Do I accept the burden of Peter? My mouth goes dry. Memories cascade through my mind—the tiny kitchen in our home outside Naples where Mama stretches every lira to feed us, the crumbling parish church where I first feel God’s presence, the seminary where I hide my deepest self.
“Accepto,” I whisper, sealing my fate.
* * *
The cobblestone streets of Castellammare di Stabia glisten after rain, the air thick with salt from the Bay of Naples. I run through puddles, nine years old and heedless of my soaked sandals.
“Marco! Your shoes!” Mama calls from our doorway, her face lined with exhaustion after her shift at the cannery.
“Let him play, Maria,” Papa says, ruffling my hair as I skid to a stop. “The boy works hard enough at school.”
At dinner later that evening, huddled in our small kitchen, Papa coughs blood into his handkerchief. Three months later, he is gone—lung disease from years in the shipyard. Mama takes on a second job cleaning for the wealthy summer residents. I start serving as an altar boy at the Chiesa di San Vincenzo.
Father Benetti notices my dedication, the way I linger after Mass to study the Latin texts. “You have a calling, young Marco,” he tells me one evening. “I see it in how you serve.”
At fourteen, I know he is right about the calling. I also know something else—something I dare not speak aloud. When other boys talk of girls, my eyes stray to Paolo, who delivers bread each morning with flour dusting his dark curls.
I remember one summer dawn, helping Father Benetti prepare for early Mass. Paolo arrives with the communion bread, his thin white shirt damp with sweat from his bicycle ride through town. Sunlight streams through the stained glass, casting coloured patterns across his olive skin. He laughs at something Father says, and the sound makes my stomach tighten.
“Try this,” Paolo says when Father steps away, breaking off a corner of non-consecrated bread. His fingers brush mine as he places it in my palm. “My mother added honey to the recipe.”
The sweetness melts on my tongue. Paolo watches my reaction, standing close enough that I can smell the yeast and flour on his clothes. “Good?” he asks, and I can only nod, my voice trapped somewhere between desire and shame.
That night, I kneel beside my bed until my knees bruise the floor, praying desperately for these feelings to pass. I beg God to make me normal, to let me desire what I should. When sleep finally comes, Paolo’s smile follows me into dreams that leave me twisted in sweat-soaked sheets by morning.
The seminary offers escape and purpose. I bury myself in theology, canon law, the writings of the Church Fathers. If I study hard enough, pray fervently enough, perhaps these sinful feelings and desires of the flesh will fade.
They never do. They simply go underground, like water carving caves beneath the earth’s surface—unseen but ever-present, shaping me in ways I cannot acknowledge even to myself.
* **
“Habemus Papam!” The announcement thunders across St. Peter’s Square as thousands erupt in cheers.
I step onto the balcony, the weight of two thousand years of tradition draped across my shoulders in white vestments. Below, a sea of faces turns upward, cameras flash, and the faithful weep with joy.
“Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum,” Cardinal Rossi proclaims beside me. “I announce to you a great joy: We have a Pope!”
The crowd roars as he announces my papal name—Pius XIV, chosen to honour the tradition I respect while signalling my hope for a church that serves the poor and marginalized.
Later, after the rituals and blessings, after the congratulations of cardinals who mere days before had barely noticed me, I find myself alone in the papal apartment. The opulence strikes me—gilded furniture, priceless art, thick carpets beneath my feet. So far from Mama’s kitchen with its chipped tiles and faded curtains.
I cross to the window, gazing out at the lights of Rome. How has this happened? A compromise candidate, they call me. Young enough to be malleable, traditional enough to be trusted. If they only knew my thoughts, my private struggles, my dreams for reform.
I sink onto the edge of the massive bed, overwhelmed. My entire life has been preparation for service, but not this. Never this.
The memory of Cardinal Gallo’s collapsed form haunts me. Has the Holy Spirit truly intervened, or am I merely the beneficiary of political calculation and tragic timing?
* * *
Father Donato had caught me in the seminary library, tears streaming down my face at twenty-two.
“What troubles you, Marco?” he asked, sitting beside me.
I couldn’t tell him about the letter from home—Mama’s illness,the mounting bills—nor about the deeper anguish: the handsome seminarian from Florence who’d brushed my hand during Vespers, igniting feelings I’d fought to suppress.
“I fear I’m not worthy,” I whispered instead.
“None of us are.” His smile was kind. “That’s the mystery of vocation. God calls the unworthy and makes them instruments of grace.”
