The First Woman Cardinal of the Catholic Church, I   By Melissa Tawn   A cardinal of the Catholic Church undergoes SRS and legally becomes a woman. Can the Vatican cope?

Mary-Anne Cardinal O’Connor walked slowly but purposefully towards the room in which the hearing was to take place. She was not wearing the ceremonial robes to which she was entitled, but rather a simply-cut purple silk business suit, with hemline modestly below the knees. Her shoes were comfortable, despite their stylish three-inch heel. Her perfectly-done hairdo showed traces of white attesting to her 50 years, and her makeup was so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. She wore no jewelry save for a large gold pectoral cross, a copy of an original crafted by Cellini for Cardinal de Medici, later looted by Napoleon, and now exhibited with honor in the Louvre. She carried no purse or briefcase, only a breviary.

It was but one month after the sensational news conference at which it was revealed that Mark Anthony O’Connor, cardinal of the Catholic church and acclaimed as the most original and charismatic theological thinker since Peter Abelard, had undergone sexual reassignment surgery and was now, legally (according to Italian and European law) and officially, a woman. At that conference, Cardinal O’Connor explained that she was now barred by canon law from celebrating the mass and hearing confessions, and did not intend to do so. However, there was no canonical reason why she should resign her membership in the College of Cardinals and she had no intention of doing that either.

Cardinal O’Connor had been elevated to the College of Cardinals by the late beloved Pope J**, generally considered a sure candidate for beatification in the near future. It was his brilliantly-written and meticulously-argued position papers which led the Great Vatican Council to reform so many aspects of the church, bringing it into tune with the twentieth century. The elevation came shortly after the Council concluded, and was taken to be a sign that future reforms were yet on the way. But then, within less than a year, the Pope suddenly died of a heart attack. His successor, a mild and gentle man, could not stand under the pressures of his great office, and he too died within a few months of his selection. The next man selected had been an outsider, of vigorous physical constitution, but of different temper than J**. He had his own close advisors and Cardinal O’Connor soon found that he had been shunted to head an important-sounding but essentially meaningless and powerless commission, and edged away from positions of real influence. After two years, he asked — and all too quickly received — permission to be relieved of his duties for a year of prayer and meditation. He disappeared from view until the press conference that shocked the Vatican and the Catholic world.

While Cardinal O’Connor believed that her position as a member of the College of Cardinals was secure, the Holy Father clearly had other views of the matter. Within a week, he announced the formation of a special tribunal of inquiry into the matter, to be headed by the conservative and crafty Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Leone. The tribunal had already held one meeting, at which questions posed by the Holy Father were read, and opinions against Cardinal O’Connor were presented, some of them extremely hostile. Today was the second meeting, at which Cardinal O’Connor would get a chance to rebut these.

As Mary-Anne entered the room, she could feel the tension in the air. The members of the tribunal, her erstwhile colleagues, some of whom she had considered close friends as well, looked at her as though she were a freak in a circus. She did not cower, however. She looked at them with dignity, sat in the place allotted to her, and began her response.

“Your eminences,” she explained, “it is best to begin at the beginning …”

“… I was, as you know, born of a poor but pious Irish family, the fifth of seven children. From my youngest days, I had always felt that “something was wrong” and that I should really have been a girl. Often, when I had the chance, I would dress in my sisters’ clothes and pretend that I was a girl just like they were. I knew, however, that according to the teachings of the church, these actions were considered a sin, and so I was careful to do it only in secret, so that none could find out. As I entered my teens, this conflict in me caused me to be a loner — shunning the company of boys and girls alike — for fear that my secret would come out. I spent hours reading religious books trying to understand what was happening to me, but to no avail. As I grew, I became convinced that only by thoroughly learning the ways of God, could I finally understand myself. When I was 15, a chance opened up to go to Rome to study here in a course which would lead to the priesthood. I applied for the position and, since I was a good student, my application was accepted. (Cardinal O’Connor is being modest here; at the time, he was already considered the most gifted genius to have ever attended his school, in its 300 years of existence, and perhaps ever to have attended any school in Ireland.)

I came to Rome, but the change of location did not quell my inner unrest. Indeed, I felt lonelier and more confused than before. Finally, one day, I felt I could no longer take it and had to unburden myself in confession, something which I had never done before. I poured out my heart and my feelings in the confessional, and the priest who heard me answered with understanding. He asked only that I look deep within myself, to make sure that my feelings were authentic. He did not reprimand me, as I had expected he would.

