An Inside Job

The following day, Gabriel accompanies Luigi to a public event on the island of Lampedusa because he suspects an attempt might be made on the pontiff’s life. He is armed and travels as a member of the Swiss Guard. Luigi refuses to ride in a bulletproof automobile. The Vaticanisti trail in the pope’s wake.

The papal entourage flies to the island of Lampedusa, the embarkation point for Africans fleeing to Europe to escape the unrest of their native countries. Luigi and his group have come to commemorate a disaster a decade earlier in which more than 300 migrants drowned when their boat caught fire. “The shipwreck had occurred less than a kilometer from Lampedusa’s famed Spiaggia dei Conigli, one of the world’s most popular beaches” (339).

A large crowd has gathered to hear the pope speak. He uses the occasion to castigate far-right politicians who stoke fear of immigrants: “Roundups and mass deportations […] were not only inhumane, they were unchristian” (340). The pope says that Jesus would have never remained silent in the face of such cruelty, and Gabriel understands that this is a warning to those in the Vatican who tolerate corruption. Luigi’s reformer stance doesn’t sit well with more traditional members of the clergy, and this is yet another public statement that antagonizes the “princes” of the church.