THE

GODMOTHER

MADRE PASCALINA

a FEMININE

TOUR de FORCE

by

CHARLES THEODORE MURR

In Memoriam Grata

To my Educators and Formators:

Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Charles and Anita Jane Murr

Reverenda Madre M. Pascalina Lehnert, C.S.C., Monsignore Mario Marini, Sisters Wilberta (Mary Ann) Heyd, O.P.. and Rosalima (Therese) Banach, S.S.C., Cardinals Édouard Gagnon, P.S.S. Giovanni Benelli, Karl Becker, S.J., Monsignori Guglielmo Zannoni, Giuseppe Lobina, Donato Squicciarini, Padres Carlos Torres-Castillo, John Navone, S.J., Vittorio Marcozzi, S.J., Vincent Macelli, S.J., Gervasius Dumeige, S.J., Salvino Biolo, S.J.

In Heartfelt Gratitude

My sincerest thanks: to Enrique J. Aguilar whose artistic talent and creativity brought life to the dramatic cover and thirty-four marvelous engraving illustrations of The Godmother; to Professor Robert T. Miller and Marta Eugenia Pinto who labored lovingly and patiently to edit The Godmother’s manuscript; to Beatrice Smalley who, with personal encouragement and free use of her writing desk, afforded me the opportunity to create this work; to Megan Gallagher-Griffo who has always been there to tie up the myriads of loose ends in my life. She, the above mentioned, and a host of concerned others have done their best to make a disorganized author appear cool, in control and self-reliant —when, in fact, quite the opposite is true.

Contents

TIMING IS EVERYRTHING 11

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 17

SAVAGED 25

PIUS AND PIO 26

NEITHER PRAISE NOR FEAR 28

HOLY HUMOR 30

GEBURSTAG HAT JEDE KUH 33

LIKING AND LOVING 35

THE MEANING OF RED 40

SAINT PIUS X 43

PIUS IX 45

UPON THESE ROCKS - PART 2 49

PIUS IX – PART 3 52

THE GERMAN PASTOR 55

RONCALLI AND MONTINI 60

MONTINI 66

THE IMPOSTOR 69

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE POPE 74

A KICK UPSTAIRS 77

TWO MODERNIST MARTYRS 80

DE-ITALIANIZING THE ROMAN CURIA 84

PIUS AND THE JEWS 87

THE PIRATES OF PINZGAU 92

THE COLDS FACTS OF LIFE 97

A THORN IN THE SIDE 101

IT’S COLD AT THE SUMMIT MEETING 105

FRIENDSHIP AND JEALOUSY 107

SPILLED MILK 111

WAITING FOR PAPA BENELLI 116

A RIOT OF RUMORS 122

A KICK DOWN STRAIRS 127

EXILE TO MEXICO 129

BACK TO BASE 131

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 137

A FINAL SHEEN (and a final word from the author) 143

Foreword

Thomas Aquinas says that a writer of an introduction should do three things: he should secure the goodwill of the reader by demonstrating the value of the subject to be discussed; he should prepare the reader by explaining the work’s plan and divisions; and he should warn the reader about difficulties to be encountered in the work. In the case of The Godmother, each of these tasks is somewhat complicated.

In one sense, the subject of this book is what Mother Pascalina, the long-time assistant and most-trusted confidant of Pope Pius XII, recounted to a young Charles Murr, first a seminarian and then later a priest in Rome, in the final years of her life. In another sense, the subject of this book is Pius XII himself, undoubtedly one of the greatest figures in the history of the Church, for what Mother Pascalina mostly recounted to Murr concerned his life and times. In the most important sense, however, this book is about fraternal charity, which is to say, divine friendship between two human beings.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that the noblest kind of friendship (indeed, the only true kind) exists between two people who share an understanding of the good life and who work together in pursuing it. Friendship is more than love. Love is willing the good of another, and a man can will the good of someone he has never met; friendship requires love, but it also requires joint action, working together in the activities that make up the good life. For those of us who share the Catholic Faith, there is thus a form of divine friendship, a friendship based on the Catholic understanding of the good life, which is the eternal life revealed to the apostles by Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the World, and transmitted through the Catholic Church down the ages.

What brings together an elderly nun born to a farm family in Bavaria in 1894 and a gifted, up-and-coming seminarian born to a middle-class family in Minnesota in 1950? Two people who may seem to have nothing in common in fact share the most important thing imaginable, a thing that they both also shared with Pope Pius XII, a superbly-educated career churchman and diplomat born in Rome in 1876: the Catholic understanding of the good life. That understanding is universal. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. It can unite in friendship—divine friendship—any two human souls.

And his book is about such a friendship, or rather about two such friendships, one between Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and Josephine Lehnert (Mother Pascalina), and another between Josephine Lehnert and Charles Murr. It is a filiagraphy, the story of a friendship. Its supreme value thus lies not in the particulars of this or that incident in the life of Pius XII, fascinating and illuminating though many of these are, but in the example it provides of how divine friendships form and grow and live. After the divine friendship between God and the individual human soul, there is nothing more important to us in this life than such friendships with other human beings. Friendship with God always comes first, which is why it is the subject of the first and greatest commandment, but divine friendship with other human beings is like it, and that is why it is the subject of the second greatest commandment.

While there are many outstanding books of mystic theology treating the divine friendship between God and man, there are few that treat divine friendship between two human beings (Aelred’s Spiritual Friendship is the classic work). There are fewer still that invite the reader into such a friendship so as to see it from the inside, to display such a friendship for the reader to learn from and emulate. This book does that, and it does it brilliantly. Indeed, just as Mother Pascalina let Father Murr see inside her friendship with Pope Pius XII, so in this book Father Murr lets us see inside his friendship with Mother Pascalina.

