An Evening with the Cardinal

John McCarthy QC and Richard d'Apice AM, KC*HS
request the honor of the company of

(written in slightly haphazardly) Matt Alderman

at a Reception to celebrate the creation
as Cardinal of the Church
of

His Eminence George Cardinal Pell
Archbishop of Sydney

at 7.00 pm on Tuesday, 21 October 2003
at the Palazzo della Rovere
3 Via dei Cavalieri del Santo Sepolcro, Roma 00198

Lounge Suit
Decorations will be worn

Well. I'm not entirely sure how my Australian friend and his wife finagled an invitation for me to a reception at the palace of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, but I was overjoyed. Incredibly overjoyed. Like freaking awesome. And, yes, the slang is there for comic affect (insert laugh track here).

You already know well that I am, so to speak, a Dominican groupie, but I'm also a Papal Orders fan, as my little adventure in Assisi will show you. The idea of possibly meeting a Cardinal and maybe even a couple of Grand Officers or even just a knight or two, well, that would be memorable.

And it wasn't too unrealistic an expectation. One of our hosts was, after all, a KC*HS. Which I knew meant Knight Commander with Star of the Holy Sepulchre, if you just need further proof of my hopeless geekiness. And who knows who else might be there? Should I run into the Grand Master himself in the course of the evening, well, I imagine it would be what my pal Dan back at Notre Dame would call, en hommage a le Official Ninja Website, a totally sweet occurrence.

On the other hand, I had half-an-hour to go until it started and I was dealing with tissuing an awkward (though nicely symmetrical) set of shaving cuts and was hoping not to get blood on my last clean dress shirt. That and it looked somehow like there was only one dark sock left at the bottom of my drawer. I was going to meet a scarlet Prince of the Church and Princes of the Church, well, they occasionally need architects. And it's the Cardinals, not the architects, that are supposed to do things ad effusionem sanguinem, and not with a Gillete disposable razor.

Somehow, I pulled myself together, and, as I sauntered out of the hotel, slightly off schedule, I thought I had cleaned up nicely, thank you so very much. My grey flannels were creased where they were supposed to be creased, my top brass blazer button was fashionably unbuttoned, and my Murano brand tie with the little Pantheon ceiling coffers was elegantly knotted. Nobody was going to notice that my black socks had different patterns on them, just so long as I didn't sit down all evening.

I even had a decoration to wear, per the invitation. Not, of course, the star of St. Januarius or the White Elephant of Denmark (or even a Knights of Columbus dingbat) but a little pin from one of the state Quiz Bowl competitions we'd won back in high school. Hey, it works.

My friends and I (with their well-behaved baby daughter in tow) found our way to the Palazzo, an open door beckoning us up a flight of stairs lined with antique engravings of Roman scenes and ancient chivalric insignia. We found ourselves in a grand room on the piano nobile. Someone was giving and oration and it looked like we hadn't missed much.

I suddenly realized that Cardinal Pell was standing before a little dais--a dais with a throne--there was a cardinal all in scarlet standing not three yards away and I was--well, it had to be--I was in the throne room of the Grand Master of the Order.

One of our hosts (Mr. d'Apice, the KC*HS), resplendent in a sober black suit sparked with the order's scarlet enamel cross at his neck, was narrating something rather long and involved about Australian history and relating it to the career of His Eminence, from his youthful days as a heavy-duty rugby plater to his being raised to the purple only a few hours earlier.

I started recognizing people and names and habits. The well-coiffed young lady standing a few feet away from me had gotten her face on the television screen at the Consistory. She'd read the second of the Prayers of the Faithful in sonorous antipodean English. All around me were the scarlet sashes of Propaganda Fide seminarians.

And then I realized George Weigel was standing behind me. I said hi and introduced myself again. He remembered me from my lengthy questions I'd dropped on him at the Domus Guadalupe after his lecture there last week. Somehow, he didn't seem to be terribly astonished that I was here for no logical reason.

The speech continued. My Australian friend moved towards the frescoed wall where his wife and young daughter had taken a seat beneath the window. I had a look around the room, the cotton-candy early-Renaissance colors of the illusionistic frescoes splendidly lit with floodlights. I took a moment to salivate over the elegant display of medals in a marquetry display case in one corner.

Then I realized, with the applause, it was time to move into the next room. An assortment of canapes had been neatly laid out in classic Italian style. We toasted His Eminence George Cardinal Pell and sang the (incorrect) English version of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." And then I helped myself to some pate and tried to mime to the waiters that the acqua minerale naturale was not naturale enough. Oh well. I think someone then presented the Cardinal with the star and sash of the order in a Moroccan leather case and then it got set on a sideboard. Worth investigating later.

And so then I got to work schmoozing. There were potentially cool people around and I didn't want to miss my shot at meeting them.

