Pope Patrick

The year is 2009. America has its first Catholic president since Kennedy. The planet's other superpower is the Federation of Islamic Republics, stretching from Morocco to Pakistan. And in Rome, the aging Polish Pope, obstinate and combative to the end, has died, and the conclave of cardinals must choose a successor. After a great deal of argument and debate, they choose the least controversial candidate, the least political, the one least likely to upset the Vatican status quo--Brian O'Flynn, a kindly old Irish priest who reads Yeats and publishes obscure academic theses. At the moment of his election, a 300-pound ornamental pillar falls on his head.Then all hell breaks loose.Pope Patrick is the riotous story of a mild-mannered country cardinal who--through a democratic election, a twist of fate, and a little help from his golden Lab, Charley--turns the Vatican upside down and throws the industrial world into chaos. He deals once and for all with the thorny issues of contraception, the celibacy of the clergy, and the infallibility of the pope; sends the Dow Jones tumbling, and the hopes of the downtrodden soaring-and in the process brings the world to the brink of catastrophe.By turns funny, tender, exciting, and controversial, Pope Patrick is a scathingly brilliant, delightfully droll novel of principles, power, and faith-the story of the holiest, bravest, most likable pope since St. Peter.

The Quiet Man steps into The Shoes of the Fisherman and goes for a long walk in the O'Learys' cow pasture--all in de Rosa's (Vicars of Christ, 1989, etc.) would-be apocalyptic parody of religious and political life. If you thought the 20th century was bad, just hang on a bit. By 2009, the year that John Paul II finally gives up the ghost, the war between the Western nations and the recently convened Federation of Islamic Republics (FIR) has made even the Vatican nostalgic about the days of the Communist bloc. Ayatollah Hourani, the president of FIR, is an Islamic fundamentalist who has vowed death upon the infidels of Europe and America. And now that Saudi Arabia (and its oil) has fallen to the fundamentalists, Hourani is in a position to make good on his threat. The elderly Cardinals who have convened in Rome to elect John Paul's successor have this unhappy spectacle before them, along with more worries of their own: The faithful are no longer coming to Mass or confession, and Latin America (the most Catholic region of the world) is sinking into starvation. The circumstances that bring about the election of the obscure Irishman Brian Cardinal O'Flynn are as complex as the trials facing him in his new job. Quiet, unassuming, and none too bright, O'Flynn nevetheless puts his shoulder to the wheel. First, he abolishes celibacy as a condition of ordination, and he even presides over a mass wedding of thousands of priests in St. Peter's. Then he balances the Vatican's books by auctioning off the artwork. His first United Nations address condemns moneylending and orders the dissolution of banks. Who is this guy? It's hard to say, exactly, especially since de Rosa is so eager to write his story with one-liners that the larger tale comes across as little more than an excuse for cheap laughs. Not terribly funny, nor wonderfully sharp, and occasionally downright irksome in its reliance on stereotype: a cartoon for grownups. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.