The Ides of March
Nestled high in the snow-capped Austrian Alps lies St. Helga's Chapel, a small house of worship of Baroque design, whose onion dome dominates the majestic skyline of the surrounding haufendorf. Housing numerous ancient relics of its patron saint, the chapel was once a location to where medieval travelers made religious pilgrimages. Even though it is now well into the mid-twenty-second century, neither St. Helga's nor the surrounding village has changed much since the sixteenth century. It is as though they are both prisoners of time, incarcerated in a long-ago era the world has left behind in its steady march toward progress.
It was on a cold, snowy day in Tyrol when a man dressed in the simple attire of a humble monk entered St. Helga's confessional. His back straight and his head bowed, he knelt down, preparing to unburden his soul. When the chapel's priest slid the grated window open, the monk spoke.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned; it has been one day since my last Confession."
It was at the point when Father Richard Sandbrook was supposed to enumerate his sins that he paused as though he was uncertain exactly where to begin.
"My sins are grievous and many," he continued solemnly after several minutes of consideration, "yet my intent was pure. But you know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. How true that old aphorism is!"
The priest on the other side of grate made no comment. His lack of response encouraged Father Richard to tell his story in detail.
"I was born into one of the wealthiest, most socially prominent families in America. My father, who not only headed the family business but also served as an ambassador in the diplomatic corps, could trace his ancestry back to the Pilgrims who sailed from Plymouth aboard the Mayflower to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. My mother, a renowned educator and philanthropist, was the descendent of the early colonists of New Amsterdam.
"Despite my father's conservative politics, at my mother's insistence, I was raised to espouse liberal causes and to value education. After attending one of the most esteemed prep schools in America, I went on to Harvard, where I developed a lifelong interest in history. It was while I was in my third year there and living in nearby Boston that both my parents were killed in an airplane crash. Not only did I feel the grief associated with the unexpected loss of my loved ones, but as the only child of the oldest son, it was my duty to step into my father's shoes and take over his position as chairman of the board of Sandbrook Industries. It was not a role I wanted, nor was it one I was particularly qualified for. I had studied wars of conquest and European monarchies, not mergers and acquisitions. Thankfully, my father's younger brother, a man in his early forties, agreed to take the helm until such time I was ready to do so.
"After graduating Harvard, I moved to England so I could attend Oxford and further my knowledge of medieval history. It was there I fell in love with and married fellow student Dorian Huff. If there is such a thing as a soul mate, she was mine. We had dreams of spending our lives travelling throughout Europe and studying the people and events that, over the centuries, had formed the world in which we lived. Sadly, at the happiest point in my life, tragedy struck again. My dearest Dorian was taken from me within a year of our marriage.
"Grief overcame me. With my wife gone, nothing mattered to me—not my studies, not my unfulfilled dreams for the future, not even my own life. Yet just as I stood at a railway station, looking down on the tracks and contemplating suicide, I heard the voice of God speak to me. Although I was not born and raised in the Catholic faith—in all honesty, I had previously leaned toward atheism—I left England and enrolled in a pontifical university in Rome.
"As as was the case at Harvard and Oxford, I excelled in my studies. I thought—hoped, to be more precise—that it was my academic performance that led to my later being assigned to the Vatican. However, I subsequently learned that it was my family name and its political connections that resulted in my becoming the secretary to Pope Michael John, the first American pontiff. It was quite a disappointment. You see, with Dorian gone, Mother Church became the center of my life. I poured my heart into it, foolishly believing it to be free of corruption and political maneuvering. Of course, given my knowledge of history, I should have known better.
"Yet, in spite of the reasons for my appointment to the position, I performed my duties to the best of my abilities. I remained doggedly devoted to the Catholic Church, even though the Holy Father proved to be somewhat of a disappointment to me. He was—I soon learned—a master of manipulation and political intrigue. The reasons for my continued loyalty were sound. The pope was, after all, a mortal man; and, as such, he was prone to the same shortcomings as lesser men. Catholicism, however, was eternal. Popes would come and go, but Mother Church would remain.
"Then came that fateful summer day when the pontiff paid an official visit to his former homeland. I don't suppose I need speak of the events of the afternoon the pope was shot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The media has covered the story in great depth. The world knows all about the terrorist group who attempted to assassinate him and the valiant doctors who brought him back from the brink of death.
