TRILOGY: Bk I, Ch 32 (Jackass for the Hour)

TRILOGY: Bk I (Jackass for the Hour), Ch 32

Behead the jackass and burn him!

By the time the third session began, the fund for Haïti, which had gone world-wide, had already topped a hundred million dollars, all of which the news anchors were saying was a drop in the ocean compared to the billions that were needed for the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The fund was administered by the United Nations, though suggestions and approval for expenditures, by way of line-item veto power, were given by the Nunciature in Pétionville. It was agreed that no monies would go to promote procured abortion, the universal child-sacrifice.

•••—•••—•••

Cardinal Francisco thought that the group of reporters and others in the Audience Hall would have diminished after the last session, especially since this session had been delayed from Monday to Friday due to scheduling difficulties claimed by the Special Prosecutor in tracking down his witness. However, there were many more wanting to enter than the Hall could accommodate. The ‘first come, first served’ solution used as an exception for the trial was judged to be a mistake only after it was too late. The crush of people was getting dangerous. A large number of Italian police were on duty. They knew that this morning’s session concerned Father Alexámenos’ alleged instigation of a kind of jihad against Islam with Rabbi Shelomoh. By the time the Hall was filled, it was clear that more than half the crowd were dressed in ‘traditional’ Muslim attire. They had pushed their way to the front of the queue to enter the Hall, though they stayed at the rear of the Hall, behind the reporters and the rest of the crowd.

When it was 10:00 A.M., Cardinal Francisco asked for order, and requested Archbishop Ahan to lead the prayer. The Archbishop had had to leave his gorgeous river-front home in one of the largest and poorest cities in the world in order to attend, but he was eager to defend interreligious dialogue against Father Alexámenos. His secretary, who could hardly speak Arabic, stayed behind to confirm to the Imam at the University that Father Alexámenos would be stopped.

“O God,” began Archbishop Ahan, “we Muslims, Jews and Christians rejoice together, all believing in the same God, the one God, you, Allah, you, Adonai, you, Creator of all…” As he began the prayer, all three priests at the table for the defence prayed the Ave Maria instead.

The Archbishop went on, unperturbed in, of all things, classical Arabic. “We, of Islam, bow in submission to you, Allah; we, of Judaism, praise you, Adonai; we, of Christianity, hail you, Creator of all. We ask for your tolerance of our gathering here this morning as we judge whether Father Alexámenos should live in your presence.” He then sat in the Prosecutor’s chair.

The Muslims cheered, knowing that this kind of blasphemous relativism demonstrated by more and more Catholic leaders could only help their own cause. Cardinal Emet complained to Cardinal Francisco, “This is not a prayer, but a preemptive condemnation.”

Cardinal Francisco did not understand the complaint. He had heard this line about ‘the same God’ for so long and from so many in the Holy See that he never gave it a second thought. “Almost everyone in the world is saying how nice Allah is, so much so that Allah has to be considered to be the same God as that of the Jews and Catholics,” he replied. “After all, if there is only One God, and everyone claims this to be the One God, it must be the same God.”

“If you would try to read the document Dominus Iesus…” padre Emet tried to object.

Hardly had he said Dominus Iesus when Cardinal Froben interrupted from the door of the room to the side of the stage, saying, “We have a code of conduct. We do not go about proselytising anyone!”

Cardinal Fidèle intervened, lying in order to save the situation: “Padre Emet, your Eminence… You must understand that Archbishop Ahan was not speaking in the first person singular or plural, but in a combination of the two. If someone is a Muslim, a Jew or a Catholic, or anything else for that matter, it is her or his private affair. The Archbishop was speaking for the collective body of individuals. People are mature enough to take from his excellent prayer what they want. It is that freedom of religion in which we rejoice. All three religions are the guests of Abraham. Each takes a leap into the void in a kind of bet with which no one can guess the outcome.”

Padre Emet glared at Cardinal Fidèle, knowing that, in the circumstances, there was no effective argument which could be made. In any other situation padre Emet would have stopped the proceedings dead. The best way to proceed was to let the session go on, for it would anyway. “I speak for all Jews and Catholics,” said padre Emet, wanting to cancel the import of Cardinal Fidèle’s words, “when I say that we do not submit to the make-pretend god, Allah… No true Jews or true Catholics would do this, none of us, not ever. Faith…”

“But just the other day,” interrupted Cardinal Fidèle, “the Archbishop of Paul’s Shipwreck prayed with an Imam in the direction of Mecca. And he wasn’t taken off guard, praying his rosary for the conversion of Muslims, as someone else did. Instead, the Archbishop said this was interreligious dialogue.”

“As I was saying,” Cardinal Emet continued, “No true Jews or true Catholics would do this, none of us, not ever. Faith is never a leap into any void, but being drawn into the life of God by Way of the Living Truth He is. If people think that the three angels visiting Abraham in the book of Genesis are analogous to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, then the Most Holy Trinity will soon be sending fire and brimstone upon such a Sodom and Gomorrah of so-called scholarship. That’s what you get for such a suppression of the Faith. Just read chapter one of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, where the Natural Law is…”

“Come now, padre…” rebutted Cardinal Fidèle. “Why should you insist on choosing one masterpiece over another, the Bible over the Qur’an. One cannot bring external criteria to…”

“The criterion one brings is the supernatural Faith of God, by which the Bible judges us, and by which we most certainly do judge the Qur’an, Muhammad and his Allah,” replied padre Emet.

