Pope St John Paul II meets with then US president Ronald Reagan in Fairbanks, Alaska in May 1984. 
Cold war novel Conclave is a reminder JPII’s significance for the Church and the world, writes Ruadhán Jones
Conclave, the new fictional account of the election of Pope St John Paul II, opens in the recent past – 27 April, 2014 to be exact. It’s a significant day for the Catholic Church. On that day, Pope Francis celebrated the canonisation Mass for two former Popes – Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.
Author Tom Davis, a former American army general, diplomat, professor and businessman, deliberately opened with that sequence to reassure any Catholic readers that whatever this book is, it is not a hatchet job.
“Whether you believe the doctrinaire process involving the Holy Spirit or whether you believe a degree of more secular political intrigue that goes on in such a process, it turns out fine,” Davis says. “You got a fellow elected as Pope who people respect. At his canonisation you had people holding up signs Sancto Sabito – ‘Sainthood now’.
“Whichever way you want to interpret it, it still turned out for the benefit of the Church and in John Paul II’s reign, in my view, to the benefit of the world in a global context.”
The novel centres on a fictional effort by the Americans and the Soviets to influence the papal election following Pope John Paul I’s death. Due to the best efforts of two fictional American agents, Carter Caldwell and Katherine O’Connor, as well as a number of real cardinals, nuns and agents from both sides, the Americans are eventually victorious in promoting the election of Karol Wotyla, later Pope John Paul II.
When I ask him if there’s any chance that his account is true, he chuckles and says, “absolutely not”. While many real figures are central to his story, the idea itself was the result of a conversation with Davis’ Washington superior back in the early 80s.
“I was sitting there one day when a close-aid and secretary of State, Hague, walked by and invited me to join him for lunch in the executive dining room,” Davis explains. “I’m thinking as we go, what am I going to talk to this guy about? The first thing that popped into my head was that I had seen on the news that John Paul II was back out making public appearances after having been shot the year before.
“So I commented on this to this fellow. He leaned conspiratorially across the table and said, ‘Well, as you know, his entire election as Pope was orchestrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski. It was a Polish thing.’ Brzezinski had been then-President Carter’s national security adviser.
“Years later, I became friendly with Brzezinski’s sons and I shared with both of them that little story and both of them got a big chuckle and said of course it’s not true, how would you possibly do that? I decided well, that had been in my head for 37 years, I think I could make a story of that.”
John Paul II
However, though the central ‘hook’ is more fantasy then fact, Davis, with a background as a lecturer and army general, invests the book with a great deal of factual, historical interest. St John Paul II’s election was remarkable in many different ways: he was the first non-Italian Pope in nearly 500 years; his was the second papal election in 1978, following the sudden death of Pope John Paul I; and it came at a time when his home country of Poland was behind the Iron Curtain. His legacy both for the Church and the world continues to this day.
“Just think about it,” Mr Davis says. “13 years after John Paul II is elected the Soviet Union collapses. I think one of the things that stimulated that collapse was that he got people to think about another way of life and a more open way of life.
“One of the thoughts in the book that you see is that, with John Paul II, who’s Polish, who comes from the European Warsaw Pact zone, after he becomes Pope one of the first things he does is go to Poland and hold an outdoor Mass with 3 million people – the population of Poland is 30 million – that’s an amazing thing, that he can rally to get that many people to an outdoor Mass, at a time when the Polish economy is under great stress – inflation is rampant, you’re beginning to see the start of the Labour movement up in Gdansk.
“What you see is a fellow who interacts because of who he is – a native Pole who has interacted with the communist regime effectively all his life, who I think eventually does have a major impact on history as it goes forward.”
Influence
Mr Davis illustrates the influence of the Pope with an anecdote from a former aide to President Ronald Reagan. This aide worked as the note-taker for Reagan’s meetings with various world leaders. But for the meeting with the Pope, he was sent from the room – Pope John Paul II insisted on complete privacy.
“The only hint I ever got,” the aide told Mr Davis, “was after one of the meetings I was passing through the West Wing and President Reagan called me over and asked me ‘What are we doing about poverty in Latin America’. Well sir, I don’t really know, that’s not my area but I’ll guess probably not a lot. The president said, ‘Well go find out what we’re doing. The Pope is all over me about this.’”
“That of course would be quite consistent with JPII’s outlook,” Mr Davis says. “That message about poverty, income was obviously one message that JPII was conveying to President Reagan.”
Cold War
Pope John Paul’s election indicated a change of ‘policy’, if it could be called that, by the Catholic Church with regard to the Soviet Union. This historical background is perhaps the most fascinating element in the novel, introducing a swathe of real figures who were the big players in the Church at the time.
“There were 111 cardinals who were the voting electorate for both conclaves,” Mr Davis explains. “I went through and looked at the backgrounds of all of them and they’re all fascinating people and I was reminded of something that I did recall from days gone by that Cardinal Koenig who I give a major role to in the book had always been used by Pope Paul [VI] as essentially his emissary to the Eastern Block.
