperity— that they can have a Church that is both Catholic and Chinese, they will love us. And come flocking in."

The pope was so impressed with his own words (words that surprised even himself) that he found it agreeable to repeat them in a somewhat different form at his Wednesday audience in St. Peter's Square. Ian Fisher of the New York Times was there. In reporting the pope's words, he made the easy connection—from China to the United States, and, more specifically, to the upcoming national synod in the United States where he knew the liberal majority was determined to push for the popular election of bishops in America. Fisher quoted an anonymous Jesuit theologian in Rome: "If they can have an autochthonous Church in China because it is 'a mission land,' then why can't they have one in the United States? Who would say the U.S. isn't a mission land, too?" The anonymous Jesuit was Sean Sunnyhill, summoned to Rome by the new general, who wanted to know from Sunnyhill, first hand, about the move toward a people's Church in the United States, and what role Sunnyhill was playing in it.

IN THE SACRISTY at St. Mary's Basilica in Phoenix, Mahony and Grandeur, side by side and in silence, vested for the last rites of the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, both of them surprised to find they were donning black vestments. They hadn't participated in a Solemn High Requiem Mass since before Vatican II.

Then they joined another hundred bishops in solemn procession up the center aisle, while the choir intoned the lugubrious Dies Irae, which they hadn't heard since Vatican II either. The two cardinals marched together, wearing their pointed hats and holding their crosiers in their left hands, but exchanged no pleasantries. Grandeur got right to the point. "About those pictures of me and the Hawk in the Bahamas," he whispered. "What will you do with them?"

"I wanted to talk to you about those pictures," said Mahony. "I wanted you to know we dumped them all into the trash. Keeping them as ammunition would have been unfair."

Grandeur bobbed his head, almost giddy with relief, and gave Mahony a friendly tap on the shoulder with his shepherd's crook. "I think you're crazy. Roger. But you're a gentleman."

Mahony changed the subject. "Let's talk about something of more substance?"

Grandeur nodded with some enthusiasm.

Mahony asked, "Will you oppose a people's delegation to represent the people of Philadelphia in Baltimore?"

Grandeur grumbled.

"You know, don't you," said Mahony, "that there is a people's delegation? Five delegates from Philadelphia and its suburbs, two laymen and three laywomen—all elected by the people?"

"My office had nothing to with that," snapped Grandeur. "A few Philadelphia pastors helped make that election happen. My office didn't. I've appointed my own delegates, all priests I can trust. They will assume the five seats Philadelphia has coming to it."

"Maybe not."

Grandeur asked Mahony how he could stop them.

"We already have control of the rules committee."

"And of the credentials committee, too?"

"They haven't formed that committee yet. When they do—it will probably be the first order of business when the convention opens, if delegations from the same diocese are demanding a voice and a vote—we plan to control that committee, too."

"You have the votes to do that?"

"My floor manager tells me we do."

"Floor manager? Who the hell's that?"

"Nick Pike. Ever heard of him?"

"Heard enough about him," said Grandeur. "I could have had him in Leavenworth for life. You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"

They were being seated now in chairs on the left side of the sanctuary. Mahony smiled at the nun serving as master of ceremonies. Grandeur fidgeted and gave her a dark look. He didn't like nuns when he saw them prancing around a sanctuary. "In this scenario," Mahony told him, "we assume nothing. We can only wait and see."

Grandeur advised Mahony, "The pope's legate may have something to say about the legitimacy of a credentials committee."

"Did you see Ian Fisher's story in the New York Times this morning? About the pope's encouraging an autochthonous Church in China?"

"I saw it on the plane," said Grandeur.

"So I doubt the pope's legate will be leaning on us at all at all," said Mahony with a slight put-on-Irish lilt in his voice. "He'll be wanting us to rebuild our Church, I think, American-style."

"Don't count on it," said Grandeur. "One story in the Times? Nonsense! I'll believe the pope will approve an autochthonous Church in America when I read it in an encyclical. He will never give you permission for that!"

"Somehow, your Eminence, 'autochthony' doesn't go with 'permission.' If the Fourth Council of Baltimore wants the American Church to go autochthonous, it won't need permission. And the pope will then be faced with a choice, to accept a people's Church in America, or say we're all in schism."

"He's capable of doing that, I think."

"As Cardinal Ratzinger, he might have been capable. As the pope, I don't think so. Seventy-five million Catholics? You think he wants to lose them? Seventy-five million affluent American Catholics who provide almost half of the Vatican's annual support?"

Grandeur said, "Well, he may not have to make that choice, Roger. I'll fight you on this."

"I'm ready to do battle," said Mahony. "And judging from the advance stories I've been reading in the press, I'd say the media will be on our side."

Grandeur grimaced. "you'll love that, won't you? you're pretty good before a media horde. And I do mean horde. My office tells me it's already issued almost three thousand press credentials for Baltimore."

"They won't all be against you, Eminence. you know that, don't you?"

"Right," said Grandeur. "Bill O'Reilly's on our side."

Mahony smiled. "There you go. The fair and balanced Bill O'Reilly, who has decided to cast his vote against a people's Church. He ought to even things up, right?"

"CARDINAL MAHONY – A NOVEL" now serialised in Spanish HERE

CHAPTER 22 | ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at the Chapter 23 | CHAPTER 24

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Other books by Robert Blair Kaiser:
A Church in Search of Itself
Clerical Error
The Politics of Sex and Religion
“R.F.K. Must Die!”
Pope, Council and World
Co-author (with Tim Smith): Jubilee 2000, A Musical Comedy

[Index of this serialisation of Cardinal Mahony — A Novel]