As to the plan and divisions of the book, because it aims to exhibit for us the divine friendship between Josephine Lehnert and Charles Murr, it simply tells the story of that friendship as it happened, beginning in 1974 and continuing until Mother Pascalina’s death in 1983. After some background that explains how in boyhood Murr became devoted to Pius XII, we find Murr studying in Rome, where he learns that Mother Pascalina is alive and well and living at Casa Pastor Angelicus on the Monte Mario. He does what anyone who knows the man knows he would do: he calls on the nun unannounced and asks her to tell him about Pius XII. (He could be confident that Mother Pascalina would grant this request because he assumed, correctly, that Mother Pascalina had the same understanding of the good he did; they were natural—or, more accurately, supernatural—friends.) The old nun and the young seminarian then meet regularly, usually for talks in the parlor or gardens of Casa Pastor Angelicus, but we see them too at Murr’s ordination in the Church of Sts. John and Paul, at the tomb of Pius XII in St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Newman Centre in Rome, and in the famous Holy Office Café.

Each chapter of the book records a conversation between them. Some of the topics will arrest the interest of those seeking the sensational, such as Padre Pio’s letter to Mother Pascalina concerning his vision of the entrance of Pius XII into heaven, or Mother Pascalina’s views on the personal failings of Pope Paul VI, or the inside story of the falling out of Cardinal Spellman and Bishop Sheen. The more important conversations, however, concern such things as why we kneel to pray, why it is good to have friendships with people both older and younger than ourselves, and why a seventeenth century Jesuit kept a record of the good points of each of his fellow Jesuits.

As to the difficulties to be encountered in the work, people who think that Pius XII was indifferent to the sufferings of the Jewish people during World War II should not read this book. They should read the New York Times, which said on December 25, 1942, that Pius was “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent” to condemn “the exile and persecution of human beings for no reason other than race.” Such people should then read Rabbi David Dalin’s The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, and perhaps then they may return with profit to this book. Beyond that, anyone interested in Pius XII or the travails of the Church in the twentieth century can read this book and come away enlightened. But those who hope to benefit from the book’s depiction of divine friendship should be more thoroughly prepared, possibly through study of moral theology but more effectively through lived experience on the way of perfection in the Catholic faith. Divine friendship presumes a certain spiritual maturity, and instruction in it does so as well. We speak a certain wisdom among the spiritually mature, but it is not the wisdom of this age.

Still, even the novice who approaches this book can hope to profit from it, for often what we cannot do ourselves we can accomplish with the help of our friends, and the reader of this book will find powerful friends in the communion of saints—Pius XII and Mother Pascalina, working together in heaven as they did on earth.

Robert T. Miller

Sayville, New York

May 13, 2017

Centennial Anniversary of the First Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima

Centennial Anniversary of the Episcopal Consecration of Eugenio Pacelli

Quadragesimal Anniversary of the Priestly Ordination of Charles Murr

Preface

Mother, or Madre Pascalina, née Josephine Lehnert, was born August 25, 1894, in the town of Ebersberg, Kingdom of Bavaria. At fifteen she entered the School Sisters of the Holy Cross, Menzinger, Switzerland. In 1917, Schwester Pascalina and two other Sisters were sent to Munich to assist the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, fourty-one-year-old Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli. When, in 1925, Archbishop Pacelli was appointed Nuncio to Germany and Prussia, Schwester Pascalina accompanied him to Berlin to oversee the running of the nunciature. As Nuncio, Archbishop Pacelli was also Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, and it was Schwester Pascalina’s job to assure that everything was as it should be for the never-ending conferences, meetings, consultations, social events and state dinners.

In 1929, Pope Pius XI recalled Nuncio Pacelli to Rome, elevated him to the cardinalate, and named him Vatican Secretary of State. Schwester Pascalina, with two Sisters to help her, soon arrived at the Vatican and continued to assist Cardinal Pacelli with his new responsibilities. On March 2, 1939, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and was the twelfth of his 259 predecessors to take the name Pius. More than ever, he counted on Schwester Pascalina’s assistance and support, as he had come to trust no one on earth more than her. It was at this same time that all Vatican personnel —from the humble sanpietrini sweepers in Saint Peter’s Square to the far from humble Cardinal Eugene Tisserant— began to address the Bavarian nun as Mother, or Madre Pascalina. (Pope Pius joked with her that the new title was the closest he could get to naming her a Protonotary Apostolic Monsignore.) Behind Madre Pascalina’s back, envious of her unequaled influence with the Pope, many a Roman Curia official referred to her as “La Popessa” [The ‘Popess’] or “Virgo Potens” [Virgin Most Powerful].

During the Second World War, faithfully and charitably executing the Holy Father’s expressed wishes, Madre Pascalina provided food, clothing and shelter for 15,000 refugees from the invading Nazi forces at the Papal Residence in Castel Gandolfo. Inside the Vatican itself, she worked heroically to feed, clothe and shelter every Jewish refugee the 44 hectares could hold. By the end of the war, 200,000 Jews owed a great debt of gratitude to Pope Pius XII and, in a very special way, to his faithful and heroic servant, Madre Pascalina. In postwar times, she organized caravans of trucks to dispense food, medicine, clothing and shoes, to prison camps and hospitals. Not only did she feed the desperately hungry in the streets of Rome, she also sent emergency aid and care packages to every European country in need. She saw to it that the Pope’s charity did not end with the war, but continued working to help tens of thousands of displaced persons, prisoners of war, and victims of every sort. To continue his outreach programs, the Pope named her directress of his personal charities. She organized and directed the Magazzino, overseeing its fulltime staff of 40 dedicated men and women and all its operations until 1959. Times being what they were —and the Vatican being what it almost always was— Mother Pascalina courageously accomplished all that she did under the “official supervision” of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Paul VI), a man she did not much care for, nor did she completely trust.