“This is not about either of you,” reprimanded Cardinal Francisco, bidding them to sit down.

As they did, some half-litre water bottles were thrown in the direction of padre Emet from the far side of the Hall. The distance was too great. The bottles landed on the cameras and steps in front of the stage, breaking open, splashing, causing confusion. The police treated the offenders – all Muslims – much the way Father Alexámenos had been treated at the airport, making more than a dozen arrests. The session was delayed by ten minutes. Dozens of police lined up below the broad stage.

Father Alexámenos did not intervene for the protestors as he had for the abuse survivors. Instead, he, with padre Emet and don Hash, knelt down in the direction of the Crucifix of San Damiano and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and began to recite the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, emphasising, first of all, the truth of Baptism. Father Alexámenos, however, was distracted by what padre Emet and don Hash had said previously about the direction this session might take, when don Hash had spoken of political implications, reciting sections of his thesis on the advantages and disadvantages of political tolerance or intolerance of so-called religious fundamentalism, and when padre Emet had spoken of how the Faith worked in quite a different way in the face of true Islamic fundamentalism.

When Cardinal Francisco gave him leave, Archbishop Ahan leaned over to his microphone and said, “Previously, I reckoned that any attention provided to a one-time event might risk some harm to dialogue, but now I see that the matter has become important to the dialogue. In the spirit of unity, I am delegating the interrogation this morning to Shaykh al-Husayn.”

As he said this, the three priests sat down, even while Shaykh al-Husayn walked to the centre of the stage, faced Father Alexámenos, and said, “I suppose that you are going to tell us that your conversation with the Rabbi on the plane was private, and cannot be introduced as evidence.”

“Each word one speaks is weighed by the One Word of the Father, Christ Jesus,” began Father Alexámenos. “Those denying that One Word before men by their words, Shaykh al-Husayn, will be denied by Him before God the Father. Nothing is ever private in the sense that it will not be revealed and shouted from the housetops. Will you not repent and become Catholic once again?”

Shaykh al-Husayn stepped back in horror at these words. He hoped that his fellow Muslims would not think that he was wavering in his conversion to Islam. As a ‘trophy convert’, he knew that he would be dead before the day was out if there was any suspicion that he might convert to the Catholic Church, to his boyhood Faith. His death would be just as useful to Islam as was his life. He knew that it would be his own witness, the Muhammadan – who had been on the plane in the row of seats directly in front of Rabbi Shelomoh and Father Alexámenos – who would do the ‘honours’ in literally cutting him down. To save himself, Shaykh al-Husayn attempted to ignore the comment, and said sardonically, “You have escaped the wrath of Haïti and, ever so conveniently, the wrath of the United States, but Allah sees all… Allah hears all. Allah provided a recording of your blasphemies. Do you recognise your ‘friend’ from the plane?” Without waiting for an answer, Shaykh al-Husayn turned around, ordering his witness to play the recording, holding the recorder to the microphone. When he had done so, Shaykh al-Husayn turned once again to Father Alexámenos and asked, “Do you agree that this is your voice?”

“Yes,” replied Father Alexámenos. “I am sorry that my Hebrew isn’t what it should be.”

“Play it again,” Shaykh al-Husayn ordered. “The recording isn’t very good…” He did so.

“Translate the Hebrew for us,” commanded Shaykh al-Husayn in perfect modern Hebrew.

Father Alexámenos said: “Abraham’s would-be sacrifice of his son as imagined in the Qur’an has nothing to do with an immediate resurrection, which only comes at the final judgment. Besides this, there is no stricture in the Qur’an that a progeny of Imams would necessarily come through either Isaac or Ishmael or both. In Genesis, it must be from Isaac that the promised progeny comes, excluding Ishmael, necessitating the instantaneous resurrection of Isaac. Instead, the Qur’an imagines Allah as being a blood-thirsty god, who is pleased with child-sacrifice as the best method of bribing one’s way into his favour. It is the essential text used to encourage child-sacrifice terrorist bombings. It is the central text of Islam. The Qur’anic version of Abraham’s would-be sacrifice of his son has nothing to do with the account in Genesis. The true Abraham is not the father in faith of Islam. Promoting Qur’anic style child-sacrifice is not true religion.”

After pausing for a moment, Father Alexámenos continued: “When the Rabbi tried to reprimand me, I insisted that ‘if this critique is offensive to the non-emotive-language police in Brussels, it is not because they are ignorant, but because they know the truth is being told, a truth they want to hide as they encourage the islamicisation of Europe, Africa, Asia, the world. They complain that academic critiques like this risk the radicalisation of Muslims, cynically aware that it is they who are saying that the roots of Islam are terroristic, for this is what the word radical means. It is those who forbid the truth to be told who are true terrorists. They create the conditions in which terrorist bombings will continue. They are afraid to permit a reasoned critique of Islam, a fear which bodes the end of society as we know it.’”

“Allah is not a blood-thirsty god,” insisted Shaykh al-Husayn with much anger. “You have blasphemed. You deserve death. Abraham ransomed his son for a great sacrifice.”

“You are right. My mistake,” said Father Alexámenos, candidly.

“What?!” asked Shaykh al-Husayn.

“I should have been clearer,” said Father Alexámenos. “And I am pleased that you give me a chance to explain what I meant. What I was trying to say was…”

“Yes. Yes. Go on…” insisted Shaykh al-Husayn.

