Where is your God now? 4 page

"If Rocher believed you, he would have arrested me."

"No. I wouldn’t let him. I offered him my silence in exchange for this meeting."

The camerlegno let out an odd laugh. "You plan to blackmail the church with a story that no one will possibly believe?"

"I have no need of blackmail. I simply want to hear the truth from your lips. Leonardo Vetra was a friend."

The camerlegno said nothing. He simply stared down at Kohler.

"Try this," Kohler snapped. "About a month ago, Leonardo Vetra contacted you requesting an urgent audience with the Pope–an audience you granted because the Pope was an admirer of Leonardo’s work and because Leonardo said it was an emergency."

The camerlegno turned to the fire. He said nothing.

"Leonardo came to the Vatican in great secrecy. He was betraying his daughter’s confidence by coming here, a fact that troubled him deeply, but he felt he had no choice. His research had left him deeply conflicted and in need of spiritual guidance from the church. In a private meeting, he told you and the Pope that he had made a scientific discovery with profound religious implications. He had proved Genesis was physically possible, and that intense sources of energy–what Vetra called God–could duplicate the moment of Creation."

Silence.

"The Pope was stunned," Kohler continued. "He wanted Leonardo to go public. His Holiness thought this discovery might begin to bridge the gap between science and religion–one of the Pope’s life dreams. Then Leonardo explained to you the downside–the reason he required the church’s guidance. It seemed his Creation experiment, exactly as your Bible predicts, produced everything in pairs. Opposites. Light and dark. Vetra found himself, in addition to creating matter, creating antimatter. Shall I go on?"

The camerlegno was silent. He bent down and stoked the coals.

"After Leonardo Vetra came here," Kohler said, "you came to CERN to see his work. Leonardo’s diaries said you made a personal trip to his lab."

The camerlegno looked up.

Kohler went on. "The Pope could not travel without attracting media attention, so he sent you. Leonardo gave you a secret tour of his lab. He showed you an antimatter annihilation–the Big Bang–the power of Creation. He also showed you a large specimen he kept locked away as proof that his new process could produce antimatter on a large scale. You were in awe. You returned to Vatican City to report to the Pope what you had witnessed."

The camerlegno sighed. "And what is it that troubles you? That I would respect Leonardo’s confidentiality by pretending before the world tonight that I knew nothing of antimatter?"

"No! It troubles me that Leonardo Vetra practically proved the existence of your God, and you had him murdered!"

The camerlegno turned now, his face revealing nothing.

The only sound was the crackle of the fire.

Suddenly, the camera jiggled, and Kohler’s arm appeared in the frame. He leaned forward, seeming to struggle with something affixed beneath his wheelchair. When he sat back down, he held a pistol out before him. The camera angle was a chilling one… looking from behind… down the length of the outstretched gun… directly at the camerlegno.

Kohler said, "Confess your sins, Father. Now."

The camerlegno looked startled. "You will never get out of here alive."

"Death would be a welcome relief from the misery your faith has put me through since I was a boy." Kohler held the gun with both hands now. "I am giving you a choice. Confess your sins… or die right now."

The camerlegno glanced toward the door.

"Rocher is outside," Kohler challenged. "He too is prepared to kill you."

"Rocher is a sworn protector of th–"

"Rocher let me in here. Armed. He is sickened by your lies. You have a single option. Confess to me. I have to hear it from your very lips."

The camerlegno hesitated.

Kohler cocked his gun. "Do you really doubt I will kill you?"

"No matter what I tell you," the camerlegno said, "a man like you will never understand."

"Try me."

The camerlegno stood still for a moment, a dominant silhouette in the dim light of the fire. When he spoke, his words echoed with a dignity more suited to the glorious recounting of altruism than that of a confession.

"Since the beginning of time," the camerlegno said, "this church has fought the enemies of God. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with swords. And we have always survived."

The camerlegno radiated conviction.

"But the demons of the past," he continued, "were demons of fire and abomination… they were enemies we could fight–enemies who inspired fear. Yet Satan is shrewd. As time passed, he cast off his diabolical countenance for a new face… the face of pure reason. Transparent and insidious, but soulless all the same." The camerlegno’s voice flashed sudden anger–an almost maniacal transition. "Tell me, Mr. Kohler! How can the church condemn that which makes logical sense to our minds! How can we decry that which is now the very foundation of our society! Each time the church raises its voice in warning, you shout back, calling us ignorant. Paranoid. Controlling! And so your evil grows. Shrouded in a veil of self‑righteous intellectualism. It spreads like a cancer. Sanctified by the miracles of its own technology. Deifying itself! Until we no longer suspect you are anything but pure goodness. Science has come to save us from our sickness, hunger, and pain! Behold science–the new God of endless miracles, omnipotent and benevolent! Ignore the weapons and the chaos. Forget the fractured loneliness and endless peril. Science is here!" The camerlegno stepped toward the gun. "But I have seen Satan’s face lurking… I have seen the peril…"

"What are you talking about! Vetra’s science practically proved the existence of your God! He was your ally!"

