“You mean to say,” Litti said, dismayed, “that all these centuries, the many faiths of the world have all been laboring under so many false precepts?”
“By no means are all the precepts of the world religions false,” she responded. “Those principles based on the commandments and the
“The need for religions to elaborate on God's will is invariably founded in their need to control. By complicating the way, religions make themselves indispensable to those seeking salvation. The faithful are then tied irrevocably to their religions, falling prey to dictates and tithes.”
“Do you feel that
“That religion which asks
However credible her theologies might be, Feldman had to admit that this controversial young prophetess certainly knew her own mind. The lively discussion made the three-hour flight seem magically shorter.
Feldman had never been to Italy before, much less seen the famed Vicarage of Rome. Despite being apprised beforehand, he was nevertheless amazed at how tiny the little state appeared from the air. And fragile, given that it was now surrounded by an estimated crowd of four million people.
But on closer inspection from the shuttle helicopter, as they pirouetted down to the landing pad, he corrected the assessment of fragility. The Vatican was a veritable fortress, protected by massively thick and towering walls. Surrounding the Vatican, Feldman could see the excited faces of people waving and shouting and pointing upward. Some gestures, he noted, were not welcoming.
Settled on the ground, Cissy made a last-minute adjustment to Hunter's bow tie and everyone stepped out into the bright Roman morning. Greeting them at the end of a long gold carpet that extended from the steps of the helicopter to the end of the landing pad was a formal reception committee. It included a complement of twelve Swiss Guards-men attired in colorful yellow, blue and red uniforms with gleaming metal helmets and breastplates, starched white neck-ruffs and carrying long, iron-tipped halberds.
A sallow-cheeked, serious-looking man in regulation black cassock and crimson zucchetto skullcap was introduced by Litti as Silvio Cardinal Santorini. He was attended by a full complement of official papal chamberlains and knights.
The guardsmen presented the yellow and white papal colors, turned smartly on their heels, and the party began its long promenade toward St. Peter's Basilica at the opposite end of the city. The entire length of the route they would travel was roped off on both sides by velvet cordage, behind which crowded hundreds of international media, cameras flashing, videos whirring. Despite the temptation, no media dared cross the barricades upon penalty of instant expulsion.
To the ongoing frustration and resentment of the world media, WNN continued to enjoy an unfair advantage. Not only did WNN provide live coverage alongside the other media from behind the barriers, but Hunter and Cissy, in the very cross-hairs of the action, were also allowed to record the entire occasion on nonlive videotape. Shortly, the world would be treated to yet another up-close-and-personal, ratings-topping WNN special.
From the start, Santorini took a prominent position on the Messiah's right, with Litti on her left. Although Feldman followed directly behind, he was unable to clearly make out all of the soft-spoken Santorini's monologue with Jeza. From time to time, Feldman picked up on bits and pieces of a historical dissertation as presented by a well-seasoned professor. Each turn presented some exquisite antiquity, priceless sculpture or famous
Always looming majestically before them, growing impossibly larger with every step, was the soaring majesty of St. Peter's Basilica. Ultimately passing beneath the towering rear edifice, Feldman, truly humbled, could virtually feel “the venerable presence of a spiritualism that stretches back, uninterrupted, to the dawn of Christianity,” as Silvio Santorini so aptly put it.
But hardly could Feldman reflect on this stirring abstraction than he, Jeza and their party were ushered through an unremarkable entranceway into a side building, leaving behind the Swiss Guardsmen, chamberlains, knights and a frustrated knot of news media. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkened interior, Feldman was astonished to find himself in the celestial presence of Michelangelo's frescoed Sistine Chapel. He watched curiously as Jeza separated from her escorts and walked behind the altar to stare up thoughtfully for a moment at the fresco of the Last Judgment, a section of which was marred by a large crack, currently undergoing careful repair.
From here, the tour group was led outside again, through a series of art-adorned courtyards, and then back indoors through several museum halls of exquisite paintings, statuary and tapestries. Finally, they exited out into the sunlight and the vast magnificence of St. Peter's Square. Catching up with them here were the media, Swiss Guards and the rest of the knightly court they'd previously left behind.
As large as a half dozen football fields, the immense square was deserted, closed off at the bottleneck of the stately Bernini colonnades by rows of riot-geared police. Beyond the blockade, crowds of fervid onlookers massed all the way out to the distant banks of the Tiber.
The point where the Jeza party emerged onto the square was roughly midway between the colonnades and the imperial Basilica of St Peter. As they traversed the lengthy expanse of cobblestone, it was explained that this huge common had once been a spectacular Roman circus where, for sport, gladiators had fought to the death and early Christians were devoured by wild beasts. Indeed, it was in this very courtyard where Saint Peter himself, as an eighty-year-old man, had been nailed upside down on a cross to die agonizingly in the sun.
Awaiting them at the steps of the cathedral was a formal military formation of more plumed Swiss Guardsmen and assorted papal knights in full dress regalia. One by one as they were announced, the military brigades snapped into a gauntlet of opposing columns leading up the stone steps into the cathedral. With Santorini still in the lead, Jeza and company ascended through the human tunnel, passed between huge white portals and ornate wrought iron gates, and into the vast, sacred chambers of the world's largest church. The armed guards then collapsed in orderly fashion and fell in behind the group.
It was dark and cool inside like a cave. And just as otherworldly. As he marched down the broad, open aisle, Feldman's mouth was agape. He'd never witnessed such splendor. The voices of the all-boy Julian choir wafted down from the lavishly embellished, vaulted heights of the loggias. If it had been the pope's intent to impress his visitors, he'd most certainly succeeded. At least with Feldman and his WNN associates, who were visibly awestruck. The Messiah's perception, however, was indeterminable, her face impassive, her demeanor polite and unaffected.
As enormous as it was, the spacious cathedral's galleries were utterly filled to capacity with representatives of every conceivable Catholic religious order and declension. Perfectly civil in contrast to the milling crowds outside the Vatican gates, this was still a decidedly hostile assembly. Feldman noted more than a few glares of disapproval on the wan faces of the nuns and clergy. And now, sealed off from behind by the rear guardsmen, Feldman found himself growing increasingly uneasy as he moved deeper into the ecclesiastical stronghold.
Directly ahead of the procession, rising to a height of eighty-eight feet, was a gigantic gold-bronze canopy supported by four colossal, spiraling pillars. The canopy was centered under the enormous, four-hundred-foot-high dome of the cathedral, sheltering below it the elevated platform of the High Altar itself. In front of the altar sat an empty throne awaiting the arrival of the pope.
A lone cardinal, dressed in white and bright scarlet, stood tall and immobile next to the throne, his hands clasped behind his back. It was the redoubtable Antonio di Concerci, observing the approaching party with the cold, emotionless appraisal of a war-hardened general surveying his enemy before battle.
As Feldman grew near to the point of rendezvous, he was surprised to find, upon closer inspection, that what he had taken to be a railed enclosure in front of the altar turned out to be the dark passage to an underground chamber. He suddenly recognized this to be a section of the catacombs, the ancient altar that was the mystical repository for the bones of the first pope of Rome himself. As he stared down into its somber depths, Feldman felt a cold draft emanating.
Santorini continued around the railing and brought his procession to a halt at the steps leading up to the left side of the High Altar. Turning back to face his charges, the cardinal upraised a palm as if warding off any questions, lowered his head and eyes, and then folded his hands at his waist in prayer. Cardinal Litti followed suit.