“I didn’t mean to say that Allah is a blood-thirsty god, but rather that Allah is not a god at all. He’s a fiction of the Judaeo-Christian reactionary heretic, Muhammad, who was projecting his thoughts about child-sacrifice onto his own imagination. On ‘id al-Adha, at Mina, outside Mecca, Muslims annually celebrate this rubbish. It reminds me of what the Emperor of Constantinople said: ‘Show me just what Muhammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’”

“Be nice! Be nice!” shouted Archbishop Ahan, now on his feet, taking over the questioning once again. “Recant, apologise, explain!” he insisted, distancing himself from the priest’s words. “You speak with the same discourteous attitude with which the Muhammad bomb-head cartoons were drawn. That is not what was intended by the Holy Fa…”

“I’m simply saying,” interrupted Father Alexámenos, “that it is blasphemy to hold that Christ Jesus, the Word spoken by our Heavenly Father, is not the fullness of Revelation, that He is merely a prophet leading the way to the true revealer, Muhammad. When Muhammad added horrific things like child-sacrifice as bribery of some make-believe divinity, that’s where I say, ‘That is evil and inhuman!’”

“You repeat it! We must stop this bickering!” exclaimed the Archbishop.

“You can’t avoid doctrine by concentrating on culture, or vice versa,” said Father Alexámenos. “The Qur’an is full of violence. I tried to make a list of every time it mentioned violence, but soon gave up. There are so many places that…”

“You sound just as hypocritical as Cardinal…” said Archbishop Ahan, only to be interrupted.

“You are mistaken,” said Father Alexámenos. “That Cardinal failed to say why violence in the Qur’an is different from the violence in the Hebrew Scriptures, and then rejected the Hebrew Scriptures, accepting only the New Testament, condemning Jews in the process. I don’t do that!”

“What you do,” countered the Archbishop, “is ignore that the words Allah and Elohim come from the same etymological root which means ‘God’. Don’t tell me you don’t know even that.”

The Muhammadan ‘prayed’ in Arabic, “O Allah, give triumph to Islamic martyrs! O Allah, obliterate the dwellings of the hostile parties of Islam! O Allah, assist us that we may annihilate the enemies of Islam! O Allah, establish in all places the voice of the Islamic nation!” He was paraphrasing his own khutba following the destruction of the World Trade Center, after which he had said that suicide bombings are acts of martyrdom; that their agents are martyrs for Islam.

Ignoring the Muhammadan, Father Alexámenos said, also rising to his feet, “For Muslims, Allah is beyond our reason, and can act against reason, so that if the spread of religion by violence is what Allah commands in the Qur’an, then some Muslims, at least, submit to this. Dialogue under these conditions is impossible, except with those who reject such epistemological rubbish… and there are some brave souls who do that, those who…”

“Instead, we must open to…” interrupted Archbishop Ahan.

“They will only accept the witness of martyrdom,” said Father Alexámenos with intensity. “But many have become effeminate, and there are few martyrs. Would that we would do what is not against reason, but is made reasonable by the Charity that God is! Would that we would accept that Christ has, in unspeakable love, laid down our lives with His, making us members of His Body! Would that we would have the grace to become martyrs if the Lord calls us to such a great vocation! And as far as your etymology of Allah and Elohim are concerned, both refer to divinity, depending on where you are from and who you are, but that doesn’t mean both are actually divine. And instead of being nice, please God, I will be charitable. I love our Muslim friends. That’s why I must…”

“You are dead wrong,” said Archbishop Ahan, interrupting. “In your view, are you not scandalising those with a weak conscience, who will take your words out of context, who will answer you with violence? Don’t you know that you are creating more division than unity? Our dialogue with Islam has nothing to do with you. You don’t know where we’ve come from or where we are going. No one needs to be subjected to your violent provocations. You are intolerant of other perspectives and feelings, an intolerance which is irreligious. You are to respect not only other people, but also their religious practices. You jeopardise the world’s peace. Are you not aware of the continuous violence wrought against, for instance, the Palestinians, those in Gaza, those in…”

“I am aware we are all living in a hell from which Christ came to save us, bringing us to Himself,” said Father Alexámenos. “It is because I am so very aware of the grave sufferings of others, of the torture, the disappearances, the murder, the…”

“You know nothing!” said the Archbishop. “You do have peace in your own heart and…”

“Peace,” Father Alexámenos replied, “is given by Christ Jesus, who is Truth, who makes it possible to live in and by Truth. Peace, ‘the tranquillity of Truth’ – to use the words of a recent Pope – is rejected by terrorists. With Truth’s splendour, people will set out on the path of peace. I respect people enough to want them to come to know the Living Truth, I cannot respect other so-called religions like Islam. I cannot respect a bloodthirsty request of Allah to sacrifice a child as a mere bribery for his favour. One may acknowledge commonalities, as far as they go, but one is not to say that it is good for everyone to have differences in doctrine and morality. Islam is not ‘a great world religion.’ If I must say it, I will: I am Catholic. ‘Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.’” Father Alexámenos’ last words in German were justly said, unlike those of Luther, to whom these words were attributed in Worms: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God, help me!”

The Archbishop, livid, said, “When the violence begins, you’ll regret that this little dialogue of ours has been broadcast to the entire world…”

“When the violence begins?” asked Father Alexámenos with a highly incredulous voice. “How long will you refuse to understand, your Grace? How long will people have to sacrificed? Do you really mean to ‘be nice’ by calling ‘dialogue’ what is actually your attempt at suppressing the Living Truth? Do you really pretend to ‘be nice’ by expressly excluding conversion as an end of dialogue? Tell us, your Grace, do you not believe that our Heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son into the world that He might freely offer Himself on our behalf so that we would no longer sacrifice our children? How long must the killing go on? How many more centuries? Who will have the Charity to say something? Do you hate Muslims – and all the rest of us – so much as not to speak the fulness of Truth?”