"Ally? Science and religion are not in this together! We do not seek the same God, you and I! Who is your God? One of protons, masses, and particle charges? How does your God inspire? How does your God reach into the hearts of man and remind him he is accountable to a greater power! Remind him that he is accountable to his fellow man! Vetra was misguided. His work was not religious, it was sacrilegious! Man cannot put God’s Creation in a test tube and wave it around for the world to see! This does not glorify God, it demeans God!" The camerlegno was clawing at his body now, his voice manic.

"And so you had Leonardo Vetra killed!"

"For the church! For all mankind! The madness of it! Man is not ready to hold the power of Creation in his hands. God in a test tube? A droplet of liquid that can vaporize an entire city? He had to be stopped!" The camerlegno fell abruptly silent. He looked away, back toward the fire. He seemed to be contemplating his options.

Kohler’s hands leveled the gun. "You have confessed. You have no escape."

The camerlegno laughed sadly. "Don’t you see. Confessing your sins is the escape." He looked toward the door. "When God is on your side, you have options a man like you could never comprehend." With his words still hanging in the air, the camerlegno grabbed the neck of his cassock and violently tore it open, revealing his bare chest.

Kohler jolted, obviously startled. "What are you doing!"

The camerlegno did not reply. He stepped backward, toward the fireplace, and removed an object from the glowing embers.

"Stop!" Kohler demanded, his gun still leveled. "What are you doing!"

When the camerlegno turned, he was holding a red‑hot brand. The Illuminati Diamond. The man’s eyes looked wild suddenly. "I had intended to do this all alone." His voice seethed with a feral intensity. "But now… I see God meant for you to be here. You are my salvation."

Before Kohler could react, the camerlegno closed his eyes, arched his back, and rammed the red hot brand into the center of his own chest. His flesh hissed. "Mother Mary! Blessed Mother… Behold your son!" He screamed out in agony.

Kohler lurched into the frame now… standing awkwardly on his feet, gun wavering wildly before him.

The camerlegno screamed louder, teetering in shock. He threw the brand at Kohler’s feet. Then the priest collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.

What happened next was a blur.

There was a great flurry onscreen as the Swiss Guard burst into the room. The soundtrack exploded with gunfire. Kohler clutched his chest, blown backward, bleeding, falling into his wheelchair.

"No!" Rocher called, trying to stop his guards from firing on Kohler.

The camerlegno, still writhing on the floor, rolled and pointed frantically at Rocher. "Illuminatus!"

"You bastard," Rocher yelled, running at him. "You sanctimonious bas–"

Chartrand cut him down with three bullets. Rocher slid dead across the floor.

Then the guards ran to the wounded camerlegno, gathering around him. As they huddled, the video caught the face of a dazed Robert Langdon, kneeling beside the wheelchair, looking at the brand. Then, the entire frame began lurching wildly. Kohler had regained consciousness and was detaching the tiny camcorder from its holder under the arm of the wheelchair. Then he tried to hand the camcorder to Langdon.

"G‑give…" Kohler gasped. "G‑give this to the m‑media."

Then the screen went blank.

The camerlegno began to feel the fog of wonder and adrenaline dissipating. As the Swiss Guard helped him down the Royal Staircase toward the Sistine Chapel, the camerlegno heard singing in St. Peter’s Square and he knew that mountains had been moved.

Grazie Dio.

He had prayed for strength, and God had given it to him. At moments when he had doubted, God had spoken. Yours is a Holy mission, God had said. I will give you strength. Even with God’s strength, the camerlegno had felt fear, questioning the righteousness of his path.

If not you, God had challenged, then Who?

If not now, then When?

If not this way, then How?

Jesus, God reminded him, had saved them all… saved them from their own apathy. With two deeds, Jesus had opened their eyes. Horror and Hope. The crucifixion and the resurrection. He had changed the world.

But that was millennia ago. Time had eroded the miracle. People had forgotten. They had turned to false idols–techno‑deities and miracles of the mind. What about miracles of the heart!