"It is what happened in the months following Michael John's miraculous recovery that plagues my soul. Having survived a near-death experience, the pope became a changed man. He no longer schemed and played at politics with the cardinals and world leaders. True, I, like many others, thought when he ceased to wear the fine vestments and papal regalia and chose to appear only in a simple cassock that it was little more than a ploy to win the favor of the common man. But I soon learned his convictions were genuine.
"Abandoning the vestments and regalia was only the beginning, however. This act was soon followed by drastic changes in church policy. Long-established taboos on divorce, birth control, suicide, euthanasia, homosexuality and abortion were wiped away. Priests and nuns who had sworn vows of celibacy were allowed to marry. Women were no longer limited to a subservient role. They were encouraged to attend seminaries and preach the word of God from the pulpit. Furthermore, they could rise as high as men in church hierarchy. This was the most tolerant and liberal pontiff in history.
"You can understand why so many of us in the Vatican became fearful. Michael John seemed to be acting against the best interests of the Catholic Church. And unlike most elected secular officials, the pope had no limits to his term of office. He was head of the Church for life.
"Still, allowing same-sex marriages, abortions, mercy killings, married priests and female cardinals—and possibly a pope one day—was one thing. Bankrupting the Vatican and every Catholic diocese around the globe was another. When the pope demanded to see financial statements and complete inventories of all the Church's holdings—real estate, bank accounts, artworks—we knew we could no longer remain silent. We could not allow him to liquidate its assets and distribute the wealth to the needy. Such an idea in theory was Christ-like; in practice, on the other hand, it was sheer madness. Without its vast financial resources, Mother Church would be doomed.
"Canon law, however, upholds papal supremacy. It makes no exception or provision for the removal of a pope even if he should become physically or mentally incapacitated. There was no legal recourse available to us."
Suddenly, an eerie stillness fell over the confessional of St. Helga's Chapel. The robed penitent mutely battled the demons of his conscience as the priest on the other side of the divider patiently waited for him to resume his narrative. While the snow fell gently on the Austrian village, the seconds ticked by on the clock. Finally, Father Richard Sandbrook broke his silence.
"It was Cardinal Marchesi who first proposed the solution to our dilemma. He was a great lover of both history and literature, so it's not surprising he took inspiration from a historical play by William Shakespeare. In Julius Caesar, Cassius and Brutus have reservations about Caesar's growing power, and they conspire to assassinate him for the good of Rome. Likewise, we felt the pope needed to be removed in order to preserve the Catholic Church. None of us viewed the act as murder. We saw it as more of a surgical procedure to remove a cancerous tumor, one that would surely eat away and kill our beloved institution, just as Dorian's cancer had taken the life of the woman I loved.
"The cardinal chose the date, March 15, the Ides of March, to further coincide with Caesar's death. According to history, roughly sixty men conspired against Julius Caesar, who was then stabbed twenty-three times. We could not very well have all two hundred and twenty-four cardinals take part in the assassination plot; nor could we limit the number to the one hundred and twenty-four cardinal electors. Marchesi set the number of conspirators at twelve, three of whom were to be assassins. Because of his advanced age, he chose not to wield a knife himself, for lack of physical strength. As the youngest and strongest member of our group of plotters, I was chosen to lead the ... death squad."
Father Richard found the words hard to utter. No doubt the act he committed weighed heavily on his conscience.
"In all honesty, I can't claim ignorance of the deed. I knew full well what was being asked of me, and I agreed to do it. However, I didn't fully comprehend the horror of it all. At that point, I felt more like a general agreeing to start a battle but not realizing the atrocities that would result. Right up until March 14, I was steadfast in my belief in our cause. Then came the morning of the fifteenth.
"Do you know the significance of the Ides of March?"
The question was a rhetorical one. Father Richard neither expected nor received a reply from the man on the other side of the grate.
"In early Rome, the fifteenth of March was the deadline for the settling of debts. Ironic, isn't it? It was as though Cardinal Marchesi's conspirators had a debt to settle with the pope, and we were going to collect it in blood.
"Anyway, the morning of the assassination arrived. Michael John was meeting with an international contingency of priests in St. Peter's Square. All twelve conspirators were in attendance, waiting nearby and watching the Holy Father's every move. I and my two fellow assassins stood near the statue of St. Paul—who, as you probably know, carries a sword in its right hand.
