Barberini was inclined to agree. “I know nothing of the council they have in that other time, but now? I doubt we could even hold the Council of Trent again in these times. Not so? After the breviary fiasco?”
Vitelleschi nodded. His Holiness had, a couple of years before, tried to convene a committee to reform the breviary; it was overdue to be done. Months of bickering had resulted in a testy pope ordering the discussions ended with virtually nothing to show and a breviary that was, if anything, worse than before.
“And have you an opinion as to these new doctrines?” Barberini’s aesthete manner was as arch as he could make it. He only technically outranked the father-general, otherwise known as the Black Pope for the power he usually chose not to wield.
“When His Holiness has read sufficient, heard sufficient and prayed sufficient to have an opinion, that will be my opinion also.” Vitelleschi’s eyes seem to close still further. “If His Holiness wishes my advice, I shall give it, of course. I have, as it happens, read the entirety of the books which Mazarini brought back with him, not simply the summary. But I will speak on each point separately, and in public only if His Holiness asks that of me.”
“Thank Christ for hierarchy, eh?” Barberini guffawed, briefly.
Vitelleschi smiled. “I believe we need to take one immediate action. Information is our principal need at this time, and I will send to Grantville for a summary of what they have that we have not already seen. That will inform our thinking in more detail. Most important.”
Barberini nodded. “It is. And your plan beyond that?”
“It is not a plan as yet. But I believe that Richelieu is suitably warned of what he is up against, as we took pains to send Monsignor Mazarini and his American companion Signor Lefferts to Paris, however briefly either might have remained. And, in the fullness of time, we will take further action if the Church remains beset by France and Spain in concert.”
“You believe this United States could be an ally?”
“I believe they may be convinced to be an effective enemy of our enemy. Allies?” Vitelleschi shook his head. “In a hundred years, perhaps. With much reform in both the Church and in the United States. Perhaps.”
Barberini stared hard. “Muzio, either you really are addled in your wits or you are playing the deepest game I have ever seen.”
Vitelleschi’s smile was, again, brief. “I have learned a thing or two from my brethren in the Japans. I commend their reports to your reading.”
Barberini cocked his head on one side. “Muzio, you mentioned reform in the United States. What are you planning?”
“No more than the Society ever plans. We open schools and wait. Give us boys of impressionable years, Your Eminence, and we will answer for the actions of the men.”
“Including Tilly? Wallenstein?”
Vitelleschi was not smiling, now. “Yes, Your Eminence. Including the Tilly who tried to prevent the sack of Magdeburg. And including the Wallenstein whose administration of his estates is among the most enlightened in Europe. We will answer for them, for good or ill.”
Barberini looked away. It was at moments like this that he was reminded of the vast gulf that separated him—and all of the Barberini clan, including his uncle Pope Urban VIII—from the Father-General of the Societas Jesu. All of them were pious men, to be sure. But none of the Barberini, not even the pope himself, had the pure raw faith of Muzio Vitelleschi.
It was odd, really. Vitelleschi was much like them, in so many other ways. Immensely sophisticated, learned, cosmopolitan—as astute in the devious and intricate corridors of political power and maneuver as any man in Europe. He even shared the Barberini pleasure in art and science. But, in the end, he was no Renaissance prince of the Church. He was shaped and stamped, molded and formed, in the same manner that had produced the Basque soldier who had founded the Jesuits. There was something ultimately medieval about the man.
Not for the first time, also, Cardinal Barberini was relieved that Inigo Lopez had included that fourth vow of obedience. He shuddered to think what Muzio Vitelleschi would be like as an enemy, instead of—as he certainly was—the pope’s most faithful servant.