“In fact the, Pope Paul VI had used Koenig as an intermediary to get Cardinal [József] Mindszenty who had been held in the American embassy in Budapest for 15 years after the failed Hungarian revolt in 1956 because the Soviets had accused him of having instigated it and supporting it. It was Koenig who did the intermediary work with the Eastern block to get him released and removed back into the Western World.
“There was an interaction that would go on in that way, but there was never any area in particular that the Church would try to engage with the tension that was going on between the East and the West and to the extent that it did, it was somewhat limited.”
That is, until Pope John Paul II was elected. It is not true though, nor does Mr Davis claim, that it was not opposed on the ground. The aforementioned Cardinal Mindszenty is of particular interest here, for he was an outspoken critic both of fascist and communist regimes in Hungary.
Conclave
Mr Davis, at the start of the interview, explains that he isn’t a Catholic. The initial idea for the story came through a chance encounter; this seed took root in already fertile soil, however, as Davis already had an interest in the Catholic Church.
Raised in a Baptist community in Kentucky, his first real contact with Catholicism came through a visit to Rome and the Vatican itself. Mr Davis remembers being impressed by the architecture and the general aura of the city.
“I remember the driver pulling up and saying, ‘This is the Vatican and this is the main Church in the Roman Catholic Church’,” Mr Davis says. “And I just remember looking up at this huge building thinking my goodness, this must be an awfully important religion. Because Oak Grove Baptist Church would comfortably sit in the porch at the front entrance.”
Not long after, Pope Pius XII died and Mr Davis was fascinated by the process which followed in the election of Pope John XXIII. His election was the first to be widely televised. “I remember turning on the news back in the US and the cardinals all arriving and they had on the red robes and all the accoutrements that go with the Catholic religion and leaders. I was just really fascinated by it.”
Next followed the debates among the evangelical community around the 1960 American election, when John F. Kennedy became only the second Catholic to run for the presidency. And finally, while teaching at West Point, the US military academy, one of the courses was on comparative political systems – one of which was the Vatican’s election system.
“That was my first exposure to what happens in a conclave, which is something fascinating because it happens in the Western world however its almost totally opaque, what’s going on,” he explains. “As a friend told me years and year ago, I think we know more about how they elect the general secretary of the Soviet Union then how they elect the Pope.
“It is something that happens in the Western world which has a democratic flavour but which is highly secretive. So looking into the actual workings insofar as one can do that, I found it a fascinating leadership selection process which I think has been highly effective for the Church.”
He also notes that, back in the 1980s, two-thirds of cadets in West Point, the American Sandhurst effectively, were Catholic.
“Looking back on it I think you can see a lot of similarities between the military and the Catholic Church,” he says. “There’s ritual, there’s a hierarchy – the priest, monsignor, bishop archbishop, cardinal. the military has sergeants, lieutenants, generals – the rules and regulations are quite specific in many ways. The military tends to be an attractive place for Catholics – I don’t know if that’s still the case or not.”
Accuracy
Mr Davis was at pains to ensure that the book would be respectful of Catholic beliefs, while also defending the possibility that political influence can play a role in papal elections.
“I know for a devout Catholic is the idea that they summon the Holy Spirit, sing the litany of the saints, seeking guidance,” he says. “If that’s your belief, then I wanted to be respectful of that. If on the other hand you accept that there is a degree of political process to this – as we know from some historical examples such as 1903 when the Archduke of Hungary sent a message into the Conclave about who he found acceptable and unacceptable – if you believe that is also a possibility, that is also mentioned by the book.”
In order to ensure that he was doing justice to the Church, Mr Davis sought the advice of a devout Catholic friend. He read the draft for him, to point out where he could any factual mistakes Mr Davis made regarding the process.
“To my great delight, he told me that he learned more than he had ever known about how a conclave works,” Mr Davis said. “But the second reason I wanted him to read it was to make sure that the book was being respectful to the Church within the boundaries that I had a fictional account – he gave me a thumbs up on it.”
Faith
When I ask Mr Davis about his own faith life, he is quite candid with me, explaining that while still a Christian and a theist, he has become disappointed with his own church.
“In all candour, I’ve been somewhat disappointed in the United States about some of the perspectives taken and the positions offered in the places where my roots are in the Southern Baptist evangelical movement. I’ve been very disappointed with the insertion they have made into the American political spectrum. Because of that, I’ve somewhat stepped back from the active religious dimension.”
However, one of the effects of this novel has been to reinvigorate his interest in the Catholic Faith.
I’ve a cousin who was a Methodist and is now a Catholic – she and I have been in discussions, my wife and I have been in discussions as well. We’ve a Catholic church just down the street from us in Seattle and maybe we want to go and approach that. One of the things from the book is that you may get a convert out of it!”
Conclave is published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform and is available in bookstores worldwide and online.