Later that day, I was called to the office of the principal of the school. The Vatican official in charge of the education of future priests had paid a surprise visit and he wanted to show off his prize pupil -- me -- to the visitor. This visitor was, of course, a well-known man, about 20 years my senior, and generally considered by the gossip (to which all schoolboys paid extreme attention) as an up-and-coming power in the church. After a moment’s conversation, I realized that the voice was that of the priest to whom I had confessed earlier that day. He too apparently figured that out too, for he suggested that, since it was a nice spring day, we should continue our conversation while walking in the school’s garden. As we walked together, far from the earshot of others, talking about school matters, he suddenly changed the subject and told me that, yes, it was he who had heard my confession earlier. Fantasies, he said, are not, in themselves, wrong. He too had a persistent fantasy — though a very different one from mine. Having taken a vow of celibacy, he fantasized what it would be like to live a “normal” life, with a wife a children, whom he could love, educate, and care for. If I had a daughter, he said, I would hope she would be just like you.

We talked some more, and, by whatever means, a symbiosis emerged, one about which neither of us had dreamed, but which we obviously both wanted and needed. The next time we met, it was not on the school grounds, but in an out-of-the-way café in one of the suburbs of the city. He was dressed this time not as a priest but in the slacks and turtleneck sweater of a typical Italian middle-class businessman. I was dressed in a semi-revealing top and skirt that were all the rage among Italian teenagers of the day. For the rest of the afternoon, we were father and daughter. He took me shopping, sightseeing, and dining. Two weeks later, we met again, and then again. Soon, we had established a definite pattern: once every two weeks we each escaped into our intermeshing fantasy worlds — he as a man of the world and me as his daughter. Let me emphasize, your eminences, that the relationship was totally chaste. The most intimate thing we ever did was that he would give me a fatherly kiss on the forehead when our meetings came to an end.

We toured museums and galleries, during the summer we went to the seashore and the mountains. We talked of many things — of the history of Rome, of its architecture and art, of its customs and traditions. We talked of fashions and popular culture, but also of the world and where it was going. We saw, and discussed, how the church was becoming less and less relevant to the lives of the ordinary citizens. We even stopped into churches at random and saw the boredom and irrelevance of it all, from the point of view of the audience sitting before an indifferent and self-absorbed priest, mumbling mainly to himself.

And I was growing up. I finished my school days and started studying in a seminary. My Father and Protector was advancing in the church hierarchy. One day, he asked me what I saw my future to be. In my role as his daughter, to which I had become so accustomed, I answered what was truthfully in my mind: I want to become a nun. Not a cloisered nun, father, but one out in the world, who works with the poor.

At our next meeting, he was not alone, but rather with a woman his age. Though she was not dressed in a habit, I quickly recognized her as Sister Sophia, founder of the famous order of poor sisters known and praised in the popular press as the “midnight angels of Rome” -- nuns who roam the city streets late at night, locating and taking care of the poor, the homeless, and the neglected. Sophia was a world-wise woman. She had been a fashionable courtesan of considerable repute in her day who, suddenly, left her profession at the height of her renown and joined the church. She had met many “girls” like me, and was not in the least shocked by it. After a long and probing talk, she accepted me into her order.

For the next twenty years, your eminences, I spent my nights as Sister Mary-Anne, the midnight angel. Along with other sisters of the order, I fed the hungry, found shelter for the homeless, clothed the naked, and comforted the despondent. I held girls of 13 and 14 in my arms as they tried to overcome the effects of excessive of alcohol or drugs, I midwifed dozens of babies in dirty alleys or in the backrooms of brothels, and made sure that mother and infant were sent to hospitals for proper care. I helped rescue women abused by their lovers, their husbands, or their pimps. I saw, and experienced, aspects of this city which you never see through the smoked glass windows of your limousines, nor can you possibly imagine.

And during the day, I continued my life first in the seminary and then, after ordination, as theological scholar and, later, teacher. You are all, I am sure, familiar with some of the many books and articles I wrote during that period, though many of you do not agree with them. My fantasy meetings with my Father and Protector stopped, as he was promoted and transferred to a city in the north of Italy, but I was already carving my own path upwards in the Vatican establishment. When J** was selected as Holy Father, I for the first time found that I could really influence the way the church was moving. This consumed all of my time and attention, and my nighttime existence as Sister Mary-Anne came to an end. I miss it still, for in my mind it was the most Christian labor I have ever done.

