The Shoes of the Fisherman

Cardinal Leone:
Do you accept election?

[Kiril hesitates]

Cardinal Leone:
You must answer now. Do you accept election?

Kiril Lakota:
I accept. And may God have mercy on me.

Cardinal Leone:
By what name will you be called?

Kiril Lakota:
We choose to be called by our own name, Kiril. He was the saint that first brought the Gospels into our country.

Kiril Lakota:
[the Soviet representative has just informed Kiril of the conditions of his release, namely that he keep silent about conditions in the USSR] I cannot accept these conditions.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
They have been accepted for you.

George Faber:
The bell tolls. The Pope is dead. Listen to the bell. [Crossed himself. Cut to multiple shots of mourners in the streets of Rome] This is the death knell that rings... only for the pontiff. Listen - there is a second bell. Soon they will be joined by other bells all over the city, all over every city, all over the world. The Pope is dead.

Cardinal Rinaldi:
[standing before the cardinals in the conclave] My brothers. My brothers, we have already failed seven times to reach an election. I stand now to claim a right under canon law. In all humility, I proclaim to you my belief that there is among us a man already marked by God to sit in the chair of St. Peter. Like the first of the apostles this man has suffered prison stripes for the faith. The hand of God has led him out of bondage to join us in this conclave. I announce him as my candidate and dedicate to him my vote and my obedience. Kiril Cardinal Lakota.

Kiril Lakota:
[Stunned. Slowly rises] Thank you, Eminence. But I - I cannot consent to it.

Cardinal Rahamani:
[after a moment, rises] I too proclaim him.

Asian Cardinal:
[Rises] I also proclaim him.

George Faber:
It's the Russian. Kiril Lakota. They've elected a Russian Pope.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
I took you to pieces like a watch. And put you together again. It was a very intimate experience. I have never been able to forget it. May I ask you a question?

Kiril Lakota:
You never hesitated before.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
[laughs] That is true.

[Holds up a file]

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
This is you. Political prisoner 103592R, Kiril Pavlovich Lakota. All of you is here, from the day you were born until now. Except for the answer to one question. What have you learned in twenty years of confinement?

Kiril Lakota:
That is a big question, Piotr Ilyich.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
The answer is important to me, you know.

Kiril Lakota:
What I have learned? I have learned that without some kind of loving a man withers like a grape on a dying vine.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
Is that all?

Kiril Lakota:
[Chuckles] I am trying to learn more.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
Have you learned enough to face freedom?

Kiril Lakota:
[Long Pause] I have been free for a long time. Not entirely, perhaps. But you have not answered my question. Why have you brought me here?

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
I want to show you a world gone mad.

George Faber:
Were you ill treated during your confinement?

Kiril Lakota:
Oh, not for a long time now. More recently I have been working in heavy industry.

George Faber:
To that extent, then, you did submit yourself to the system.

Kiril Lakota:
In so far, Mr. Faber, as any system provides bread, work and dignity I am prepared to cooperate with it. These things are good in themselves whether they exist in Rome or in Siberia. And bread, work, and dignity do exist in Siberia.

George Faber:
Were you permitted to practice your ministry as a priest?

Kiril Lakota:
No, I - I practiced it without permission among my fellow prisoners.

George Faber:
Do you see any hope then for the day when Christian faith, or more specifically the Roman Catholic faith, may be practiced freely in Marxist countries?

Kiril Lakota:
I have no inside information as to how the Kingdom of God is going to be established.

The Elder Pope:
There is a legend about you. That once you were asked to deny the faith, and they tied up seven priests and shot them, shot them before your eyes. And still you would not deny the faith. Is that story true?

Kiril Lakota:
I try not to look back on that, or other days, Holiness.

The Elder Pope:
God is with you, my Brother. I believe that God has sent you. Trust us to make the best use of you. But first, you must be honored. [Hold up the red cap of a cardinal] Kneel. [Lakota kneels] You are created cardinal-priest in the title of Saint Athanasius.

Piotr Ilyich Kamenev:
Every day we ask ourselves what can we do about it before the nightmare turns itself into a mushroom cloud blotting out the sun.