The camerlegno had often prayed to God to show him how to make the people believe again. But God had been silent. It was not until the camerlegno’s moment of deepest darkness that God had come to him. Oh, the horror of that night!

The camerlegno could still remember lying on the floor in tattered nightclothes, clawing at his own flesh, trying to purge his soul of the pain brought on by a vile truth he had just learned. It cannot be! he had screamed. And yet he knew it was. The deception tore at him like the fires of hell. The bishop who had taken him in, the man who had been like a father to him, the clergyman whom the camerlegno had stood beside while he rose to the papacy… was a fraud. A common sinner. Lying to the world about a deed so traitorous at its core that the camerlegno doubted even God could forgive it. "Your vow!" the camerlegno had screamed at the Pope. "You broke your vow to God! You, of all men!"

The Pope had tried to explain himself, but the camerlegno could not listen. He had run out, staggering blindly through the hallways, vomiting, tearing at his own skin, until he found himself bloody and alone, lying on the cold earthen floor before St. Peter’s tomb. Mother Mary, what do I do? It was in that moment of pain and betrayal, as the camerlegno lay devastated in the Necropolis, praying for God to take him from this faithless world, that God had come.

The voice in his head resounded like peals of thunder. "Did you vow to serve your God?"

"Yes!" the camerlegno cried out.

"Would you die for your God?"

"Yes! Take me now!"

"Would you die for your church?"

"Yes! Please deliver me!"

"But would you die for… mankind?"

It was in the silence that followed that the camerlegno felt himself falling into the abyss. He tumbled farther, faster, out of control. And yet he knew the answer. He had always known.

"Yes!" he shouted into the madness. "I would die for man! Like your son, I would die for them!"

Hours later, the camerlegno still lay shivering on his floor. He saw his mother’s face. God has plans for you, she was saying. The camerlegno plunged deeper into madness. It was then God had spoken again. This time with silence. But the camerlegno understood. Restore their faith.

If not me… then who?

If not now… then when?

As the guards unbolted the door of the Sistine Chapel, Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca felt the power moving in his veins… exactly as it had when he was a boy. God had chosen him. Long ago.

His will be done.

The camerlegno felt reborn. The Swiss Guard had bandaged his chest, bathed him, and dressed him in a fresh white linen robe. They had also given him an injection of morphine for the burn. The camerlegno wished they had not given him painkillers. Jesus endured his pain for three days on the cross! He could already feel the drug uprooting his senses… a dizzying undertow.

As he walked into the chapel, he was not at all surprised to see the cardinals staring at him in wonder. They are in awe of God, he reminded himself. Not of me, but how God works THROUGH me. As he moved up the center aisle, he saw bewilderment in every face. And yet, with each new face he passed, he sensed something else in their eyes. What was it? The camerlegno had tried to imagine how they would receive him tonight. Joyfully? Reverently? He tried to read their eyes and saw neither emotion.

It was then the camerlegno looked at the altar and saw Robert Langdon.

Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca stood in the aisle of the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals were all standing near the front of the church, turned, staring at him. Robert Langdon was on the altar beside a television that was on endless loop, playing a scene the camerlegno recognized but could not imagine how it had come to be. Vittoria Vetra stood beside him, her face drawn.

The camerlegno closed his eyes for a moment, hoping the morphine was making him hallucinate and that when he opened them the scene might be different. But it was not.

They knew.

Oddly, he felt no fear. Show me the way, Father. Give me the words that I can make them see Your vision.

But the camerlegno heard no reply.

Father, We have come too far together to fail now.

Silence.

They do not understand what We have done.

The camerlegno did not know whose voice he heard in his own mind, but the message was stark.

And the truth shall set you free…

And so it was that Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca held his head high as he walked toward the front of the Sistine Chapel. As he moved toward the cardinals, not even the diffused light of the candles could soften the eyes boring into him. Explain yourself, the faces said. Make sense of this madness. Tell us our fears are wrong!

Truth, the camerlegno told himself. Only truth. There were too many secrets in these walls… one so dark it had driven him to madness. But from the madness had come the light.

"If you could give your own soul to save millions," the camerlegno said, as he moved down the aisle, "would you?"

The faces in the chapel simply stared. No one moved. No one spoke. Beyond the walls, the joyous strains of song could be heard in the square.

The camerlegno walked toward them. "Which is the greater sin? Killing one’s enemy? Or standing idle while your true love is strangled?" They are singing in St. Peter’s Square! The camerlegno stopped for a moment and gazed up at the ceiling of the Sistine. Michelangelo’s God was staring down from the darkened vault… and He seemed pleased.

