Scandal In The Vatican - The Pope, The Cardinal, And The Unexpected Pregnancy Of Maria Luisa Valenti

It would have been a simple matter of getting rid of it if it hadn't happened to the Cardinal, a senior member of the College of Cardinals who, although high ranked, was not an old man.  No, the former Antony Pietrangelo was young enough to still have his head turned, and so it was that his affair with Maria Louisa Valenti began, first in the confessional where the young woman told unbelievable stories of sexual abandon, to the vestry where the Cardinal and the young woman met to discuss her possible vocation, and finally to the inner chambers of the Vatican, a place for comfortable worship not far from the Sacristy. 

 

This affair might seem out of place and quite unseemly especially when it concerned such a high-ranking member of a church which had always been a defender of virtue; but the Cardinal was a man after all, and a young, virile one at that.  

The Cardinal was a Renaissance man, well-read and -versed but lusty and as at home in the sanctuaries of the Vatican as in the bars of his native Vico Equense.  Before the priesthood and well after, the Cardinal had had affairs which in no way compromised his love of Christ and the Church.  Jesus himself was man, and at some point in his short thirty-three years he certainly had a woman.  If one was to take the duality of Christ seriously and admit his human side, then carnality was most definitely a part of it. 

 

The Cardinal's rise was unheard of, so quickly did he ascend the hierarchy - bishop at 29, archbishop at 35, and cardinal at 42.  He was a man for all seasons, loved by the people, respected by his elders, and favored by the Pope.  

The higher he rose, the harder it became to keep his affairs quiet  If nothing else the Vatican is a very bitchy place, and any assignations or quiet cinq-a-septs were outed post haste.  It wasn't even a question of turning a blind eye - the Cardinal and his lovers were recondite to a fault, careful, and vigilant - and no one was the wiser; and yet, no one suspected a thing. 

One would have thought that such MI-5 secrecy would have been more trouble than it was worth - after all there are only so many nooks and crannies in the Vatican where pleasures can be taken, and the smaller the crypt, the less the abandon - but the Cardinal was so self-assured about himself, his fidelity to Christ and his holy mission, that he was unconcerned. 

And then it happened, perhaps in the shrine of the Holy Virgin, a small, tasteful place of meditation below the Sistine chapel and out of the way of novitiates and interns. Maria Luisa had howled to high heaven and he could no longer resist her passion, and so it was that she became pregnant. 

When he was told, his immediate reaction - quite surprisingly given his preeminence in the Church - was to return the infant soul to Christ; but on second thought, parsing the Biblical and Catholic injunctions against such an act, he concluded that he could be no part of such a thing. 

As any man would do, the Cardinal asked Maria Luisa, 'Are you sure?' to which the young woman replied, 'Yes, Your Eminence', an honorific she could never leave at the door no matter how passionate the love that went on inside. 

Ironically the Council of Cardinals was to meet in session to discuss this very issue.  While hardliners had not budged in their condemnation of abortion, the more liberal-leaning prelates were willing to consider some apertura.  Wasn't the rape of a virgin the very violation of womanhood that Mary herself represented?  Wasn't being violated and impregnated by some feral ape worth special dispensation? 

The conservatives reacted with predictable pique.  What could be more innocent than the child?  It did not consider how or by whom it was born.  It was simply a child of God and should be allowed to live. 

The debate was interminable, at times raucous and at times downright nasty; but there was absolutely no give on either side.  Meanwhile our Cardinal simply sat and listened, immured as he was within the walls of his own dilemma. 

The young woman wanted nothing to do with abortion.  The child of a cardinal was tantamount to a child of Christ, so close was he to Peter and the Savior.  She might have done wrong in terms of Catholic doctrine, but she felt that God himself had ordained this pregnancy, and she was not about to do anything to interrupt it. 

 

Maria Luisa being unmarried and beginning to show - the Cardinal had dithered for weeks and neither was willing to admit his role in the affair or to act decisively to end the pregnancy - the villagers of Vico Equense naturally began to wonder who was her young man?  It must be someone in Rome, perhaps a student at one of the seminaries in Vatican City, or perhaps even a wealthy patron; but no one ever dared to suggest or even consider the possibility of such a sacrilegious liaison as one with a cardinal. 

The Cardinal's preoccupation began to worry the Pope. He had been one of his proteges, and he had loved and supported him since he was a young archbishop, and now there was clearly something wrong.  

They sat together, had coffee, talked over old times and happy days at the seminary, but never were able to hit the mark.  The Pope, like everyone in Vico Equense or anywhere else for that matter, could not possibly imagine such an improper liaison and so assumed that the Cardinal's unease had something to do with his faith.  What else was there, after all, in the cloistered, abstemious environment of the Vatican? 

The thing of it was - another unconscionable consideration - the Pope was now nearing ninety, in bad health, and certainly not long for this world. Substantial rumors had it that our Cardinal was in line for the job.  He was young, conservative in matters of faith, liberal in matters of morals and the changing social environment, prayerful and obedient, and as pious and devoted to Jesus as anyone in the College. 

More and more this idea of returning the child's soul to Jesus gained traction in the increasingly troubled mind of the Cardinal. There was no doubt that the unborn but viable, soulful being would find comfort and everlasting peace in God's kingdom.  Life on earth, as the Cardinal well knew, was no bed of roses, and the chances of this poor, innocent soul being corrupted by the slime and moral filth of the streets were good indeed. The debate in the conference room had not touched on this aspect of human dignity and divine resurrection, and yet there it was, as plain as day, the answer to his prayers. 

'No, Your Eminence', replied Maria Luisa to his entreaties. 'I will not do it', and no matter how earnest his pleas, no matter how ardent his appeals, and no matter how cogent his doctrinal logic, the woman was unmoved and unbowed; and she was now approaching the danger zone.  It was now or never. If not, the truth would out.  She could not be trusted, and his career at the Vatican would be abruptly and irreconcilably ended. 

Horrible, unthinkable, horrific thoughts kept niggling into his head.  What about....No, no, not that! The Cardinal shook his head, yet he could not shake the image of Lucca Ponti, capo of the Neapolitan Camorra, nephew of Cardinal Imperati and good friend of his, important contributor to the Vatican treasury, good Catholic, but known only and feared for his uncompromising control of  Campana. 

 

Once again the Cardinal was given to the particular insight of men under moral and political pressure. Nothing I could ever do would be as bad as my predecessor, the Cardinal opined (here the Cardinal had jumped a step), Pope Benedict IX, member of a powerful Roman family that wielded significant influence in ecclesiastical and political circles, whose papacy was remembered only for allegations of scandal, immorality, and even simony.  Or Pope Alexander VI, whose papacy was one of the most controversial in Church history, marked by allegations of nepotism, corruption, and moral decadence.

No, any step the Cardinal might take in this Maria Luisa affair would be nothing compared to that of the many popes, cardinals, and prelates who had done far more serious things than simply....how should I put it, he thought...returning a soul to Jesus. 

The disappearance of the young women in Vico Equense was a local tragedy, and while all suspected foul play by the father of her unborn child, not one squeak that it could be the Cardinal was ever heard.  Lucca and the Camorra had done their job, and the affair was closed. 

At this writing, the old Pope is still in his chair but failing, and rumor has it that within a month or two white smoke will rise from the Vatican smokestack to announce a new Pope.  Whether he should be our Cardinal or not is only guesswork or presumption.  Only time and God will tell.