On October 9, 1958, the day Pope Pius XII died, Mother Pascalina was invited to collect her belongings and leave the Vatican. Through the efforts of loyal friends —New York’s Francis Cardinal Spellman principal among them— she remained active and productive at the North American College in Rome (1959-1968) and, when her home for the elderly, “Casa Pastor Angelicus” was completed, she moved across town to Monte Mario. It was there she lived and worked for the rest of her life.

On November 13, 1983, attending meetings in Vienna, the dynamic, determined, and saintly nun from Bavaria died. Her body was taken back to Rome and was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico; close to the Basilica of Saint Peter; close to the tomb of her much beloved friend and spiritual master, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, the man she had served for almost 42 years.

Madre Pascalina and Father Charles Murr met in 1973 and remained close friends even after he was sent to Mexico in 1979. He visited her for the last time in 1983, weeks before her death.

During his Roman years, “Charlie” —as everyone everywhere knew him— was mentored by Vatican Secretariat of State minutante, Monsignore Mario Marini, who did all he could spiritually to shape his often-rebellious young charge into a good priest. Marini left Charlie’s academic training in philosophy and theology to the Jesuit Fathers at the Gregorian University. But it was Madre Pascalina who provided the young American womanly wisdom, spiritual substance and the unique viewpoint she had imbibed alongside Pius XII as, hopefully, will be illustrated by the stories in this book.

CHAPTER ONE

TIMING IS EVERYRTHING

Teacher and Pupil

Thursday, October 9, 1958. For eight-year-old Charlie (to paraphrase Dickens with a twist), it was worst of days, it was the best of days, it was the time of foolishness, it was the time of wisdom, it was the age of incredulity, it was the age of belief, it was the moment of darkness, it was the moment of light, it was the fall of despair, it was the autumn of hope.

From Monday of that week, Charles Theodore Murr and his fifty-three second-year classmates at Saint Augustine Grammar School had been praying, as hard as they knew how, for the Holy Father, Pope Pius the Twelfth.

Only the night before, at dinner, Charlie’s father Theodore Charles Murr —“Ted” to nearly everyone but Charlie— had announced that the Pope was “standing at death’s door.” Though Charlie had never heard the expression before, his visceral reaction, because of his father’s tone of voice and his mother’s very concerned expression, was one of foreboding. Charlie hardly understood life, let alone death but still he could not have imagined a worse predicament than to be left standing (alone, he presumed) at death’s gruesome gate —that is, of course, until his best pal, Tommy Schmitt, convinced him that hell was “a million times worse.” With four older brothers and a married sister —impressive credentials for any second grader— Tommy knew a lot about a lot, and what he didn’t know, he invented and presented with such certainty as to convince even the naysayers among his classmates. After talking things over with Tommy, Charlie came to the conclusion that death and dying and hell, should, all of them be avoided, at all cost, at all times.

In 1958, he knew what every Catholic schoolboy preparing for first Confession and Holy Communion knew about the Pope, that he was: (1) the Vicar of Christ on earth, (2) chosen by the Holy Ghost Himself, and (3) loved and respected by everyone in the world —at least, by everyone in Charlie’s world. He also had a face to go with the name, since an 8 x 10”, black & white glossy of Pius XII’s somber countenance hung parallel to the block letters of the alphabet atop the blackboard.

And there was one other noteworthy thing he knew about Pope Pius XII. His dismal health prognosis was of veritable concern to Sister M. Wilberta, Ordo Praedicatorum. Sister Wilberta, O.P., was a young, flawlessly beautiful Dominican nun who had been so successful with Charlie’s first grade tutelage that God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, had seen fit to entrust her with his second grade education as well. At least that was how Charlie saw it. Not only was she beautiful, but the young nun was wise far beyond her 21 years. In fact, the older Charlie grew, the more impressed he became with what she knew back then. Almost certainly, the good Sister held a degree in philosophy. In those days, she would not have had a degree in the jealously guarded, by all-male knights, queen of sciences: theology. As Father Timothy Nolan, the ancient, Irish, former university professor, Pastor of Saint Augustine’s used to ditty about when visiting the classrooms at report-card time, “The end of the holy Church will be when women study theology.”

On Wednesday of that second week in October, the class continued to remember the ailing Pontiff and began their morning offering up all their “prayers, works, joys and sufferings of the day” for Pius. Who could not see the concern on Sister Wilberta’s beautiful face, or not be moved by the earnestness with which she prayed? Back then, Charlie had the quick and uncanny ability to distinguish between “sincere and insincere sincerity,” especially when it came to adults. This talent served him well, though it seemed to diminish in adolescence and had all but died by the time he reached adulthood.

When the hall bells sounded recess, all the class marched out of the red-brick school building and onto the newly paved playground with its fifteen-foot-tall swing sets, long wooden teeter-totters, merry-go-round and a giant metal slide. None of these, however, really got Charlie’s attention as much as the daily touch football scrimmage. He was a runner, the fastest kid in grades one through four. But, that particular day, the game struck him as moronic. Not just because it was played with a flattened milk carton instead of an inflated pigskin, but because it was the same every day, with the same two captains John Tomsic and Charlie’s cousin David Smith calling all the shots. The only thing that did change from one day to the next were the self-serving rules of engagement.

No. That morning a matter far more pressing than swing sets or imaginary footballs occupied his young and restless mind. In a man-on-a-mission style he made his way across the chaotic playground, through an ocean of hopscotching and rope-jumping little girls, in search of an answer to the question that had robbed him of all reading and arithmetic concentration powers the entire morning. Finally, edging and elbowing his way through the goodie-two-shoes surrounding their instructress like jealous courtiers defending the honor of their princess, he stood before the beautiful Dominican and had her full, focused attention.

“Does God love the Holy Father?” he asked point-blank.

“Why, He most certainly does,” answered Sister Wilberta, “very much, indeed.” Her eyes widened and she smiled faintly as she questioned the question, “What makes you ask such a thing, Charles?”