"I could no longer stand by," the camerlegno said. Still, as he drew nearer, he saw no flicker of understanding in anyone’s eyes. Didn’t they see the radiant simplicity of his deeds? Didn’t they see the utter necessity!

It had been so pure.

The Illuminati. Science and Satan as one.

Resurrect the ancient fear. Then crush it.

Horror and Hope. Make them believe again.

Tonight, the power of the Illuminati had been unleashed anew… and with glorious consequence. The apathy had evaporated. The fear had shot out across the world like a bolt of lightning, uniting the people. And then God’s majesty had vanquished the darkness.

I could not stand idly by!

The inspiration had been God’s own–appearing like a beacon in the camerlegno’s night of agony. Oh, this faithless world! Someone must deliver them. You. If not you, who? You have been saved for a reason. Show them the old demons. Remind them of their fear. Apathy is death. Without darkness, there is no light. Without evil, there is no good. Make them choose. Dark or light. Where is the fear? Where are the heroes? If not now, when?

The camerlegno walked up the center aisle directly toward the crowd of standing cardinals. He felt like Moses as the sea of red sashes and caps parted before him, allowing him to pass. On the altar, Robert Langdon switched off the television, took Vittoria’s hand, and relinquished the altar. The fact that Robert Langdon had survived, the camerlegno knew, could only have been God’s will. God had saved Robert Langdon. The camerlegno wondered why.

The voice that broke the silence was the voice of the only woman in the Sistine Chapel. "You killed my father?" she said, stepping forward.

When the camerlegno turned to Vittoria Vetra, the look on her face was one he could not quite understand–pain yes, but anger? Certainly she must understand. Her father’s genius was deadly. He had to be stopped. For the good of Mankind.

"He was doing God’s work," Vittoria said.

"God’s work is not done in a lab. It is done in the heart."

"My father’s heart was pure! And his research proved–"

"His research proved yet again that man’s mind is progressing faster than his soul!" The camerlegno’s voice was sharper than he had expected. He lowered his voice. "If a man as spiritual as your father could create a weapon like the one we saw tonight, imagine what an ordinary man will do with his technology."

"A man like you?"

The camerlegno took a deep breath. Did she not see? Man’s morality was not advancing as fast as man’s science. Mankind was not spiritually evolved enough for the powers he possessed. We have never created a weapon we have not used! And yet he knew that antimatter was nothing–another weapon in man’s already burgeoning arsenal. Man could already destroy. Man learned to kill long ago. And his mother’s blood rained down. Leonardo Vetra’s genius was dangerous for another reason.

"For centuries," the camerlegno said, "the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination–a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science’s ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God in a lab is the day people stop needing faith!"

"You mean the day they stop needing the church," Vittoria challenged, moving toward him. "Doubt is your last shred of control. It is doubt that brings souls to you. Our need to know that life has meaning. Man’s insecurity and need for an enlightened soul assuring him everything is part of a master plan. But the church is not the only enlightened soul on the planet! We all seek God in different ways. What are you afraid of? That God will show himself somewhere other than inside these walls? That people will find him in their own lives and leave your antiquated rituals behind? Religions evolve! The mind finds answers, the heart grapples with new truths. My father was on your quest! A parallel path! Why couldn’t you see that? God is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!"

"Except science," the camerlegno fired back, his eyes showing only pity. "Science, by definition, is soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! But when science heralds its Godless pursuits as the enlightened path? Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers?" He shook his head. "No."

There was a moment of silence. The camerlegno felt suddenly tired as he returned Vittoria’s unbending stare. This was not how it was supposed to be. Is this God’s final test?

It was Mortati who broke the spell. "The preferiti," he said in a horrified whisper. "Baggia and the others. Please tell me you did not…"

The camerlegno turned to him, surprised by the pain in his voice. Certainly Mortati could understand. Headlines carried science’s miracles every day. How long had it been for religion? Centuries? Religion needed a miracle! Something to awaken a sleeping world. Bring them back to the path of righteousness. Restore faith. The preferiti were not leaders anyway, they were transformers–liberals prepared to embrace the new world and abandon the old ways! This was the only way. A new leader. Young. Powerful. Vibrant. Miraculous. The preferiti served the church far more effectively in death than they ever could alive. Horror and Hope. Offer four souls to save millions. The world would remember them forever as martyrs. The church would raise glorious tribute to their names. How many thousands have died for the glory of God? They are only four.

"The preferiti," Mortati repeated.

"I shared their pain," the camerlegno defended, motioning to his chest. "And I too would die for God, but my work is only just begun. They are singing in St. Peter’s Square!"