I'm pretty good at receptions, even if I don't know most of the people there. I had a couple of false starts after unsuccessfully trying to ride on George Weigel's coattails. I realized fairly quickly he had better things to do than introduce me to his cool bishop friends. I favor a fairly direct approach, and quite surprisingly, it worked. "Dominican? Big fan of your order!" "Knight of St. Gregory? Honor to meet you!" "I think that's a portrait of Pius VII up there on the wall, you know. I tried to write a novel about him once."

It only backfired once, which isn't too bad of a record. I tried to chat about the Knights with a dour Palestinian priest in a cassock whose witticism about the financial instability of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem turned out to be no joke. It was a bit too late to take back my hearty laugh at this point. He didn't seem too interested at my attempts to identify the darkened oil portraits of churchmen hanging on the scarlet walls.

I decided to cut my losses and excused myself.

Still, I'd met some amazing people. My chatter about Pius VII had led to a long and pleasantly involved conversation about Church History with an enthusiastic Redemptorist moral theologian. He told me to drop by the Alponsinum out near John Lateran sometime.

Meanwhile, showing a copy of one of my drawings to our very own KC*HS, Mr. d'Apice, caused him to say, "you should put more heraldry in." Pavlov was ringing his bell for sure. Shields, flags, tournaments and chivalry are like catnip to me, and so I quickly realized I'd met the only other person in the world with whom I could compare notes on cardinal's shields, gallero tassels and that pressing question, "Archbishop Heim: so good or no good?" Raise your hand if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Ah, I thought so. I'll move on.

Anyway, he was appreciative and gave me his card. I plan to write him plenty if I cook up some new theory about fleurs-de-lys or what to do if your torse is showing. Maybe he can pass it onto the Garter King of Arms or the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. I mean, knights probably know people like that, don't they? At the very least they must use the same drycleaning service for all those ceremonial robes.

Later, I sneaked over to the sideboard and had a peek inside the case at the Cardinal's new medals, enamel and brass winking in the darkness. Coolness.

I also exchanged some pleasant words with that fashionable young lady lector from the mass (Hi Alexis, if you're reading this). She was well-turned-out in knee-length tweeds and was articulate, intelligent and highly orthodox. I'd assumed she was the Cardinal's niece or somesuchlike, but she was actually here to represent Australia's Catholic youth and their hopes and dreams. And their demand that catechism teachers at least know which end of the crucifix points up. Her experiences at Catholic schools, in her faith and life mirrored those of my friends back at Notre Dame. I'd met my first Australian Catholic nerd, certainly a momentous occasion.

There were some Pell females there, maybe an actual niece or two, or cousins, sisters and aunts, including a rather intimidating, glacial Amazonian Princess Di-lookalike who had to be at least seven feet tall in heels. Yeesh. I decided to pass on talking to her chin.

My Australian friend, watching the time, decided it was best to steer ourselves towards the Cardinal himself, who was now ensconced in one corner of the Room eating the last of the canapes off a tray held by the non-KC*HS host. I had my Matt-does-Albrecht Durer drawings in a tube under my arm and the Rome Studies Program Director's card in my wallet. Notre Dame, you know, always likes clerical visitations.

I'll say this about Ozzie rules football-players-turned-cardinals. They're very friendly. My Australian friend gave me a little intro, and I took the ball and ran with it. His Eminence listened with interest as we filled him in on the wonders of Notre Dame and classicism and beautiful new churches. I unrolled my work before him and he patiently took in all the details and symbols of my interpretations of the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena and the Ecstasy of St. Teresa. He was due for an interview and probably already running late, so I was grateful for the few minutes. He promised to visit the school some time, and I actually believe he will some day.

The caterers and stewards (the Sepulchre knights do a mean canapé, let me tell you) were ushering us out of the suite of rooms and hearding us back to the main hall. I had just a few more glimpses of the empty Grand Master’s office, which was where I had chatted with the enthusiastic Redemptorist. Then back out through the enfilade, rooms going past in the semidarkness in a blur of cardinal scarlet and gloomy official portraiture.

The evening was over, and the little crowd dissipated quickly into the golden-orange and purple of a street-lit Roman night. I shook hands with my Australian friend and his wife and patted their baby daughter on the head one last time. My friend says their little girl is becoming quite a good observer, always focusing on the best paintings or sculpture in every church they visit. Coming to Rome so young, she'd seen more in her first six months than most people ever experience. This evening alone, well, it had to be quite an addition to her growing collection of sights and sounds that perhaps she doesn’t understand yet.

And one to mine, too. I'll remember kissing the Cardinals ring, certainly, but I'll never forget either the knights and priests and laymen and Propaganda Fide seminarians in their peculiar cassocks and, of course, Australia's first Catholic nerd, wherever she is now. But most of all, I’ll remember that the Cardinal saved a little time for me, a stranger from well outside his diocese, when he could have been seeing a reporter and perhaps furthering his career another inch or two. If they’re anything like Pell, I think we could do with more ex-footballers in the College of Cardinals.

Hey, at the least, maybe we could further ecumenism by having rugby matches with the World Council of Churches. But seriously, many blessings on His Eminence. I will look forward to hearing of his future adventures with much hope.