“You are being inflammatory,” said the Archbishop, with anger and aggression. “Error has rights. Those you would call heretics have rights. Their challenge is a service to you, having you grow by way of reaction. That is the only way to progress. If there were no heretics, we would have to encourage people to be heretics. What do you think we’ve been doing? Our respective religious traditions all insist on the sacred character of the life and dignity of the human person.”

“All of them? Sacrificing children is not sacred!” exclaimed Father Alexámenos. “My words are not inflammatory like the words ‘Bring ’em on!’ are inflammatory. I’m inciting people to think, to reason, because of Charity! We must learn by mutual encouragement in Truth, growing with grace upon grace.”

“Many Christians may be put to death in retaliation for your words,” said the Archbishop.

“If people are put to death,” replied Father Alexámenos, “for the sake of the Living Truth, for Christ’s sake and that of the Gospel, it is not as if blame is to be laid on anyone. Instead, this is how we save our lives. Heaven rejoices when people give witness to the greatest love. Our Lord said…”

“You are inflammatory and imprudent! This is a trial, not a private conversation,” insisted Archbishop Ahan. “Even from your point of view, if someone is in ignorance and in good faith – sincerity, if you will – then you must leave them in ignorance, for if they come to know the truth, they may not accept it. Let us build an interior unity whose dynamism brings us to an exterior unity, not of religious practice, but of human tolerance.”

“Number one, I would never assume someone is insincere, as you assume yourself about everyone else, so fearful are you that they would all abandon the truth upon coming to know it,” replied Father Alexámenos. “Number two, without unity of religious practice, human tolerance is merely a sham of societal fluctuation, here today, gone tomorrow, but not really here today either. To say, ‘I dialogue; therefore, I am,’ or better, ‘I dialogue; therefore, I am justified,’ does not justify. I say, ‘Tell everyone the truth,’ for if they are sincere, in good faith, as you call it, they will accept it. I do not ‘admit’, but rather proclaim that what is said here is as ‘imprudent’, ‘inflammatory’ and ‘private’ as the words ‘This is my Body, being given for you in Sacrifice… This is my Blood, being shed for you in Sacrifice…’ If we speak the truth about Child-Sacrifice to the Muslims, whom Christ Jesus loves so much as to have died for them, well, even if we are misunderstood, dying for our Faith, they will come to understand why we have borne witness to Christ’s love for them. They will thank us for telling them the truth at the cost of our own blood. Christ shed His Blood. Why shouldn’t we?”

“You… you discourteous troublemaker!” said the Archbishop. “You must not risk lives. You…”

“So that’s the problem… a fear of proclaiming the Faith, a fear of laying down one’s life for one’s friends?” asked Father Alexámenos. “We won’t lose our eternal lives even if we might be put to death in this world because of our witness to God, who is Charity. Witnessing to love – whatever the cost – remains good, even while seeking martyrdom is, of course, stupid, hateful. We must speak about what we believe, namely, Christ’s Sacrifice. Deus est Caritas. We say, in His name, ‘This is my Body, being given for you’… in a Sacrifice of Charity. ‘This is my Blood, being shed for you’… in a Sacrifice of Charity. Your Grace, you say these words daily. Are you so unwilling to lay down your life for your friends? Is dialogue, for you, simply an end in itself?”

At this point, Shaykh al-Husayn found his own voice, and saved Archbishop Ahan by asking, “So, Mister Priest, you think that all Muslims are going straight to hell?”

“Christ’s face is to be seen in all,” replied Father Alexámenos. “Jesus also died to bring Muslims to the Truth that they presently do not have.”

“I don’t believe you are sincere in saying this,” said Shaykh al-Husayn.

“Take the case of suicide bombers,” said Father Alexámenos.

“Martyrs!” exclaimed Shaykh al-Husayn.

“Just how are they ‘cultivated’, indoctrinated, brainwashed, intimidated, drugged? I don’t know,” said Father Alexámenos. “Are they crazed with anger after seeing their family members die in an unjust way? Does the hell of My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and so many other places drive them around the bend? I do not know. But there is a real danger that terrorist elements may use Abraham’s would-be sacrifice of his son as it is presented in the Qur’an, whereby Abraham and his son are rewarded for any would-be violence, just for the sake of that violence alone. It’s so unreasonable, so uncharitable. It’s just so sad. Coercion or error does not justify a person. If only they could see Christ, who is so close to them, who knows them so well.”

“Do you not think that they are martyrs?” asked Shaykh al-Husayn.

