The Fifth Gospel(18)

            John Paul’s health has been the subject of urgent concern. He’s weak. He’s been unable to walk. His face is a mask of pain. The Cardinal Secretary of State, the second-most powerful man in the Holy See, has broken the code of silence by saying retirement is possible, that if the pope’s health prevents him from ruling, it’s a matter of conscience whether he must step down. Journalists circle like vultures, some of them offering to pay Vatican villagers for any whiff of intelligence. I wonder why Leo is risking a story like this in front of such an unseasoned audience.

            But he answers that question by saying: “And who should I find sitting on the bench beside this casket? The name on the ID says: ‘Nogara, Ugolino.’ ” Leo raps the table gently with his knuckles. “A minute later, we get the callback. Archbishop Nowak confirms the permission of entry. My truck pulls away, and that’s the last I ever see of the coffin or Nogara. Now: someone please tell me what that means.”

            It has the ring of a ghost story. A waking dream that has intruded on dark third-shift hours. These are superstitious men.

            Before anyone can respond, Simon stands up. He murmurs something that sounds like I’m sick, or possibly I’m sick of this. Without apologizing or saying good-bye, he walks out of the cantina.

            I get to my feet and follow him, my body feeling clumsy beneath me. Leo’s story has added a giant new circumstance to Ugo’s death. These Swiss Guards have missed it, because the days are gone when any Roman Catholic with a few years of school would’ve known Latin. But my father raised his sons to read both Greek and Latin, so I know the words Leo saw on that coffin drape. They form a prayer:

            Tuam Sindonem veneramur, Domine, et Tuam recolimus Passionem.

            In the dark, Leo must’ve been unable to form anything but a vague impression of the box’s dimensions, because this coffin was much too big for a pope. I know, because I saw it once with my own eyes.

            I know what Ugo was hiding.





CHAPTER 5





SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS ago in a small French village, a Christian relic surfaced for the first time in Western history. No one knows where it came from or how it got there. But slowly, like all relics, it trickled up into better hands. The royal family of that region came to own it. And in time they transferred it to their Alpine capital.

            Turin.

            The Shroud of Turin purports to be the cloth in which Jesus Christ was buried. On its surface is a mysterious, almost photographic image of a crucified man. For five centuries it has lain in a side chapel of the cathedral in Turin, so carefully cared for and protected that it’s displayed to the public only a few times each century. Just twice, in half a millennium, has it been removed from the city: once when the royal family was fleeing Napoleon, and again during World War Two. That second journey brought it to a monastery in the mountains near Naples, where the cloth was protected in secrecy. It was on the way to that monastery that the Shroud, for the only time in history, passed through Rome.

            The only time in history, until now.

            Most relics are kept in special vessels called reliquaries. Seven years ago, in 1997, a fire in the Turin cathedral nearly destroyed the Shroud while it lay in its silver reliquary. Afterward, a new vessel was designed: an airtight box made of an aeronautic alloy, designed to protect the precious cloth from anything. The new box, not coincidentally, resembles a very large casket.

            Over that casket is draped a gold cloth embroidered with the traditional Latin prayer for the Shroud. Tuam Sindonem veneramur, Domine, et Tuam recolimus Passionem.

            We revere Your Holy Shroud, O Lord, and meditate upon Your Passion.

            I am sure, to a moral certainty, that what Leo saw in the bed of that cargo truck was the most famous icon of our religion. The capstone of the historic exhibit that Ugo Nogara created in the Shroud’s honor.



            I MET UGO NOGARA because I made it my business to try to meet all of Simon’s friends. Most priests are good judges of character, but my brother used to invite homeless men over for dinner. He would date girls who stole more silverware than the homeless men. One night, when he was helping nuns operate the Vatican soup kitchen, two drunks got into a fight, and one pulled a knife. Simon stepped in and wrapped his hand around the blade. He refused to let go until the gendarmes came.