“My dad says the Holy Father’s at death’s door,” Charlie began, “So, if God loves him, why?”

“Why?” echoed the Sister.

Charlie started again, “Why’s he at death’s door? Why doesn’t God do something to help him? He’s His victor. He should help him, shouldn’t He?”

“Vicar. The Pope is Our Lord’s vicar” she corrected. (In those days, a kid’s entire conscious day was “a teaching moment.”) Taking Charlie by the shoulder, she gently guided him beyond hearing range of the curious courtiers. “…Everything, Charles, happens for a reason. Everything. Nothing happens without God willing it. Directly or indirectly. Not a single leaf on that tree,” she pointed to a huge maple on 5th Avenue, blazing in autumn red, “Not one single leaf,” she reiterated, “falls from that tree without God willing it so. Good or bad, there is a reason for everything, and God knows what the reason is. We do not always understand God’s reasons. We were not meant to. Nonetheless, it is important that you and I remember: God has His reasons; the reasons exist.”

Pretty impressive stuff, Charlie thought for a fleeting moment, but not exactly what he was looking for, “…And bad things, Sister? Does God will bad things to happen?”

Just then, Sister Wilberta made a quick ninety-degree, clapped her gloved hands loudly and repeatedly. “Enough of that!” she rebuked the class troublemaker, “You will return Barbara Wojcik’s hat to her this instant, and you will apologize to her,” she ordered, “You could have injured her with your tomfoolery.”

“So, does He?” Charlie persisted. It took her a moment to get back on track. “…God does not want bad things to happen, Charles,” she started, and then paused to watch Michael Fryes complete the acts of retribution and contrition assigned him. “…God does not will evil…God permits evil.” She looked again at him. “You see,” she said, “this is a complicated matter. It has to do with the most important gift God has given us —after life itself, that is. That gift is called free will. There’s not time enough for me to explain it right now.” Then, deeply inhaling the crisp autumn air, she seemed determined to try. “…God tolerates evil. To tolerate means to put up with someone or something. Your mother and father put up with you when you misbehave. They tolerate you. Or, you, for example; you tolerate your baby brother when he cries and makes a fuss, do you not?

“He cries all the time,” Charlie answered with an exasperated sigh.

“And every time he does, you tolerate it, don’t you?”

“I have to,” he said with a shoulder shrug.

“Well, there you are,” she clapped her hands once and held them together just below her chin, “More or less, that is the way God tolerates evil.”

“But, God is God, and God is good,” Charlie said, pretty sure of that much, “So, why does He even put up with evil? He can do everything. He can destroy evil if He really wants to —all of it,” he persisted, surprising himself with the congruency of everything he’d just said.

As the good Sister was seeing for herself, her pupil had given some serious thought to this matter. And, with the only philosophical tools available to an eight-year-old at the time, he wasn’t doing such a bad job of it. To Charlie, his reasoning seemed brilliantly logical because what he lacked in his understanding of the limitlessness and omnipotence of the Almighty, he more than made up for in his understanding of, yes: Superman. He believed he was standing on very solid ground in his contention that the Almighty was a million times stronger than Superman. After all, Charlie followed the Man of Steel’s every move, almost religiously, every single weekday, 3:30 to 4 p.m., on KSTP, channel five. Every episode showed Superman relentless in his fight contra the forces of evil and in proof “truth, justice, and the American way”. Why, he asked himself, wouldn’t God want to do the same? Bolstering his observational insight was Tommy Schmitt’s older brother, Randy, a sophomore at South Saint Paul High School. In the alley between Second and Third Avenues, the sophomoric elder assured Tommy and Charlie that it had to have been God Who created Superman, since, “God created all things, visible and invisible. If ya don’t know that,” Randy took a long drag off his Old Gold, “ya don’t know s---,” he concluded, and exhaling upward, watched the blue gray smoke fade into oblivion.

So, why wouldn’t God want to obliterate evil like Superman did every single day? Charlie reflected that God didn’t even have the debilitating effects of Kryptonite to contend with!

“Do you think, even for a moment,” Sister Wilberta began with a new line of reasoning, “that your mother and father, who love you very, very much, would consider destroying you because sometimes your actions are bad?”

“No,” Charlie answered, feeling almost certain that they would not.

“I should say not!” she said emphatically to remove any sliver of a doubt. “Well, neither would your Father in heaven destroy what you might consider to be evil, but what He might not.”

“I guess not,” he said.

“Well, you guess right, young man,” she smiled, nodding her congratulations for the correct answer before segueing into that most dreaded of all questions by any child who had correctly guessed the penultimate: “So, now: why not?”

“…I don’t know,” he admitted at a loss to answer this existential fragment of the “Eternal Why.”

“Could it be because God loves you? Because God wants what’s best for you? Could it be that God permits evil so that good might come from it? So that good things can come to us even from the bad things that happen to us? So that, with the help of God and your efforts, you, Charles, might bring good out of evil? What do you think about that, young man?”

Just then, the end-of-recess bell sounded with a uniquely alarming ring. It sounded the way he imagined an exclamation point would sound were it to stand all on its own. The bell seemed to cry out: “There! Now do you get it?!”

Truth be told, most unfortunately —No, Charlie did not.

That night, back at the 108 Second Avenue homestead, he easily convinced his mother and father that the Pope’s amelioration should top the list of their prayerful intentions. In his home, every day was dedicated to Jesus’ Sacred Heart; sixty-two of those days were especially dedicated to His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. For October and May the rosary became an integral part of the bedtime ritual. The five mysteries were prayed together, in the oneness and warmth of family. For those two months their carved oak staircase became an elongated, semi-gothic prie-dieu that each ascended, on his or her knees, step by step, as the rosary progressed, until all, mother and father, Charlie, Peter, Marijo and Robert reached the white porcelain statue of the Madonna and Child on the second floor landing. After goodnight kisses, tired from their penitential trek, the children made their way to bed. Having just entered the terrible twos, normally hyperactive Robert —or, as they called him, “Baby Bob”— was usually fast asleep in that special place between Dad’s left shoulder and the nape of his neck. Dad would take Bob’s limp hand in his and wave so that the baby would wave them all a sweet farewell as he was carried off to the brass crib in the master bedroom.