Father Alexámenos sat down, praying that the line of conversation would go well. He responded, saying, “You do not listen well, for these children are neither martyrs nor are they given a free pass to heaven. Christ holds out redemption to them, but that doesn’t mean that they will be saved. But I will tell you this… the Muslims who go out of their way to risk going straight to hell, Shaykh al-Husayn, are those few who have come to know who Christ is, God with us, and yet, have rejected Him. This will especially be true of apostates to Islam, especially those one time Catholics, Shaykh al-Husayn, who have sacrificed Catholic children to a make-pretend Allah by indoctrinating them into Islam. Many of the rest of the Muslims, as I said in my conversation on the plane, do not know the significance of the Qur’anic version of child-sacrifice that it says would have been wrought by Abraham. The vast, vast majority of Muslims are simply victims of Muhammad, who advanced his own brand of Pelagianism, of bribing one’s way into heaven with things one does to win Allah’s favour, like a sadistic sacrificing of children. But this is just sacrificing children to one’s own whims, making oneself a god, all very much in the same way as has been happening with…”

•••—•••—•••

The Vatican Secretariat of State, whose officials watched over Mater Ecclesiae convent – interfering in its affairs as a matter of course – had arranged for a priest to replace the one who offered Mass at the convent on a regular basis, but had recently taken ill, as had the long retired archpriest of the basilica, who considered himself their friend. A Chinese priest was sent with a deacon. After the Mass, all the nuns greeted the clerics, who drank the tea offered to them. Mother Bernadette, so astute, took these occasions as opportunities to teach the nuns about the state of the Church.

Mother Bernadette asked, “So, Father, where are you staying in Rome during your pilgrimage? I hope you didn’t have to travel far.”

“A small place. The City University and Propaganda Fide aren’t as diplomatic as they once were.”

“I used to be at the Americans’ Casa Santa Maria,” the deacon added, “but for diplomacy I’ve moved to the Aventine. Many of my friends are now at the Canterbury Institute.”

“Diplomacy… I see,” Mother replied, hiding well her anger over the manipulation of her nuns. “It seems to me I’ve heard you on Vatican Radio. You both have such smooth voices.”

“I love the broadcast concelebrated Masses we’ve had there in the past,” the priest said.

Mother Bernadette did not reveal how distressed she was in hearing this, sick at the thought of faithful Catholics in China at risk of becoming bitter with the Holy See because of hearing the not so veiled promotion of the Patriotic Church. “I wonder,” she continued, “if we have any possible vocations from your diocese in China, Father – our Order is now so large – or if, perhaps, we will be invited to open a convent in China soon…”

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” he replied.

“You must be under great pressure,” Mother pressed on, “cars, cathedrals, presbyteries, freedom, influence, power… the history of it all… It’s so complex. I’m not sure I could resist.”

“Why resist?” asked the deacon, who looked like he had been lip reading her words.

Pleased with the imprudence of the deacon, Mother went in for the kill and, hopefully, the conversion: “You’ll be ordained a priest soon, will you not?”

“Yes. My bishop has much influence… I mean, he’s very dedicated,” the deacon replied.

“I am sure he is,” replied Mother Bernadette, turning her attention then to the priest: “And you are soon to be nominated a bishop, are you not? You are surely very talented.”

Distracted with the compliment, the priest responded, “Beijing is very generous with me.”

Certain that they belonged to the Open or Patriotic Church, the Chinese version of ‘religious’ atheistic communism, Mother observed, “The American Episcopal Conference surely has great appreciation for the complexity of the situation, and there are some Cardinals, even here in Rome, who, disturbed with the reality of the ‘underground church’, speak of dealing only with the official…”

But before she could finish, the priest, now visibly relaxed, said, “The Cardinals do not want us to convert, but to be faithful to the Holy Father through the government system.”

“The ‘they’ to whom you refer is always an amorphous quantity, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, well…” he chuckled, “but Cardinal…” He cut himself off. “We’ll see how things work out. For now, it is all very wonderful.”

“Is it really so wonderful to be ordained for a genocidal dictatorship which hates God, the Church, and the Chinese people?” asked Mother Bernadette, to the delight of the nuns. “How can you be ordained when your fellow deacons, priests and bishops are tortured in ‘re-education’ camps, some of them ‘disappearing’ completely? Do you accompany the population police in their raids on villages? Do you help slash open the wombs of pregnant women, ripping out their babies, killing them and their mothers, imprisoning the husbands, assaulting the families, destroying their homes and animals and crops, mistreating the very priests faithful to the Holy Father, who are doing their best to guide their people to heaven. You are not brave enough to criticise government policy, are you? You do not bite the hand that feeds you. You are lapdogs to the government, wolves, who devour the Lord’s faithful. Is that what good fathers do?”

“I have to make a phone call,” they said simultaneously, quickly leaving the convent. This statement about making a phone call had become a standing joke over the decades among those who dealt with the clergy of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. They were, in fact, serious about having to check in with government officials every time they were challenged.

“The Confessional is better than a phone call,” she called out after them. “The seal isn’t broken… in Rome.”

The priest, now quite far away, turned – now walking backward – and yelled: “The Religious Affairs Bureau doesn’t send fake penitents to us to see if we will break the Seal of Confession if complaints against the government are made during a Confession. They don’t! They don’t! They don’t! They don’t!” With that, he turned again as they continued to walk quickly away. The priest told the deacon what she had said. It was then the deacon who turned to face Mother Bernadette. He stood still and screamed, “You’ve never had to stand in sewage up to your waist, unable to sit lest you drown. You’ve never had bamboo sticks beaten into your ears…” The priest slapped him hard, but the deacon continued. “You’ve never had to eat a corpse in order to survive on a boat for months, trying to escape imprisonment and torture…” The priest hit him so hard that he finally prevailed. They went away quickly with the priest uselessly shouting at the deacon the whole time.