"Once the pope gave his blessing to the group, he headed toward the basilica. As per the agreed-upon plan, just as he approached the façade, a commotion was created to distract the Swiss Guard. When Michael John reached the top step, we struck."
Father Richard's voice cracked with emotion, and tears streamed down his eyes.
"He was turned toward me when my knife entered his chest. His blue eyes stared into mine, but I saw no reproach in them, only a ... a calm acceptance of his fate. I watched his face as he fell down onto his back. A faint smile appeared on his lips just before he breathed his last.
"I'm sure you've heard some of the tabloid stories, bizarre rumors and downright lies of what happened next. There were wild tales of the sun disappearing from the sky, of the one hundred and forty statues of saints in the colonnade of St. Pater's Square crying tears of blood, of lightning striking down Cardinal Marchesi and of the other conspirators being blinded. None of it is true. In fact, once Michael John was gone, Marchesi did his best to pressure his fellow cardinals into naming him the new pope. However, when the white smoke appeared above the roof of the Sistine Chapel and it was learned the papal conclave chose Cardinal Schwaiger to succeed Michael John, Marchesi took his own life.
"Before the year was out, the other ten conspirators did the same. I am the only one privy to that insidious assassination plot still living. I have journeyed from continent to continent, trying to forget my heinous deed, unwilling to compound my sins by committing suicide. No matter how far I travel, though, I cannot escape the memory of those blue eyes staring into mine or the faint smile on that sainted man's lips. Nor can I ever forgive myself for letting the ambitious Cardinal Marchesi, the most Machiavellian man to rise from the Holy See since the House of Borgia's Pope Alexander VI, draw me into his plot like a spider into a web. In my attempts to save my beloved Mother Church, I played right into the hands of an evil man who wanted only to become the next Bishop of Rome.
"Although I know I can never hope to find absolution, I go to the confessional every day for penance. I have been to simple parish churches, towering cathedrals, mighty basilicas, medieval abbeys and out-of-the-way chapels in overcrowded cities, less-populated suburbs and remote villages like this one. Now I have come here to seek your blessings, Father. Tell me, what will you have me do as an act of contrition?"
His confession having come to an end, Father Richard waited for his fellow priest to speak. There was no immediate response.
"Father? Will you not speak to me?"
A bright light suddenly emanated through the grate. It grew in intensity and nearly blinded the penitent. The partition separating the two men suddenly vanished, and the humbly clad monk found himself face-to-face with Raguel, the archangel of justice. Although this same meeting had occurred thousands of times over the centuries that had passed since Saint Michael John was struck down, it was always a fresh revelation to Richard Sandbrook since he retained no memory of their previous meetings.
The angel spoke not a word; none was necessary. His withering glare of condemnation spoke volumes to the guilt-ridden priest, who cowered on the floor like a beaten dog.
"Forgive me," he whimpered. "Forgive me."
* * *
In the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, the third-smallest country in Europe, located in the Apennine Mountains on the Italian Peninsula, stood the Basilica di San Marino. The neoclassical Catholic church, which was completed in the year 1838, was built on the site of an earlier, fourth century house of worship.
Back in the summer of 2016—more than one hundred and fifty years before Michael Patrick Fitzgerald, the first American pope who later became Pope Michael John I was born—noisy crowds of camera-carrying and iPhone-toting tourists passed by the basilica on their way to climb the steep hill to the Rocca Guaita and Torre Cesta (the two fortress towers atop a ridge of Mount Titano), watch the changing of the guard outside the Palazzo Pubblico, visit the Museo di Stato (the National Museum) or the more macabre Museo dei Vampiri, a museum dedicated to vampires and werewolves.
Inside the basilica, however, all was quiet and still. There were neither tour guides nor vacationers to disturb the peace. A solitary man, dressed in the simple attire of a humble monk, oblivious to the world outside the church walls, entered the confessional. His back straight and his head bowed, he knelt down, preparing to unburden his soul. When the priest slid open the grated window, the monk spoke, unaware that he was doomed for all eternity to play out this scene—in the past, present and future; a never-ending loop of time travel and repentance for which there was no absolution.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," Father Richard Sandbrook began, as he had countless times before. "It has been one day since my last Confession."
When we visisted San Marino, Salem took a selfie. There was no way he was going to walk up Mount Titano to the forestresses!