That particular night, Wednesday, the eighth of October, 1958, Charlie shared in the repose of the Cherubim; God was in His heaven and all was - or soon would be— right with the world. As his head hit the flannel pillow, his last thought was that, with a little more patience, he would soon witness good coming from evil. His personal test case, none other than the Holy Father, the Roman Pontiff, Pope Pius the Twelfth, would be in much better health when he would awake in eight or nine hours.

Half way through the next morning, the arithmetic lesson was interrupted by a loud knock on the classroom door. A very tall eighth grade boy walked in to deliver a note. Sister Wilberta took it, thanked him, and read. She refolded the note, blessed herself, and somberly announced: “Children; our Holy Father, the Pope, has gone to God.”

“Whered’he go?” Mike Hechimovich asked without first raising his hand.

“Did he die, Sister?” Connie Shelly blurted out from across the room.

“To God, Michael,” the nun answered the impetuous lad and then turned to the chubby and tactless lass, “Yes, Constance, our Holy Father, the Pope has died.” Sister Wilberta cleared her throat, “We shall all stand,” she motioned with her hand for the entire class to do so straightaway, “and walk like ladies and gentlemen, in orderly fashion, one row at a time, in single file and in silence, into church. We shall join the sisters and the rest of the school in praying for the repose of the Holy Father’s soul.”

Everyone stood but, unlike everyone else, Charlie did not move when his row was called. He reacted as when Darrel “Loony-Tune” Warner sucker-punched him in the stomach two or three weeks before: he just stood there beside his desk, at the very end of row two, motionless as a statue. In just seconds, he had gone from disbelief to disillusion, from resentful to some ominous feeling that he’d never experienced. It was more than simple anger; it would take him years to figure out what he felt and call by its proper name: righteous indignation. Indignant he was, and righteously would stand his ground.

All those prayers for the Pope; his, not to mention the countless billions, maybe trillions, of them from people all over the world! And for what? For nothing, that’s what! Not only had good not come from evil, but evil had gotten even eviler; hope had given way to despair. Instead of giving way to health, sickness had given way to death. Death had won out over life. Evil had triumphed over good!

For the first time he could remember, he was grinding his teeth. His anger showed.

Instead of shepherding the class across the corridor and into Saint Augustine’s Church, faster than you could say “Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli,” Sister Wilberta put Chuck Hatfield and Ruth Ann Healy, the bossy captains of the boys’ and girls’ lavatories for the month of October, in charge of herding and relocating.

Charlie stood scowling and motionless as a rock beside his desk. He did not want to speak with anyone just then, and his feet refused to move an inch in the direction of Saint Augustine’s Church where he was being called to waste even more time praying for God to do God-only-knew-what next. When the last student cleared the room, tears began welling up in his eyes. He was fighting hard not to break into tears: from somewhere inside him, an admonishing voice warned: “Men–don’t–cry”.

Sister Wilberta walked over and bent down to speak with him eye to eye. “You look pale. What is the matter, Charles?” she asked, more with the concern of a friend than a dutiful teacher.

“Good… Good doesn’t come from evil,” he managed to get it out, “…The Pope is dead.”

The previous day’s colloquy fresh in her mind, Sister Wilberta understood the problem even before she asked what it might be.

“I disagree,” she said, then, taking his chin, raised his head so she could look him straight in the eye, “…This morning, this very morning, good came from evil. . . .And you would see it, too, if you’d stop your pouting and take a look. Here; take this,” she handed him a tissue she pulled from a fold somewhere in her white habit. He dried his eyes, disappointed in himself for having shed a tear. “…Say goodbye to such negative thoughts,” she insisted, “Erase them from your mind. Go on. Close your eyes and start erasing,” she ordered and gave him a moment to do so.

“Clean slate?” she inquired.

He nodded unenthusiastically and reopened his eyes. Before it could fall, he caught a half tear with his shirtsleeve rather than use the tissue she had magically wrought forth.

“Fine,” she said, “Now listen: Yesterday, the Holy Father was in terrible pain and suffering. That was yesterday. Today he is at peace. Today, this very moment, Charles, he is with the Most Holy Trinity and in the company of our Blessed Mother, all the angels and all the saints in heaven! Look at the good that has come today from yesterday’s evil!”

As the hopeful notion began to sink in, there suddenly appeared in the doorway a tall, older Dominican nun, the principal of Saint Augustine Grammar School, who taught the eighth graders on that strictly off-limits to anyone from first through fourth grade, very mysterious second floor. Last year, a fellow first grader, John Pepperidge had been summoned upstairs, to the principal’s office. No one had seen or heard of him since.

“Is there a problem, Sister Wilberta?” asked Sister Danieline in a rather accusatory tone, “The entire school is assembled. The only one missing, that we be complete, is you, Sister.”

“There was a slight problem, Sister. I believe it’s been taken care of, now. Thank you,” said the young nun as she stood up straight, “…We were just on our way into church,” she said and gave her superior a “with all due respect” bow of the head.

Sister Wilberta and Charlie walked out of the classroom and crossed the corridor to the side entrance of Saint Augustine’s. Before opening the huge wooden door, she bent down once again and just above a whisper said: “Everyone in heaven is a saint, Charles. Remember what we know about the saints? That they’re God’s closest friends? And friends of ours, as well? Imagine that, Charles: What a powerful friend you have in court!”

“In court?” he questioned.

