The pomp, circumstance, and ungodly intrigue attendant on the election of a new Pope provide a dramatic setting for this diverting, albeit message-laden, fiction from the prolific Father Greeley (Angel Light, 1995, etc.), It's the near future, and the incumbent Holy Father has gone to his heavenly reward, bringing a flock of cardinals to the Eternal City to choose a successor. Among them is Chicago's Sean, Cardinal Cronin, an influential hierarch who's convinced the Church needs a more liberal, less authoritarian prelate than the late pontiff. While he lobbies fellow electors on behalf of Luis, Cardinal Mendoza of Valencia, his crafty aide Auxiliary Bishop John Blackwood (Blackie) Ryan works the press. Among those Bishop Blackie recruits for the cause are New York Times reporter Dennis (Dinny) Molloy and his estranged wife, Patricia McLaughlin, a gorgeous redhead who is a star correspondent for CNN. But before the progressives can get their man into the Vatican, they must do battle with reactionary forces who will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo. In the meantime, Dinny (whom worldly-wise clerics have prodded along the path toward reconciliation with Patty) is investigating the possibility that an Italian wheeler-dealer may have lost millions out of the Apostolic See's patrimony. Despite the scandal uncovered by Dinny; constant controversy in the media, and ecclesiastic conclaves over sensitive issues (birth control, celibacy, the ordination of women, etc.); a kidnapping; unchristian conduct; and a host of other obstacles, white smoke finally issues from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, signaling a new papacy and, perhaps, a turning point in Church history. Greeley doesn't shrink from using his narrative gifts to promote putatively greater goods, but the agreeable confection here is the easier to swallow for its leavening of cynical, secular takes on the doctrinal and political realities obtaining in one of the world's great religions. (Author tour; radio satellite tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-85814-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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