They did not suspect that Mother Bernadette had begun to study both Taiwanese and ‘simplified’ Mandarin. She understood that the deacon, after being ordained, would have gone to Taiwan to enter the seminary there as a spy, but had now shown so much disloyalty that the ‘Pope’ of the ‘Religious Affairs Bureau’ would have no place for him. The point was obvious to Mother Bernadette. If Taiwan were to be filled with priests secretly faithful to Beijing, it would make the integration of the rest of the Taiwanese population all the more easy when Taiwan, inevitably, in the eyes of China, would be fully integrated with the mainland. But now, at least for the deacon, she had some hope, and prayed, “Lord, make their conversion to you complete.”

•••—•••—•••

Archbishop Ahan changed his questions, asking, “Have you never read where it is written, ‘Ecclesia cum aestimatione quoque muslimos respicit qui unicum Deum adorant, viventem et subsistentem, misericordem et omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terrae, homines allocutum’?” He asked this as if this was the preemptive question of the trial.

Father Alexámenos replied, “If it is said in the mere declaration, Nostra aetate, of the Second Vatican Council, that ‘the Church also looks with respect to Muslims who adore the One God, living and subsistent, merciful and omnipotent, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who has spoken to man,’ this is not to say that Qur’anic Islam represents what each Muslim actually holds. The declaration speaks not of the doctrine of Islam, but of the assent of individual Muslims to what those particular individuals hold, if they hold that God is One, living and subsistent, merciful and omnipotent, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who has spoken to man.’ The Council Fathers were making a distinction between the true God and a make pretend god, Allah.”

“What! How can you see that in that sentence?” demanded the Archbishop, worried that Father Alexámenos had read the declaration in Latin. “Translations are good enough! Who do you think you are?”

“Although these same Muslims mistakenly, though sincerely, call the true God ‘Allah’,” continued Father Alexámenos, “these particular Muslims esteemed by the Council Fathers do not accept all of what is written in the Qur’an. The Council Fathers speak of ‘merciful’ as an attribute of the true God, but this being ‘merciful’ contradicts much of what is written in the Qur’an, especially in regard to child-sacrifice. Besides, it is not the Qur’an to which the declaration refers when it says that Muslims believe that God has spoken to man, for the Qur’an itself constantly refers to the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures, holding Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary, to be…”

“But you must be feeling ill! That is not what the sentence in Nostra aetate says,” asserted the Archbishop. “You are reading your own, narrowminded meanness into that sentence.”

“Ah yes, that sentence… I always suspected that that was the problem. That sentence we are talking about actually continues with no full-stop, no semi-colon, no colon, no dashes or ellipses. False translations cited by the Muslim attackers of the Pope add those things. I’ve been commenting on the whole sentence, not just the first half you recited. Did you not know, your Grace, that half-truths are more dangerous than blatant lies, more misleading, more hurtful of dialogue and unity, suppressing both Truth and Charity? Do you really love our Muslim brothers, your Grace?”

“Damn you!” exclaimed the Archbishop. “Can’t you understand that differences in belief are not to be done away with so that we have unity in one big super-religion? We make valid contributions by working for the good of a super-society. We respect not only religious minded people, but also their religions. We don’t want one religion! This is how we avoid relativism and syncretism. It is we who have a clear voice. This is the patrimony of our Cardinal, may he rest in peace. But you! You destroy all that we’ve worked for, what we’ve spent our lives promoting!”

“And what is that, your Grace, yourself instead of Christ Jesus?”

“Damn you!” he repeated, sputtering.

“I’m sure that’s the reason why you would have liked to include Islam as an equal partner in the Catholic-Jewish ‘dialogue’,” surmised Father Alexámenos. “Not even your Cardinal went that far.”

“Abraham provides all three religions space to dialogue and live together,” said the Archbishop.

“Your blasphemous, adulterous cohabitation returns us to what padre Emet said about Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Father Alexámenos. The purpose of dialogue isn’t to stare at each other with mutual respect and esteem; that’s just perverted, or better, inverted. Instead, the purpose of dialogue is to have an occasion for instructing the ignorant, a work of mercy. Any decent Muslim would cut your head off for your remarks, but it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort.”

“Abraham’s guests of these millennia show that truth marches ahead,” said the Archbishop.

“God is Truth, and He does not depend on movement to exist,” replied Father Alexámenos. “He is the same, always. He creates time. He redeems time. As He said, when He is lifted up on the Cross, He will draw all to…”

“Most accepted experts,” interrupted Archbishop Ahan, “translate the Latin by dividing the sentence with a full stop or semi-colon, manifesting the two different thoughts!”

Father Alexámenos recited the rest of the sentence of the short document from memory, stressing each word, “The sentence continues without a break, your Grace, by saying ‘… cuius occultis etiam decretis toto animo se submittere student, sicut Deo se submisit Abraham ad quem fides islamica libenter sese refert.’ In other words, your Grace, these particular Muslims strive to submit themselves with wholeness of soul to the very hidden decrees of God, just as to God did Abraham submit himself, to whom Islamic faith freely refers itself.”

“It’s ambiguous to whom ‘whom’ refers,” said the Archbishop.

“Islamic ‘faith’ can freely refer itself to whatever or whoever it wants,” replied Father Alexámenos, “but an analogous mention of these things was made a year before Nostra aetate in the dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium of Vatican II, where the reference is to Abraham, who’s no prototype of Islam, as the blasphemers say. The careful wording makes it clear that the Qur’anic version of the would-be child-sacrifice of Abraham is not confirmed to be good by either the Jews or the Catholic Church. At any rate, the next sentence in Nostra aetate says that not only Islamic doctrine, but individual Muslims do not rightly understand Abraham’s submission to God through the would-be child-sacrifice of his son; because of that, they do not know who it is they adore, negating, as they do, the divinity of Jesus, to whom the would-be child-sacrifice of Abraham actually did refer. This is true even though they venerate Jesus as a prophet born of the Virgin Mary, whom they also honour and may even devoutly invoke: ‘Iesum, quem quidem ut Deum non agnoscunt, ut prophetam tamen venerantur, matremque eius virginalem honorant Mariam et aliquando eam devote etiam invocant.’”

