Inside the pope’s bedroom, Vatican secrecy
and the lives of married priests: My 11-year quest to write “The Fifth
Gospel” In the decade I spent researching the
Vatican for my latest book, some mysteries nearly eluded me. On the face of papal summer palace, which looms over the public square
of a sleepy town near Rome, is a large clock from pre-Napoleonic times.
It has one hand rather than two, and a face divided into six hours instead of 12. Its purpose is to remind the world that time passes very differently at the Vatican. Or so I tell myself, as I try to rationalize how the past decade of my life has been consumed by the writing of a single
Vatican novel. As a husband and father now approaching 40 years old, I
find myself bracing for the publication of a book I began writing as a
27-year-old bachelor.
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/03/inside_the_popes_bedroom_vatican_secrecy_and_the_lives_of_married_priests_my_11_year_quest_to_write_the_fifth_gospel/
It has one hand rather than two, and a face divided into six hours instead of 12. Its purpose is to remind the world that time passes very differently at the Vatican. Or so I tell myself, as I try to rationalize how the past decade of my life has been consumed by the writing of a
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/03/inside_the_popes_bedroom_vatican_secrecy_and_the_lives_of_married_priests_my_11_year_quest_to_write_the_fifth_gospel/