Upon the pope's tragic death, and as I lost the ability to help move events in the direction I felt necessary, my attention returned to my own self and I felt it was time to put my own soul in order. As you know, I applied for, and was granted, a leave of absence in order to meditate and pray. I chose a hermitage not far from Mount Tabor in the Galilee, where Christ himself had walked. There, surrounded by olive and almond trees, I was able, for the first time, to carefully consider my own predicament.

In Verse 27 of Chapter 1 of Genesis, we read about the creation of man, the following words, in the original Hebrew: “zachar u-nkevah braam”, which are generally translated as “male and female He created them”. The Hebrew conjunction “u” is generally interpreted as creating a dichotomy: EITHER male OR female. However, that is probably not a correct reading. It should more likely be considered as conjective: BOTH male AND female. (I will not tire you with a detailed philological analysis, but I ended up writing a long monograph on this with Prof. Evyatar Etsion of the Department of Biblical Philology of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which is now in press and which should be published shortly.) In other words, the soul of every human being has both a male and female aspect. One of these, as a rule, is more dominant than the other. However, both must be there in some measure.

When the dominant aspect of this gender identity corresponds to the physical characteristics of the body in which the soul sits, as is usually the case, there is no problem. But what if that does not happen? In the middle ages, a disfigured body was assumed to mirror a disfigured soul, and the clubfooted and hare lipped were social outcasts. We, of course, no longer believe that today. A club foot or a hare lip can be remedied surgically, and none of you would say that doing so is interfering with God’s plan. Why is it not the same for the case of gender? If, in my soul, the female aspect dominates, while my body is that of a male, is it wrong for me to surgically alter my mundane body to fit my God-given soul? Or must I torture my eternal soul in order to make it fit my mundane body?

On these questions, your eminences, I pondered for many months, before I reached the conclusion I reached. I am now in the process of writing them up in a formal, and rather lengthy, monograph, and I beg your indulgence and pardon that it will not be ready for several more months.

Towards the end of my sabbatical, I saw my path clear. A quick trip to Bangkok, and the hands of a very gifted and understanding surgeon, gave me the harmony between body and soul which I have craved since childhood. I am at peace with myself and, I believe, with my God. I pray that I will be at peace with my church as well.”

With those words, Cardinal O’Connor ended her testimony, and asked if there are any questions that need clarification. “Just one,” replied Cardinal Leone. “I would like to know the identity of the man you called your Father and Protector, the man who started you on the most terrible path that led to your present condition.” “I cannot reveal it,” replied Mary-Anne. He is no longer in this world, and I do not want to harm his blessed memory by having his name come out.” “We order you to reveal his name,” replied Cardinal Leone. “Remember that this tribunal is closed, and its protocols will never be made public.” “That assurance is not enough -- as we all know, leaks happen even at the Vatican. I will reveal his name,” replied Mary-Anne, “only if you add to that protection the seal of the confessional. If you all agree that this is as a confession, which must never be revealed to anyone on pain of death.” The cardinals in the room nodded their assent, and all secretaries and assistants left the room. Only ordained priests remained.

“You all knew him,” replied Mary-Anne, “under his apostolic name, Pope J**. He was my Father and Protector. After he named me cardinal, he joked with me in private that many popes in the past had been guilty of nepotism for naming their sons as cardinals, but he would surely go down as the first, to have named his daughter.”

After Cardinal O’Connor left the room, the tribunal met to consider its decision, which was announced the next day in a meeting open to the public and the press.

“The sole reason for removing a person from the College of Cardinals for reason other than physical inability to perform his duties is if a sin had been committed which led to that person’s initial nomination or in that person’s actions after nomination. No evidence of such a sin has been presented to the tribunal as yet. Moreover, interesting theological questions have been raised, which require much further study and consideration. Until the time such study is completed, or further evidence is presented, this tribunal will be adjourned. During the period of adjournment, Cardinal O’Connor will retain her position as a cardinal of the church.”

Mary-Anne, and everyone else in the room, including the representatives of the press, immediately grasped the significance of the pronoun in the last sentence. The tribunal would never be reconvened.

EPILOGUE: A few weeks after the events related above, Cardinal O'Connor was sitting in the Vatican Library when Ernesto Cardinal della Rovere, the oldest member of her tribunal, came up to her. "As you may know," he said, "I was very close to the late Holy Father J** when both of us were on the staff of the archbishop of Milan. One night, after a very long day of intensive work, he let slip that he had a daughter, whose progress in life he was following very closely. I assumed that this was the result of one of those temptations to which we all are subject at some point or another in our lives, and said the usual comforting words. 'This is very different,' he replied, 'and she is a very special daughter indeed. I would not be surprised if, one day, she will be chosen as Pope.' "