Papal Decree by Luis Miguel Rocha Read Free Book Online

stores lit up appealingly. Sometimes he stopped by the Café Schwarzenberg to have a cup of hot coffee, and other times to look through the books and newspapers at Thalia.
    He found no mention of his case. That wasn’t surprising, since the congregation didn’t publicize its work. Like many others, he considered himself the victim of hidden attacks by certain historians. Some even demanded that Saint Dominic be removed from the official list of Catholic saints. Wretches. They didn’t see the good this man did for the world, a benefit still felt today and in days to come. They demonized a man who saw far beyond the present and stopped at nothing to repel threats to the well-being of the Holy Mother Church. He would be important in the modern world.
    Hans was not so obtuse. Saint Paul, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine would have to be removed from the list along with Saint Dominic, he thought without saying it aloud.
    Like Saint Dominic, Father Hans Schmidt was being judged by similar people in the Vatican. Despite seeing his work suspended for almost a year, he was still a priest. The summons bore his complete name, Hans Matthaus Schmidt, preceded by his title. The congregation usually didn’t eliminate the former titles of the accused. Innocent until proved guilty. Although not officially condemned, he felt as if he were in purgatory, not knowing whether to expect hell or heaven. He knew the congregation would decide. In the words of some reassuring historians, in case of doubt, burn him at the stake. And these days there were many ways of burning without fire.
    Hans Schmidt was advised by relatives and friends, ‘Careful what you say or write. It could cost you.’
    His friends, the few who remained, were starting to avoid him. Persona non grata may have been too strong a term, but what did you call someone who was no longer invited by his social circle and relatives?
    His mother would have sympathized if she were still alive. His father was unknown. He had grown up without a permanent male presence in the outskirts of the capital, in Essling, during the Second World War. Everything was excusable in that era, even abandoning a pregnant woman. Fortunately, he didn’t remember those times very well, but he remembered the Café Landtmann and seeing his real father with his wife and three small children one day when he returned from the seminary. What a dedicated father! He didn’t glance at Hans, maybe didn’t recognize him. He tenderly wiped away the kisses of his youngest child, ignoring his oldest there, looking at him, the fruit of another life. He didn’t remember now how he knew he was his father. His mother would have agreed with what Hans said or wrote, even though she was profoundly Catholic and devoted to the good Pope John, God protect him.
    The Ringstrasse seemed different to him today. Full of life as always but with different nuances. Or that was his impression. He passed in front of the Landtmann and let himself look inside, as he did on that far-off day when he saw his father. Maybe he would still be there, decrepit, frozen by the years? He never saw him again after that return from the seminary. He wouldn’t be there today. Almost every table was occupied, but nobody fit the description. He was probably sleeping in peace in some cemetery in Vienna. Freud would have enjoyed Hans. Freud would have liked to analyze him there at one of the tables in the Landtmann he frequented. He wouldn’t have a coffee today, or leaf through the books in Thalia, either, or the newspapers.
    He limited himself to walking, tasting the cold weather that conquered the city. The sun would yield to twilight and set at the time people gathered together at home to relax, eat, smile, and cry. Vienna at the close of day, the same as in every other city in the world, although with a charm of its own. Hans remained a little longer on the Ringstrasse, watching the people, the window displays, the lives passing by, absorbed in