‘You think he’s on the Vatican payroll?’
‘He’s certainly one of Cardinal Petroni’s boys.’ Allegra shivered. ‘The Omega Scroll is going to shake them to their foundations.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Venezia
F ather Vittorio Pignedoli watched from his position in the chancel of the huge Basilica di San Marco as Cardinal Giovanni Donelli prepared to deliver his sermon to the packed congregation. This cardinal, he reflected, was like no other he had ever known and at fifty-two, one of the youngest. Thick black hair, deep blue eyes and a warm, infectious laugh, slim and fit – he even worked out in the gym. There was no hint of high office, and he was relaxed and accessible. Cardinal Donelli had only been in Venice for a short while and already everybody, both in the Church and outside it, was talking about him. There had been quite a few snide remarks from wealthy and powerful Venetians about Giovanni’s ‘lowly’ southern origins, the little town of Maratea on the west coast of Basilicata. Venetian society relished the pomp and circumstance of their ancient fiefdom and their patrician noses were put decidedly out of joint when Giovanni resisted invitations to the glittering and expensive events he was expected to attend. Giovanni’s distaste for excessive ceremony had Vittorio fielding indignant calls of complaint. The first was from an exasperated Chief of Police who had stumbled on the newly installed Patriarch of Venice out for a walk, dressed in the black soutane of a simple priest. The Polizia had found him in a trattoria near the Canal Grande happily chatting to some gondoliers and eating pizza al taglio .
‘What if something happens to him!’ il Capo di Polizia had complained. ‘The very least he could have done was accepted the ride home.’
Giovanni had politely refused the offer of a police escort and had unwittingly added insult to injury by accepting a lift from the gondoliers. The gondoliers, he reasoned, were a more than adequate and less pretentious substitute. The priest with the big winning smile – it was the first thing people noticed about him. The gondoliers, the fishermen and the rest of the working class of Venice loved him.
Vittorio glanced nervously around the congregation. His cardinal’s choice of a subject that questioned the very beginnings of life on the planet had attracted wide publicity, not all of it confined to the narrow streets and covered alleys of Venice. ‘Science and Religion’ reflected Giovanni’s educational background – a doctorate in theology and an honours degree in science majoring in biology and chemistry. Giovanni’s choice of subject had been prompted by an article in the Corriere della Sera – the respected Italian paper Courier of the Evening. Vittorio knew it was dangerous territory and that the Vatican would denounce any departure from the Church doctrine of Adam and Eve. As Giovanni climbed the marble stairs to his pulpit, a shadowy figure took a seat in the back row of the seats reserved for the clergy.
Giovanni had insisted on using the smaller of the two ornate pulpits. He rested his hands on the marble railing and smiled warmly.
‘ Buongiorno. E molto buono vi vedere! Good morning. It is very good to see you! Some of you may have seen an article on bacteria last week in the Corriere della Sera. For those of you who may have missed it, don’t worry, it’s not a sin to have no interest in bacteria.’ The laughter reverberated off the gold tiled walls of San Marco and Giovanni’s fulsome smile permeated even the coldest and most sceptical of hearts.
‘This particular article was about a different type of bacteria known as archaebacteria, which thrive in boiling water. What, you may ask, has this to do with the Church and theology?’ Giovanni paused and looked around his congregation, drawing them to him.
‘I want to take you deep below the surface of the ocean. Imagine we are all inside the research submarine Alvin several kilometres below the surface. It is pitch black and the waters are very, very cold. Suddenly, the powerful lights on our submarine pick up molten lava spewing out of volcanic vents, and we watch as it comes in contact with the icy water. Deep beneath the seabed the lava and fluids cascading from the vents have been heated to temperatures well in excess of 300°C, but the crushing pressures at this depth prevent these fluids from boiling. Instead, they form tall, lava-encrusted chimneys known as “black smokers”. Imagine our surprise to find that the edge of this inferno is teeming with life. Worms and other forms of life that thrive in temperatures well above that of boiling water. Now, I’ve been wondering whether or not such a discovery is a problem for our theology.’
Giovanni realised he now had everyone’s attention. ‘Here on the surface of our planet we all know that the energy source of life is sunlight. Without it the plants would die, and without plants the animals, including our species, would die too. But at these depths there is no sunlight. In this part of the ocean these forms of life don’t need the sun; they feed on sulphur and hydrogen. There is now a growing body of scientific evidence that points to these oceanic bacteria being the very first forms of cellular life on Earth, from which all other forms of life, including humans, have evolved. It also means that there might be similar forms of life deep beneath the surface of planets like Mars and the moons of Jupiter and further away into the icy wastes of any one of the billions of galaxies like our own.’
It was as far as Giovanni was prepared to go. Already he sensed the unease that his challenge to the accepted biblical story of creation had created amongst the faithful and he dared not raise the issue of the origin of DNA. This was not the time to raise the possibility of a powerful spiritual force that he felt sure was driving the cosmos; one that encompassed the inadequacy of all of humanity’s attempts at religion.
‘So where does that leave the Bible and Adam and Eve?’ he asked. ‘Where does it leave us as Christians?’ Not a shoe shuffled. ‘As both your Patriarch and a scientist I see only positives in this. For me, this is just another revelation of “how” it was done. And such is the brilliance of the Creative Spirit I am certain that we have only scratched the surface.’
Vittorio listened, deep in thought. He had always believed in the creation doctrine that was laid out in the Catholic catechism: The Lord God caused man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib. Genesis was a beautiful story with no hint of bacteria, yet Vittorio felt a growing sense of trust for this intectually gifted man who was so willing to share his knowledge. It was as if the great cathedral had been opened up to an aggiornamento. A wind of modernisation was blowing hard through the portals of San Marco. In time it would become a gale.
Unseen by either Giovanni or Vittorio, the shadowy figure in the back row was quietly taking notes.
Night had descended on the Piazza di San Marco and the nearby stone alleys and narrow streets of Venice. The ever present gondolieri were competing for ‘sea room’ on the Grande along with a myriad of lesser canali, expertly guiding their seemingly flimsy craft amongst the vaporetti and the barges that waged a ceaseless battle to supply the water city’s needs.
Oblivious to Venice’s elegant pulse, Giovanni sat in his study overlooking the Piazza and reflected on his sermon. Francis Crick’s theory on the origin of DNA had threatened many in the Vatican’s corridors of power and the brilliant scientist had been successfully discredited. In the 1980s Universita Ca’ Granda’s Professor Antonio Rosselli had revived Crick’s investigation with strong support from the Israeli mathematician Professor Kaufmann. But Kaufmann’s analysis of the codes in the Dead Sea Scrolls had gone a lot further than DNA. Had the final countdown begun? Rosselli had been convinced it had.
Giovanni’s thoughts went back to the time when he had studied under the great mind, a time when he and Allegra Bassetti, the stunning young nun from southern Italy, had been students together. A time when Rosselli’s theories had prompted passionate arguments over pasta and cheap red wine in La Pizzeria Milano. It had been over twenty-five years since they had been assigned to Milano’s Universita but it seemed like only yesterday. If it hadn’t been for the extraordinary series of events in 1978, they might never have met and the proposal for them both to study at a secular university would have remained buried in the Vatican’s archives.
BOOK TWO
