The combined treasures of all Western churches today are only a pale reflection of what lay in those reliquaries. For centuries the oldest Christian cities of the East had sent their most precious objects to Constantinople for protection from our enemies. Imperial armies safeguarded them and patriarchs called on God to protect them. Byzantine civilization itself became a life-support system for the massive religious treasury at its heart. Which we Catholics now proceeded to pillage.
That is the skyline on this gallery wall. Constantinople in the endless darkness of 1204.
Western Catholics today don’t understand the permanence of this wound. But another moment in history illustrates it well. Two and a half centuries later, long after Catholics had come and gone from Constantinople, Muslim armies arrived in their place. Orthodox bishops, faced with the extinction of their civilization, were forced to ask for help. They traveled west and negotiated a humiliating pact with the pope. But when they returned home, their own flock threw them out. The ordinary men and women of the Orthodox Church had made their choice. They would rather die at the hands of Muslims than owe their lives to Catholics.
So Constantinople fell. Istanbul was born. And to this day, if you asked an Orthodox what sealed the split between our two Churches, he would grit his teeth and say, with the knife still jiggling in his back: 1204.
The letter before my eyes resurrects the horror of that year. Ugo has discovered the most damning fact I can imagine. It’s no longer a mystery how the Shroud arrived in medieval France. It’s no longer a mystery why it seemed to have no past. We Catholics had every reason to forget where it came from. Because we stole it from the Orthodox.
I am speechless that Ugo had the audacity to mount such a thing on these walls, under the pope’s own roof. It is a shocking confession of Catholic sin. Though no one can be more familiar than I am with Ugo’s allegiance to the truth, and his insistence on presenting the facts at any cost, even I am stunned. If ever there was time to paper over a discovery and hew to a respectful silence, surely it was now. I wish that I could be moved by Ugo’s bravery. Instead I am shocked by his indifference to the cost.
A single thought bubbles up from my emotions. I have misunderstood everything. The Secretariat wouldn’t have tried to silence a discovery like this. The Secretariat would’ve encouraged it. If Simon invited Orthodox priests into this hall, the same way my father invited Orthodox to Turin sixteen years ago, it would only accomplish what Cardinal Boia has tried to do since becoming Secretary of State: set back our relations with the Orthodox Church by half a century. Thousands of Christians have lost their lives over the hatreds born in 1204. Now Ugo makes one more.
So this is why Simon refuses to talk. Here is the secret he values more than his own priesthood. The unfinished galleries tell the story. No wonder Ugo’s work came to a halt. No wonder he didn’t give Lucio his final notes to finish the exhibit. Yet Lucio gave Simon the power to finish Ugo’s exhibit, the power to change what was mounted in these halls, and I found him working in an entirely different branch of the museum. How could he have let this remain?
I feel Peter tugging at my cassock. But I can’t speak. Instead I kneel and hold him and try to collect myself.
“Is it time?” he says. “Can we go?”
I nod and whisper, “Yes. It’s time.”
He reaches down and grabs my hand. He tugs and tugs, pulling me up. “What are we going to do now?”
I don’t know. I simply do not know.
CHAPTER 19
MIGNATTO’S OFFICE LIES across the Tiber River, at Via di Monserrato 149. We pass a dozen churches, a pontifical seminary, and a handful of Renaissance buildings marked with plaques identifying the former homes of saints. The apartments here are owned by the Church and rented cheap to papal employees, so that even by Roman standards, Mignatto’s neighborhood is a virtual extension of the Vatican.
We are early, but I don’t know where else to go. Peter and I sit on the steps of a church and try calling Simon’s mobile, but he doesn’t answer. If the phone is on, the battery will die by tonight. If it’s off, Simon has already made his choice. His silence is total.