The camerlegno saw the horror in Mortati’s eyes and again felt confused. Was it the morphine? Mortati was looking at him as if the camerlegno himself had killed these men with his bare hands. I would do even that for God, the camerlegno thought, and yet he had not. The deeds had been carried out by the Hassassin–a heathen soul tricked into thinking he was doing the work of the Illuminati. I am Janus, the camerlegno had told him. I will prove my power. And he had. The Hassassin’s hatred had made him God’s pawn.

"Listen to the singing," the camerlegno said, smiling, his own heart rejoicing. "Nothing unites hearts like the presence of evil. Burn a church and the community rises up, holding hands, singing hymns of defiance as they rebuild. Look how they flock tonight. Fear has brought them home. Forge modern demons for modern man. Apathy is dead. Show them the face of evil–Satanists lurking among us–running our governments, our banks, our schools, threatening to obliterate the very House of God with their misguided science. Depravity runs deep. Man must be vigilant. Seek the goodness. Become the goodness!"

In the silence, the camerlegno hoped they now understood. The Illuminati had not resurfaced. The Illuminati were long deceased. Only their myth was alive. The camerlegno had resurrected the Illuminati as a reminder. Those who knew the Illuminati history relived their evil. Those who did not, had learned of it and were amazed how blind they had been. The ancient demons had been resurrected to awaken an indifferent world.

"But… the brands?" Mortati’s voice was stiff with outrage.

The camerlegno did not answer. Mortati had no way of knowing, but the brands had been confiscated by the Vatican over a century ago. They had been locked away, forgotten and dust covered, in the Papal Vault–the Pope’s private reliquary, deep within his Borgia apartments. The Papal Vault contained those items the church deemed too dangerous for anyone’s eyes except the Pope’s.

Why did they hide that which inspired fear? Fear brought people to God!

The vault’s key was passed down from Pope to Pope. Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had purloined the key and ventured inside; the myth of what the vault contained was bewitching–the original manuscript for the fourteen unpublished books of the Bible known as the Apocrypha, the third prophecy of Fatima, the first two having come true and the third so terrifying the church would never reveal it. In addition to these, the camerlegno had found the Illuminati Collection–all the secrets the church had uncovered after banishing the group from Rome… their contemptible Path of Illumination… the cunning deceit of the Vatican’s head artist, Bernini… Europe’s top scientists mocking religion as they secretly assembled in the Vatican’s own Castle St. Angelo. The collection included a pentagon box containing iron brands, one of them the mythical Illuminati Diamond. This was a part of Vatican history the ancients thought best forgotten. The camerlegno, however, had disagreed.

"But the antimatter…" Vittoria demanded. "You risked destroying the Vatican!"

"There is no risk when God is at your side," the camerlegno said. "This cause was His."

"You’re insane!" she seethed.

"Millions were saved."

"People were killed!"

"Souls were saved."

"Tell that to my father and Max Kohler!"

"CERN’s arrogance needed to be revealed. A droplet of liquid that can vaporize a half mile? And you call me mad?" The camerlegno felt a rage rising in him. Did they think his was a simple charge? "Those who believe undergo great tests for God! God asked Abraham to sacrifice his child! God commanded Jesus to endure crucifixion! And so we hang the symbol of the crucifix before our eyes–bloody, painful, agonizing–to remind us of evil’s power! To keep our hearts vigilant! The scars on Jesus’ body are a living reminder of the powers of darkness! My scars are a living reminder! Evil lives, but the power of God will overcome!"

His shouts echoed off the back wall of the Sistine Chapel and then a profound silence fell. Time seemed to stop. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment rose ominously behind him… Jesus casting sinners into hell. Tears brimmed in Mortati’s eyes.

"What have you done, Carlo?" Mortati asked in a whisper. He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled. "His Holiness?"

A collective sigh of pain went up, as if everyone in the room had forgotten until that very moment. The Pope. Poisoned.

"A vile liar," the camerlegno said.

Mortati looked shattered. "What do you mean? He was honest! He… loved you."

"And I him." Oh, how I loved him! But the deceit! The broken vows to God!

The camerlegno knew they did not understand right now, but they would. When he told them, they would see! His Holiness was the most nefarious deceiver the church had ever seen. The camerlegno still remembered that terrible night. He had returned from his trip to CERN with news of Vetra’s Genesis and of antimatter’s horrific power. The camerlegno was certain the Pope would see the perils, but the Holy Father saw only hope in Vetra’s breakthrough. He even suggested the Vatican fund Vetra’s work as a gesture of goodwill toward spiritually based scientific research.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 749