“The interpretation you give must be wrong, Father, for the Council Fathers then declared just how nice Muslims are, that they are as nice as we are!”

“Nice, indeed!” exclaimed Father Alexámenos. “I agree wholeheartedly with what the Council Fathers actually said, that some Muslims, in their own way, believe in the judgment of God following the resurrection of all men, that they may esteem a moral life, and that they may present themselves to God especially by prayer, almsgiving and fasting. But that is not to say that all Muslims do this in the right way, or that the Qur’an teaches the correct doctrine on grace.”

“Grace?” questioned the Archbishop… “We do not use that kind of terminology any more.”

“Your Grace…” said Father Alexámenos, pausing for effect. “Your Grace, Judaeo-Christian Tradition insists that God justifies us, truly sanctifies us. The Qur’an, instead, presents Abraham’s being accepted by Allah not as any justification which is actually sanctification, but as a mere juridical declaration by Allah that Abraham’s submission, which Abraham made on his own, was accepted by Allah as an end in itself. Abraham’s submission was done with his would-be child-sacrifice. At least Muhammad tried to be consistent by having his imaginary Allah make such a declaration, and then base this on works done.”

“Yes, what could possibly be wrong with that?” asked the Archbishop.

“Apparently, the Islamic heresy is so ingrained in society today that it is difficult to see just how evil it is. It is not just Muslims who think about justification in this way. There are others who have desired such an external, juridical declaration. They thought that their own works were not important, and that such a declaration would be made for no reason at all. But no reason is not reason enough for us mortals, however much we try to say so. Such people must prove to themselves that they are saved, and so go about forcing a puritanical lifestyle on themselves, often falling into depression should they not come up to their own expectations. One person who thought like this was in almost total despair due to his false identification of the effects of original and of personal sin – the weakness and temptation we all know – with sin itself. He insulted Jesus by saying that the Redemption which Christ wrought for us could not sanctify us, but was tantamount to an external, juridical declaration by our Heavenly Father that we are nice. He said that our being ‘redeemed’ is so external and false, that it is comparable to a blanket of snow covering a dungheap… even in heaven. Simul iustus et peccator. But one cannot be just and sinner at the same time as Luther pretended. Instead, if one is just, one may suffer the weakness due to sin. Yet, the justified man, as such, cannot be guilty of sin at the same time. If he sins again, he is no longer just.”

“I am the Special Prosecutor for the accusations against you concerning interreligious dialogue,” asserted Archbishop Ahan. “It sounds like you are making anti-ecumenical comments better directed to Cardinal Froben. Shall we try to stay on topic, please?”

“Do you not see, your Grace? These others I was speaking about hold that Revelation is external to the soul. Revelation for them is not Scripture and the grace of the Faith brought to us in Sacred Tradition, but is merely their own ‘tradition’ which they call ‘faith’. For them, Revelation is really just a man-made theology which pretends to judge even which books belong to the Bible. Islam also presents ‘revelation’ as something external to the soul,” continued Father Alexámenos, “merely words dictated to Muhammad by his Allah, a ‘religion’ of the ‘book’. It is this misunderstanding about God and His relationship to us which has brought about such violent…”

Many of the Protestant observers added their murmuring to that of the Muslims who were present, not liking to be equated with a non-Christian religion. “I object,” shouted Cardinal Froben, again poking his head out from the room at the side of the stage. He felt that his ‘common declaration’ on justification between various Lutheran federations and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity was being attacked. He had to say, at the least, that he objected, though he didn’t know how to do this. Without any microphone, he wasn’t heard by anyone.

Cardinal Francisco, tapping his gavel, encouraged the proceedings to continue.

“You, priest, are clearly malicious,” said Shaykh al-Husayn.

“Malicious and dangerous,” confirmed Archbishop Ahan. “You’re not following the advice of the Council Fathers in making a sincere effort to bring about mutual understanding, so as to preserve and promote, for the good of all men, social justice, good morals, as well as peace and freedom. You do not want to forget the dissensions and enmities of the past. How dare you bring such disgrace to the Most Holy Synod, to the Church, and to humanity itself. Forget the past!”

“Truth is never passé, your Grace. Truth is ever new, though always the same, ever young, but was before the universe began, ever living, for Truth is a Person, Christ Jesus. I will not forget the Truth, for He has remembered me, giving Himself for me, that I might remember Him as He commanded, saying, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ I will continue to say, during the Holy Child-Sacrifice of the Mass, ‘This is My Body, being given for you… This is My Blood, being shed for you…’ I worship the Truth… absolute, Living Truth, and this by His grace, your Grace…”

“Stop calling me ‘your Grace’!” commanded Archbishop Ahan, upset with his own ecclesiastical title used in most Anglophone countries, a title which, however, did not refer to him, but to his office.

