The Cardinal

- Good morning, Excellency.

- Good morning, Monsignor.

- Alfeo.

- Stefano.

Everyone was shocked at my coming here.

They think I'm trying to steal your show.

You've helped make it.

I thought I wouldn't see you

till the ceremony at St. Peter's.

I won't be there.

I'm going to Warsaw tonight

to meet with the Cardinals of Vienna...

and I won't be back

till you've left for America.

So I thought I would take this chance

to tell you...

well, nothing really...

just to have a look at you

and our old school...

and slip out of here

as inconspicuously as I can.

I'm glad you decided to forget protocol.

I would have hated not seeing you at all.

- Especially the way things look.

- Yes.

Poland seems to be Hitler's next target.

Once again, we may have a war

to separate us.

God bless you, Stefano.

Father Fermoyle.

Your Excellency.

It's a day of glory, Stefano...

though I don't like to think how long

it may be before we see each other again.

I don't know when

I'll ever be back in Rome...

but perhaps you'll come

to Boston some day, or New York.

It's possible, when this war is over.

I'm more likely to travel

in my new post at the Vatican...

than I was as a seminary lector.

But, you'll come back to Rome.

Most parish priests in America

don't get the chance.

You will not be like most parish priests.

I've read your new chapters.

And as usual, I think they are splendid.

But as usual...

that hasn't stopped me from writing...

almost as many pages of notes

as there are in the manuscript.

- You must finish this book, Stefano.

- I intend to.

I just hope wherever I'm sent,

it isn't too far from a decent library.

You will manage, even in America.

Over the years...

I had very few students

with your special talents.

Not only scholarship.

I've watched how you handle people.

I have even watched how you handle me.

If you noticed, then it wasn't very skillful.

I am an unusually observant man.

Seriously, Stefano, I expect a lot from you.

You have a fine mind,

and a way of coming to grips with life...

that is, well, Roman.

Your Excellency couldn't have chosen

a word to flatter me more.

But you also have a drive

that can be described only as American.

It makes a good mixture.

We need that drive over here.

We need it now, in this war...

if the Kaiser and his partners

are ever to be defeated.

Do you think it will happen that way,

America join the Allies?

As an Italian, I hope so, but...

what a nation will do is hard to predict.

Even for a member

of the Vatican Diplomatic Corps?

As of today, I'm still a teacher...

and I make predictions

only about my students.

You know the ring I wear?

This one also was designed

by Dolcettiano...

in the great days of Florence.

Three times in as many centuries...

there have been two bishops at once

in the Quarenghi family to wear them.

But when my brother died...

that was the end of the tradition.

I want you to have his ring, Stefano.

I couldn't.

A bishop's ring?

Not for now.

For when the day comes.

Keep it for then.

There he is! Steve!

- Do you see him?

- Steve!

Okay, Father, go ahead.

Florrie.

Hello, Frank.

Monie!

Is that really my little sister?

Notice anything different?

As a priest, I guess I should say no...

but I'm not supposed to tell lies, either.

Where's Dad?

I hear the clergy travels free of charge

on Dennis Fermoyle's car.

Is that a fact, now?

The hell, you say!

Steve!

Hello, Dad.

Look at him now, will you?

Stiff as a board, he is,

in that fine Italian suit.

But no matter, we'll soon wilt the

Roman starch from that collar of yours.

Dad's already talked to his old buddy,

Monsignor Monaghan.

"Don't make it too easy for my boy,"

Dad said...

"not good for his character."

I said no such thing.

He made him promise not to promote you

to bishop the first day.

But you're going to be, aren't you?

He can't avoid it.

It's nearly impossible to make cardinal,

unless you're a bishop first.

Now pay your fares, the lot of you.

This is no politician looking after his own.

You get no favors from your father

on the Boston Municipal.

How well the new plaster

and wood matches the old.

They all comment on it, Corny.

And what do you say to that?

The job was done by the Cornelius

J. Deegan Construction Company...

without charge,

as a donation to the parish.

That's telling 'em, Monsignor...

but let me give you some of my cards

for next time it comes up.

They remember the name better

if they see it written.

Thank you.

I'll see they find their way

to the right pockets.

You do that.

I was forgetting to mention our drive

for a new heating system.

You mentioned it.

You'll be posting a list of the contributors,

no doubt.

So I have to give what people expect

from a Papal Knight.

I don't know if you knew, Stephen,

I was sent a decoration from the Pope.

Knights of Malta.

Yes, my father wrote me about it.

Did he, now?

And how's old Din coming along?

Bursting out of his britches, I daresay,

with pride over you.

Give him my best, will you?

And tell him it's the old days

I'm missing yet...

before I was rich enough to become

the white-headed boy of this parish.

Look at the size of it, will you?

Raising money is a necessary part

of running a parish, I guess.

If that fancy training of yours didn't cover

the care in handling of millionaires...

what is it they were teaching you, then?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes