On Writing VATICAN DAUGHTER by Joni Marie Iraci

Vatican Daughter The Evolution

By Joni Marie Iraci

In the throes of teenage angst, I wrote poetry. Some of it was decent, but most not so much. But what novelist didn’t have his or her beginnings as a poet of sorts? As I ventured out into the world, I mastered letter writing. I was glib and could cut to the quick when needed, and I was often called upon to write letters for those too inept at verbiage to get their point across. I embarked on an unrelated career and raised children before settling in to pursue my true love, writing. I am not one who wings anything. I attended a writing college in my late middle years where my writing ability was fostered, and then I continued my education, earning an MFA at an Ivy League University before I dared to attempt to write anything I deemed worthy of a reader.

In my younger days I devoured the book, The Thorn Birds. The story stayed in the recesses of my mind as I bore witness to the hypocritical behavior of pastors of local Catholic Churches. After attending Catholic school for 12 years, I was no stranger to this behavior. I had encountered nuns who raged at childhood infractions all the while preaching the kindness of Jesus. My adult experience was markedly different. Some of the priests I knew were thieves who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from their parishes and lived a lavish lifestyle after taking vows of poverty. One went to jail and was defrocked for breaking several vows including the vow of celibacy.

While in college, I studied the origins of Christianity. It was eye-opening. When the Emperor, Constantine decided to convert to Christianity, he called the bishop out of hiding and instructed him to build a cathedral. In order to avoid a conflict, the bishop complied even though the true faith was a simple one and not one where wealth and grandeur should have had a part. This cowardly bishop ignited the spark that would essentially forever alter the movement Jesus had started. From that moment on it became a religion contrived by men. 

The works I studied not only demonstrated the usurpation of paganism in order to lure worshippers to the new faith, it also drove home the blatant patriarchy. The excuse for the exclusion of women was based on the myth that Jesus was surrounded by men and women played no role. Since paganism held women in high esteem this was problematic as the early church needed to increase its numbers. Mary, the mother of God wasn’t introduced as a deity until the 500s AD. The diminishing of women to lesser than by the powers that be in the Catholic church prompted me to empower the character Sophia as she dared to confront the powerful, holier-than-thou, church hierarchy.

The extensive research I did while writing Vatican Daughter inspired me to explore the history of papal activities while allowing what I learned to percolate in my mind before putting fingers to the keys.

In the meantime, I toured the Italian landscape—walking 88 miles of glorious Rome embedding the sights, smells, and ambience of Italy in my thirsty mind. And so it began. Vatican Daughter is fiction, but plausible. Let’s consider the source: the unfortunate scandals the Vatican has buried behind its mysterious walls, the history of immoral behavior, the history of superiority towards those of other faiths, the history of the kidnappings of Jewish children under the reign of Pius IX in 1859, the opulence and excesses flaunted through the veiled vow of poverty These truths, along with the what ifs and that which could possibly be the truths that only fiction can bring to light, I explore in the story, Vatican Daughter.

While researching Italian Jewish last names, I came across the little known story of the papal kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in 1859. Professor David Kertzer wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning story about the kidnapping. He was helpful to me. The Mortara family was not the only family who suffered the loss of a child at the hands of this pope. A pope cannot be accused of a crime as the Vatican is a sovereign nation and enacts its own laws. The cover-ups of the pedophile priests also sparked my imagination.

I asked myself what if a modern-day pope fathered a child as several had in history? How would that play out with the current church hierarchy’s holier-than-thou hypocritical positions? In my novel, Vatican Daughter, they cover it up. A traditional cardinal wields his power and facilitates the kidnapping of the pope’s child as the inept pope turns a blind eye. The mother, a former journalist, suffers an injury and has no memory of her past, and the child is kept sequestered in the Vatican. Twelve years pass before fate steps in and restores the mother’s memory—thus begins the determination of a mother who stops at nothing to rescue her daughter from the most powerful entity on earth.

Vatican Daughter is set in Rome and Venice, with a brief stop in Magallanes, Chile, and New York City. Reading Vatican Daughter propels the reader deep into the heart of Italy. Ensnared by the vivid descriptive language, the reader will be transported to Italy in their mind and will be immersed in the plausible, suspenseful plot. Travel through the cities, taste the food along with the characters, meander along the medieval palazzos of Rome and Venice, sip the wine, explore the countryside, ride the train, step behind the walls of Vatican city, the papal gardens and imagine experiencing the loss of a child at the hands of men who would go to any means to avoid exposure.

The notes I jotted down sat on the page for nearly ten years. Once I had the whole story cemented in my mind, I wrote eight hours a day for over a year until “Vatican Daughter” was complete. The more research I did, the more believable the story became. A podcaster in a recent interview discussing the movie, The Conclave,” stated, “Any story about the Vatican is catnip for Hollywood.” Researching Vatican Daughter was my catnip. I didn’t stop there—The Women of the 13th Rione, continues the Vatican Daughter, story. It can stand alone and is awaiting submission.

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Joni Marie Iraci is a retired Registered Nurse who returned to school in her later years to pursue her love of writing, earning a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in creative writing (fiction) from Columbia University. She is a member of the Author’s Guild and American Pen Women. When not writing or buried in a book, she loves tutoring essay writing to college-bound high-school students. She lives in Naples, Florida, and New York City.

Find out more about Joni on her website: https://www.jonimarieiraci.com/

VATICAN DAUGHTER

“So many skeletons bang on the closet doors, wanting to be set free, from this troubling tale of fiction based on disturbing, little-known facts. This one is brimming with history, reality, and intensity — a story that will keep you on your toes all the way to the end.”

– Steve Berry, NY Times and number one international best-selling author of twenty-one novels with 25 million copies sold worldwide

Set in Rome and Venice – with a brief stop in Magallanes, Chile, and New York City – Vatican Daughter propels the reader deep into the heart of Italy. Ensnared by its vivid descriptive language, you will be transported and immersed in this plausible, suspenseful story as it takes you through various cities, tasting their foods along the way, with different characters.

At the same time, you will meander along the medieval palazzos of Rome and Venice, sip the wine, explore the countryside, ride the train, step behind the walls of Vatican City and its papal gardens, and imagine experiencing the loss of a child at the hands of men who would go to any means to avoid the exposure of Vatican corruption, papal indiscretion, and the Vatican’s long-buried secrets. A story of a young woman who relentlessly searches for her child while coming head-to-head with the most powerful entity on earth, Vatican Daughter focuses on serious female-centric issues and the Vatican’s controversial, scandalous, and hypocritical behaviors.

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Category: On Writing