And with him, the globe.
Following yet another sleepless night, Johann decided to do something he hadn’t done since childhood. He made the decision as he stood outside the Santa Maria dell’Anima Church, the German church near the Piazza Navona. It was after sunset, but the church door was still open.
Johann took a deep breath and entered the gloomy building; unlike many other churches in town, it had been built in the old-fashioned German style. Johann headed straight for the confessionals, in the eastern transept. Inside one of them flickered the light of a candle. Johann closed the small door behind him and sat down on the bench. He could vaguely make out the silhouette of a person through the wooden partition.
“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,” said Johann, reciting the ancient formula.
“May God, who guides our way, give you true insight of your sins and of His forgiveness,” sounded a male voice with a soft Franconian accent.
Johann began haltingly. “Father, I . . . I have sinned. More than most people could imagine.”
“God’s grace is infinite if you show remorse,” said the priest gently. “Relieve your conscience.”
“I . . . I only ever thought of myself and . . . and let nobody get in my way.”
“Are you saying that you . . . ?”
“That I have killed, yes,” said Johann. “Not with evil intent, however—I was . . . I was drugged. The man my daughter loved died by my hand. I wish I could undo it. But that’s not all.” He swallowed. “Others have died because I chose the wrong path, because I placed knowledge and learning above the commandment of love. Those I loved the most had to suffer. My path is paved with ill luck and pain, Father. With restlessness and discontent. But my intentions were always for the best. The devil is reaching out for me, even now.”
“Who else did you kill?” asked the priest.
“Father, I have a question,” said Johann quickly. “It is this question which brought me here. What weighs more heavily? The life of one’s own child or that of humanity?”
“What sort of a question is that?” sounded the surprised voice of the priest. “Murder is always a deadly sin.”
Johann leaned forward until his lips nearly touched the wooden partition. He spoke very quietly now. “May I save my daughter if doing so puts the lives of many others at risk? Imagine—just theoretically—that the devil offers you a pact. Your own daughter or mankind? Jesus died at the cross to save us all. He sacrificed himself for us. Does that mean I must also sacrifice my daughter?”
“That . . . that is blasphemy!” exclaimed the priest. “Watch your tongue, my son!”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because it cannot be answered. One life weighs as much as any other. Think of the words of Jesus Christ. ‘What you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me.’”
Johann said nothing for a few moments. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he said after a while. “I shouldn’t have come. It was a mistake.”
He was about to leave the confessional, but then he sat back down, the words pouring out of him.
“And yet the church sacrifices people. By the thousands! She forces her sheep into so-called holy wars, murdering and looting in order to follow the true path. How many men and women have been burned to death innocently or fallen on the battlefields? How many Christians have been sacrificed for the true faith?” Johann’s voice had grown louder and could be heard outside the confessionals now. “The end justifies the means—isn’t that what they say? That which holds true for the pope and his followers ought to apply to the belief in reason also, to science. Why can inquisitors like Viktor von Lahnstein elevate themselves above others, kidnapping and murdering in the name of the church, while the common folk aren’t permitted to do any of those things? God says nothing about that!”
“You . . . you are confused, son,” replied the priest, shuffling uncomfortably on his bench behind the partition. “Stop before you burden yourself with more deadly sins!”
“I have laden so many deadly sins upon myself, one more won’t matter. Save your breath, Father. I am the only one who can forgive myself. Homo Deus est.”
With those words, Johann stormed out of the confessional, down the nave, and out into the dark street. He was so full of anger. At the same time he cursed himself for his stupidity. How could he have believed that he would find solace and answers in a church, of all places? The church had taken his daughter from him, just like it had done with his beloved years ago. For centuries Christianity had been nothing but a pawn in the hands of power-hungry despots who thought only of their own interests. Pope Leo was just a link in a long chain. The popes had never cared for the people. The individual man was nothing to them.
Only then did Johann realize that he had used the same words in the confessional that Tonio and his men used to say. It had been their motto.
Homo Deus est.
Man is his own god. Johann couldn’t expect any help or advice from above. At least that insight had come out of his church visit.
He had to decide for himself what was right and what was wrong.
Father Sebastian Keuchlin stayed sitting in the confessional for a long while after the stranger had left. Cold sweat stood on his forehead. Who in God’s name had that been? Keuchlin had never experienced such a confession. Usually, God-fearing German pilgrims came to see him because they had broken the commandment of abstinence and spent their money on wine, women, and song instead of donating it to the mother church. Yes, even murderers and thieves had visited him before to confess their sins, but never a sinner like the one who had just been here. The man had sounded like a scholar, practiced in argument, a magister or doctor, perhaps. But something else had resonated from