“An expression, child,” she replied, “It means ‘in high places’. Your friend is with God in heaven. Pope Pius is God’s friend and he’s yours as well. He won’t forget you and all you did for him with your prayers. Come,” she said more loudly as she took the big brass pulls and opened the solid oak door, “Let’s you and I thank God for all He has given us this day. This is a wonderful day, Charles.”

On that somber occasion, the day the Pope died, or, as Sister Wilberta later explained it to the entire class, his “birthday” into eternity —Pius XII and Charlie became friends and have remained friends ever since. From the fourth pew of Saint Augustine’s to front-row-center in heaven, begging Saint Charles Borromeo’s indulgence, he asked the “Angelic Pastor” to be his patron saint. He also acquired his first two Latin words: Pastor Angelicus, the title given Pius XII by the Irish Visionary, Saint Malachy, in the twelfth century. A lot of muddy Mississippi water has flowed beneath the Wabasha Street Bridge since 1958. Still, every detail of those beautiful October days remains intact in Charlie’s mind and heart.

You may be saying to yourself: what a quaint, provincial little story from Catholic schooldays of yore. But quaintness and yesteryear schmaltz did not motivate Charlie. He remained grateful for one of the many life-lessons he received through the wisdom, faith and charity of an extraordinarily kind, patient and dedicated teacher: Sister M. Wilberta, O.P..

And twenty-five years later, browsing on the second floor “catwalk” at Schriber’s on Fifth Avenue —back then, along with Eddie Condon’s and the Central Park Promenade, among his favorite Manhattan haunts— it was impossible to miss a new hardback on display: All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Much of what Robert Fulghum claims to have learned at age 6, Charlie learned and then some at age 7. What’s more, to ensure that he had mastered “first-year metaphysics,” he was given the advanced-beginners course (more attention to detail) the following year, in second grade, where he grew in “wisdom, age and grace”, under the same philosophical-theological and Dominican tutelage.

So, by the age of eight, guided by Sister Wilberta and Dominican wisdom, he had been walked through the existential questions which today trouble many adolescents and an astounding number of adults, such as who are you? What does it mean to live? To die? To face evil? To love and to sacrifice? And he had found answers which stood the test of time.

Later experiences in life confirmed, at least to him, one of the many lessons Sister Wilberta imparted to an inquisitive and demanding young mind: “Nothing happens without the Will of God; nothing… Good or bad, there is a reason for everything.”

CHAPTER TWO

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Crossing Saint Peter’s Square

In spite of the obvious age difference, it was love at first sight. Charlie was seventeen; that April, she had turned 2,721. Long before their initial face-to-face, from half-a-world-away, he was enamored of her near-divine grace, her timeless beauty, her priceless art and monumental architecture, her classical and folkloric music, her melodic language, her glorious past and her eternal present. He would soon discover her style, her rhythm and beat, her ancient neighborhoods, mazelike side-streets and alleyways, the me ne fregismo [I don’t give a damn] of her anything-but-boring inhabitants.

Rome and Charlie were formally introduced on June 28, 1968, a beautiful early summer afternoon; the vigil of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the most glorious of the Roman martyrs; a major religious feast day and an Italian national holiday.

Charlie had just arrived by train from Lausanne, and had taken a taxi from Stazione Termini to the Hotel Columbus. His first glimpse of the Basilica was from the backseat of a yellow Fiat. Through the less than pristine windshield, it was like watching a documentary on television —one that had been filmed through a dirty lens by a very shaky handed cameraman.

At the front desk, Charlie asked that his luggage be taken to his room, which, just then, he had no time nor wish to inspect. Turning over his passport to the snooty concierge, he dashed out of the hotel vestibule and headed directly up Via della Conciliazione. He crossed Piazza San Pietro, grabbing glimpses of the vast open space that, certainly, he would dedicate much more time and attention to later on. At the moment, quickening his pace and hoping to avoid a trip and fall, he was paying more attention to the uneven cobblestones beneath his feet. He slowed down to a dignified walk through the colossal portico —a preparation for the mind to ready itself for what lay beyond. He had done his homework; he knew the history of Saint Peter’s; had read about every Pope and architect involved in its construction; knew quite a lot about Michelangelo Buonarroti and his struggles designing the greatest manmade dome on the face of the earth. He knew the personages each monumental statue depicted; every mosaic, even the only painting among them —and where to find them.

He passed through the open bronze doors and, just a few meters inside, stopped dead in his tracks. Standing motionless, he took in all he could of the absolute magnificence set before him; a spiritual and aesthetic banquet, the likes of which he had never experienced even in his wildest dreams; such a sensational moment in time and space that it stole what little breath he still had.

“Overwhelmed” was a word he had heard often enough and had even used now and then but, prior to that precise moment, he had never really been overwhelmed. He had never felt so minuscule, so enveloped by sheer magnificence: above, before, behind, beneath and beyond him. There he stood and he felt, in a strange way, that all of humanity was with him: puny, insignificant, in utter jaw-dropping awe of the All Mighty, All Harmonious, All Perfect, All Infinitely-Greater-than-the-Sum-of-All-His-Parts, God, whose antechamber he had dared to enter. If this was merely a taste of heaven, what, in God’s name, must the entirety of heaven be? If these were but shadows on the cave walls, what, in Plato’s name, must God Himself be?!