George Faber:
I think, Eminence, you may have caught yourself a Tartar.

Cardinal Rinaldi:
I think we may have caught a Christian.

George Faber:
I don't presume to give advice to young women. They very seldom take it anyway.

Dr. Ruth Faber:
I am unreasonably jealous because jealousy makes me unreasonable.

Fr. David Telemond:
The doctors, they don't know anything. They're like the auto-mechanics.

Kiril Lakota:
You know, David, for many men belief is a place to crawl for safety. Of course, they will fear and accuse you. Your writings are a danger to their safety.

Fr. David Telemond:
I'm not afraid of being accused. I'm only afraid of being silenced.

Fr. David Telemond:
You know even God has not spoken his last word about his own creation.

Kiril Lakota:
I saw a brilliant mind reaching out to last frontiers of thought, a place where I wouldn't venture.

Kiril Lakota:
Mr. Chairman, what is your revolution built on? What is Russia's revolution built on? One man who spent most of his life in the British Museum who is buried in a tiny cemetery in England. Karl Marx never carried a gun, he was never fought on the barricades. All he had was words, words and an idea, which in 60 years has changed the face of the earth.

Kiril Lakota:
We are bound to charity first.

Kiril Lakota:
The only thing necessary to the Church is the Spirit of God.

Kiril Lakota:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and not charity, I am become a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing.

Kiril Lakota:
[the shadow of the cross is on the Pope's empty chair during this exchange of dialog] Leone, how does a man ever know if his actions are for himself or for God?

Cardinal Leone:
You don't know. You have a duty to act. But you have no right to expect approval, or even a successful outcome.

Kiril Lakota:
So, in the end, my friend, we are alone?

Cardinal Leone:
Yes. I have seen three men sit in this room. You are the last I shall see. Each of them, in his turn, came to where you stand now, the moment of solitude. I have to tell you there is no remedy for it. You are here until the day you die. And the longer you live, the lonelier you will become. You will use this man and that for the work of the church. But when the work is done, or the man has proved unequal to it, you will let him go and find another. You want love. You need it, as I do. Even though I am old. You may have it for a little while, but you will lose it again. Like it or not, you are condemned to a solitary pilgrimage, from the day of your election until the day of your death. This is a Calvary, Holiness. And you have just begun to climb.

The Marchesa:
I am an old-fashioned woman, Mr. Faber. I believe in life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. But you have to know the rules of the game.

Kiril Lakota:
You know, David, for many men belief is a place to crawl for safety. Of course, they will fear and accuse. Your writings are a danger to their safety.

Fr. David Telemond:
It is strange. When a president dies, he's replaced within an hour. When a king dies, long live the king. When a pope dies, everything stops.

Dying Man's Friend:
The dying is easy. It is the living that defeats us.

Kiril Lakota:
There is only one area to search. And if love is mislaid, where did you see it last? And if you can't remember, maybe there was no love in the first place.

Dr. Ruth Faber:
Oh, there was.

Kiril Lakota:
Then it is mislaid and you must find it.

Dr. Ruth Faber:
We're all in prison one way or another.

Kiril Lakota:
Yes, and those who understand it, suffer most of all.

Kiril Lakota:
My brothers, if this is the last sound made by the last living man, it must be shouted loud and clear. Life is a gift of God.

George Faber:
Now you're the protocol expert. Tell me, how did the British do it in the old heydays when they wanted to break off relations? Don't they teach you things like that at Cambridge?

George Faber:
Just when a man is about to say goodbye to his... tiny folly... what does he look up and see but his wife's green and penetrating orbs. And just as he's figured out a way to handle that unfortunate situation, by buying buckets of champagne, some flowers, a few crown jewels and some "let's get together" cards, a telephone rings and I'm called to Paris.

George Faber:
Darling, I would at least have tried to persuade you that I was definitely calling it off with Chiara.

Dr. Ruth Faber:
It'll be alright. I mean, not just about us. I know it will.

Inqusitor:
So, God is the author of Evil?

Defendant:
It has a place in His Plan.