Slowly, reluctantly, his feet began taking him closer to Bernini’s great bronze baldacchino and the papal altar where he paid his respects to the Fisherman, Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, whose tomb, he knew, formed part of the altar’s foundation. Then he spied a sign announcing the subterranean “grottos.” The entry led to a long set of well-worn marble steps that went deep below the basilica’s main floor. Soon he was one of the devout Christians kneeling at the eye-level tomb of the apostle. The experience of being and of praying so near Peter’s relics moved him almost to tears. By name, he remembered his parents, his brothers and sisters, and every other family member he could recall. He remembered the two girlfriends he was presently torn between: Yolanda and Deborah. In prayer, he was always a stickler for specifics, for particulars; he never prayed in general. As he turned to leave the small chapel, again, he could hardly believe his eyes. Directly in front of him was the tomb of one of the Fisherman’s most worthy successors: Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli. He remembered reading that the 260th Pope had requested to be buried as close as possible to the tomb of the first Pope, but he had no idea it was this close. In latinate lettering, chiseled into the white travertine it read, Pius PP. [Papa; Pope] XII. No dates were inscribed; for Charles Theodore Murr none were necessary; he knew them by heart: March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958… a Thursday that year, and in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a brisk fall day. He prayed even longer at the tomb of his very own patron saint than at Saint Peter’s own.

For the time he remained in the eternal city, every day he visited Saint Peter’s and those two sacred and very special places. He heard early morning Mass at Pius’ tomb. Once, when the fidgety imp of an altar boy left half way through it, he finished serving the Latin Mass, considering it a great and distinct honor.

Four years later, having completed his bachelor’s degree in Romance Languages, Charlie wanted to study philosophy to prepare himself better for law school. To acquire this pre-law knowledge and an additional academic degree, he returned to Rome.

Plato and he were on good enough terms, but it was Aristotle, and more precisely, Aristotelian logic, that he hungered for. The mid to late 1960’s had convinced him that Western Civilization stood in dire need of logic and critical thinking if it was to survive the shambolic aftermath of Woodstock and Vatican II. The two required philosophy courses he took at the liberal arts college from which he had just graduated were sheer poppycock or, rather, mind-numbing, emasculating, Twilight Zone calamities which had been foisted upon the students under the guise of philosophy. This new “puff” mode of reality-perversion was “I’m OK; You’re OK”, “sensitivity training” twaddle. Even back then he saw it for what it was: the first majorly overt step in the “dumbification” of America —a morose phenomenon that Alan Bloom would later dazzlingly dissect in The Closing of the American Mind. To be sure, Charlie Murr was no hand-holder, tree-hugger or feelings-sharer.

By 1974, in his ongoing quest for substantive intellectual fare, apart from university course work and thesis writing, he had read practically everything ever written by Pius XII during his pontificate of nearly 20 years. Long before studying Pacelli’s thought, he had Charlie’s respect as a valiant leader among men; now Charlie also respected him as a brilliant and clear-thinking intellectual.

Charlie was a full-time theology student at the Pontifical Gregorian University and was working part-time, three days a week, at the Vatican Information Office -a job his linguistic abilities (along with a little “spinta” or push from his confessor, Vatican Secretariat of State minutante Monsignor Mario Marini) helped to procure. (As his high-school English professor, Mr. Donald Murray, once told the senior class: “In life, gentlemen, it’s not who you know, but whom.”) Charlie had come to Rome as a layman. His father wanted him to be a lawyer but Monsignor Marini had convinced him that he was worthy to be a priest. Marini’s exact words were: “The last thing this miserable world needs, caro Charlie, is one more miserable-son-of-a-b---- lawyer! —Another reason to avoid hell at all costs— I hear it’s crawling with lawyers!” Marini was always quick with such tender, fatherly advice.

One evening, over dinner at Il Scarpone restaurant, Charlie asked his monsignorial mentor whatever had become of Mother Pascalina, Pius XII’s confidant and personal secretary from the time he was Papal Nuncio to Bavaria until his death at Castel Gandolfo.

“She lives somewhere on Monte Mario,” he answered in his loud bass voice, “in a house your Cardinal Spellman found the money for her to build… Every year, on her birthday, the Pope [Paul VI] sends Benelli to pay her a visit —with a personal, handwritten card from the Pope in one hand and a token gift in the other. You know, if she were so inclined, La Matrona Tedesca [the German Matron] could still start some fires in the Curia that all the waters, from all the fountains in Rome, couldn’t extinguish.”

“She’s alive?!” Charlie asked in astonishment. He had taken it for granted that she, like Pope Pius, had died long ago.

“Very much alive,” Mario affirmed, “Not everyone’s as happy about that as you seem to be,” he gave a little sardonic laugh, “No one knows better than La Madre where the bodies are buried.”

“You know what Pacelli means to me,” Charlie answered him sharply, “I want my doctoral thesis to be on his contributions and caveats to Vatican II. I can’t believe you’ve never mentioned Madre Pascalina until now!”

“Charlie, what do you want from me?” Marini snapped back and threw his big hands up in the air, “The woman’s never come up in conversation, till this minute! You’ve certainly never mentioned her, and you’re the Pacelli fan… Anyway, from what I hear, she’s something of a recluse. Not very friendly. You know the fun-loving reputation those Germans enjoy,” he sneered, “…Imagine an old German nun.” A true misogynist at heart, Marini the “Ravenna engineer,” as he was called in the Secretariat of State, had little time for women in general, less time for nuns in particular, and no time for Germans, under any circumstances.

“Could you find out where she lives?” Charlie asked, “Her address? Maybe a phone number?”

“They’ve got enough ammunition against me in the Curia without me providing them with a bigger target. You’re the one working in the Information Office, and you’re asking me for an address and telephone number? That’s your department, not mine.”

“It was a simple request from a friend,” Charlie answered calmly, “If you can’t do it, just say so.”

“This, caro Charlie, is a perfect example of American naiveté,” he said and gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation, “You know, in many ways your attitudes are sophisticated. A few days ago, Zannoni said your mentality was so European, it was hard for him to believe you were born and raised in America.” As he could see Charlie was not taking this so well, he added: “Zannoni meant that as a compliment. And he’s right; you’re more European than a Frenchman. But I can see, you’ll never be able to think like an Italian.”

“Accusation or another compliment?”

“Funny. Very funny,” he said begrudgingly, “Let me spell it out for you. If I were to ask anyone in the Roman Curia how I might go about contacting Madre Pascalina, I would be opening the floodgates of gossip and innuendo for months on end. A cloud of suspicion would be hanging over my head —probably forever. They’d wonder why the secretary to Archbishop Giovanni Benelli —Benelli, who is sent by the Pope to visit this woman every single year— wouldn’t ask his boss for her address. By day’s end, they’d have me plotting against Benelli, for one concocted reason or another. I’d be accused of disloyalty to Paul VI; maybe of planning a coup!” he said in total seriousness.

“Paranoia. Pure paranoia,” Charlie dismissed his argument.

“I’ll take paranoia over naïve any day, figliòlo [my beloved son]; in overwhelming numbers and by many, many years, we ‘paranoids’ outlive you ‘ingenuous trusting types’. We know to expect the dagger and are always prepared to defend ourselves; you naïve Americans spare any would-be assassin the trouble of killing you; you practically fall on your own swords as you run to embrace him.”

The disagreement was nothing new nor was it anything major; it had never really threatened their friendship. Mario’s initial reaction to most things was usually over the top. Paranoids are like that. The following afternoon Mario Marini handed Charlie an envelope with the emblem of the Secretary of State. He opened it and found Madre Pascalina’s address and telephone number. He smiled and, teasingly, looked up and down, right and left, and all around, as if scouring the area for spies and/or bugging devices. Then, although sure that they were alone, he whispered: “Thank you; I won’t breathe a word of this to any curiale, living or dead.” It always delighted him to see the big man smile in his chagrin like Oliver Hardy, giving that forlorn look directly into the camera and accompanying it with a sigh of exasperation over something that had gone wrong, the consequences of which Stan Laurel had escaped and, alas, he had not. In fact, they shared a passion for Laurel and Hardy films, particularly when dubbed in Italian. Whenever they were shown at the Cinema Parrocchiale San Crisogono in Trastevere, the two of them were almost sure to be in attendance.

After siesta, Charlie phoned the “Casa Pastor Angelicus” and with the receptionist left his name, number and a brief message for La Reverenda Madre Pascalina Lehnert.

The return call came early that evening. Briefly, he expressed to the complete stranger on the other end of the line, his great admiration for Pope Pius XII. He then asked if he might meet with her in person. The mystery woman agreed to a meeting on Thursday “at 16:10”. Not 4 p.m. but 4 plus 10 minutes. Her German accentuated Italian and tone made it clear that unpunctuality would not be tolerated.

On Thursday Charlie rode his blue Vespa through Villa Doria Pamphili, traversed Piazze San Pietro and Risorgimento, and ascended Monte Mario. He loved every part of the metropolitan obstacle course; speeding and weaving in and out of traffic and feeling the wind on his face and in his hair.

Sycamores lined both sides of via Pecori Giraldi as well as high walls made of terracotta brick all laid in contemporary patterned design with broad sections covered by cascading ivy. This was not loud and zany Roma; this was subdued, residential, restricted Rome, with estates like little islands of serenity surrounded by lush peaceful gardens. Charlie parked his scooter and rang the bell of #137. A young bespectacled nun arrived to open the gate and accompany him into a building which was extremely modern by classical Roman standards. The foyer was large, open and well-lit. The young nun took him left into a parlor. His watch read the same as the clock on the wall: 4:04; one of the few times in twenty-four years he had arrived early for anything and the only time it had not been by accident. The parlor intrigued him. Unlike other parlors he knew in Church institutes it was not predominantly brown from furniture and fittings but startlingly white. He was seated on a white chair at a white table with a white table cloth. There were white walls, white ceiling, off-white marble floor, white curtains on the windows. The only relief was a short bookcase with glass doors against a wall. It was varnished wood. Charlie appreciated the red lace work edging the table cloth as a relief from the wall-to-wall white which reminded him of his all-white adolescent nightmares. To him the room even smelled white. He was to find that most of the nuns running this retirement home were Swiss which seemed sufficient explanation of why it was spotless and dustless, clean and sterile, and just a tad creepy. They used vinegar to clean the windows which accounted for the slight stringent smell.

Charlie was thinking that you could eat off the floor —if that was your idea of a good time— when, exactly on time, Mother Pascalina Lehnert entered. “Laudetur,” she abbreviated the Latin greeting and nodded as she turned to close the door behind her. He stood and returned the abbreviated response, “Nunc et in saecula.” Her roundish face was framed in white and her head veiled in black. The skirt of her black habit went to the floor. The elbow-length shoulder cape was topped by a white starched collar round her neck. A silver cross hung very near her heart. Her eyes were hazel and bright and a natural half-smile was on her pale face. Even at 80 her loveliness and grace were very evident. No doubt, as a girl in turn-of-the-century Bavaria, she had been a beauty. Still, sweet, lovely and gentle as she appeared, he knew she was not to be taken lightly.

La Madre had one tiny facial imperfection: her right eyebrow was centesimally higher in the middle than the left; a closer look revealed a minuscule scar in the brow, most likely from childhood. Whatever it was, the curious little arch gave her a slight air of sophistication, or was it skepticism? From the very start, that little extra arch was a psychological reminder to Charlie that he was speaking with someone “woman enough” to have survived the constant plotting and byzantine intrigues of the Roman Curia, that “good ol’ boys’ club of all good ol’ boys’ clubs”. Not only did she survive it; she took an active hand in promoting, demoting, moving and eliminating a good number of the players, as if they were bishops, castles, knights and pawns in a grand global game of chess. What’s more, she did it all without losing one bit of her humility, her mind or her virginity. At least so said Mario Marini, who may not have been so completely misogynistic after all.

The invidious Curia members, who, as far back as 1930, had nicknamed her “Virgo Potens”, hardly meant it as a compliment. Nonetheless, Madre Pascalina truly was the “Virgin (Most) Powerful”, and, contrary to its authors’ insulting designs, she wore the title nobly.

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