“Yes, your Grace…” replied Father Alexámenos, not willing to let him forget his obligations. “It is in remembering the Truth, witnessing to the fulness of the Truth, that error is corrected and the promotion of social justice, good morals, peace and freedom are all brought about. Mutual understanding can only come about in the remembrance of the Truth. I would like to make one thing quite clear… It is because I know how much I myself am in need of Christ’s mercy that I want to bring the Truth of Jesus as the Child-Sacrifice of the Father to all people. It is why I speak of Revelation as not only Sacred Scripture, but also Sacred Tradition, Faith, as that which transforms one’s soul in sanctifying grace, saving us from ourselves, bringing us into union with God and neighbour. The Lord loves all and, unlike Ishmael in the Qur’an, has given Himself as a Child-Sacrifice for all, something about which the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament speak. Christ’s face is also to be seen in all Muslims. With the desire that the many be saved, we, before Christ, do not hold disagreements of past millennia over anyone’s head, your Grace.”

“Shaykh al-Husayn and his witness are correct,” said Archbishop Ahan. “You are inciting violence. They told me that they do not blame the Rabbi in the least for what you have said. The Jews have also suffered at the hands of Catholics. All this is your own idea. Only your blood is required. We will make an example of you, appeasing Islam with damage control.”

“Another child-sacrifice?” asked Father Alexámenos.

“Not child-sacrifice! Nothing quite so romanticised… just self-defence,” said the Archbishop, who then insisted: “If you repent now, you can still save yourself, and stop any utterly unnecessary violence that your remarks are sure to incite. Even if you think that recanting against your perverted insistence on doctrinal purity is against your narrow-minded conscience, you should know that there is such a thing as doing what is the lesser of two evils.”

“Please God, I would never…” Father Alexámenos began to reply.

“Even a Cardinal rejected the doctrine and morality of the Church, claiming the lesser of the two evils. He was promoting contraception, stem-cell research, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual ‘marriage’, and so on, everything that goes along with the culture of death. If he has done it, you can do the same. After all, God couldn’t expect anything more from you. It’s a clear ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation, unless, of course, you just think of it as a lesser of two evils. Then you save yourself and others. The world, I should remind you, is watching.”

“So, I am damned because of the ‘harm’ I do in speaking the truth?” asked Father Alexámenos.

“Precisely,” replied the Archbishop.

“And I am damned if I do not follow my conscience, unless I accept the lesser of two evils theory, so that, in speaking against my conscience, I actually save myself?”

“You are more intelligent than I thought,” said the Archbishop, pleased with himself. “Perhaps you will soon agree with me that we should all submit to Islamic civil governance as the lesser of two evils.”

“Instead, there is a third choice,” said Father Alexámenos. “There is always a third choice.”

“And what could that possibly be?” asked the Archbishop. “Will you kiss the Qur’an?”

“It’s called God’s will,” said Father Alexámenos. “The lesser of two evils theory is just more Protestant reductionism, an excuse to do whatever in hell you want to do, your Excellency.”

“For that blasphemy, you are to be condemned to burn, not only in this world, but also in…”

“That will be quite enough, your Grace,” said Cardinal Francisco. “You are not the judge of…”

“Neither are you, your Eminence,” the Archbishop shot back.

“Quite correct,” said Cardinal Francisco. “The Holy Father will decide. Whether he finds the defendant guilty, as you claim, and whether, if he is found guilty, he will then meet the death you call for, will be the Holy Father’s decision. This was agreed by Haïti, the United States, Italy…”

“Specifically not any Arab states!” interrupted Shaykh al-Husayn. “You are all hypocrites. You just want our death! You will see what we will do. We will…”

But Cardinal Francisco tapped furiously on his microphone, causing everyone in the Audience Hall to cover their ears. This was just as well, for the Muslims at the back of the Hall had begun to chant the death chant, “Behead the jackass and burn him! Behead the jackass and burn him!” This had been planned as a retaliation if the morning’s session went badly. Within seconds, they flooded out of the Hall, even before the police could object to their disruption. The police did not follow them, thinking that the problem was solving itself. Outside, however, they quickly ran into the nearby Vatican Gardens. They had moved more quickly than the gates on either side of the Sacristy building could be shut. They made their way to the Vatican Gardens still shouting, “Behead the jackass and burn him!” An accomplice was standing outside the gate which closed off the railway entrance to Vatican City. When he heard his companions on the other side, he threw a sword over the gate and high wall. Some sections of the City wall, parts of the original of which could still be seen in the gardens, had been built in the 850’s against Islamic jihad. Muslims had sacked the City many times. One of the Muslims who had been previously delegated the task, grabbed the sword and ran to the donkey, which was being kept on the hillside between the Governatorato and the Basilica. The donkey was completely beheaded with one stroke. “One man, now one jackass!” cried the young swordsman, full of adrenaline. They had known the donkey was there, for the newspapers and the media made much of the lighthearted story. They tossed the head of the donkey on its carcass, and set it on fire with the flammable garments many of them had wrapped over themselves for this purpose, changing their death chant to, “Behead the priest and burn him!” A helicopter, providing coverage for all the media, broadcast the event, which took only a few minutes to accomplish.

Those inside, including those on stage, did not move or say anything further. They had all heard the death chanting continuing outside, moving in the direction of the gardens, and were afraid of what might happen next. When word came of what had happened – which was then announced by Cardinal Francisco – padre Emet demanded loudly over his microphone that Cardinal Francisco was to offer a real prayer. “Try the Lord’s Prayer,” he said, glaring at him. Cardinal Francisco obeyed. Most in the Audience Hall joined. “Our Father…” they began.

==================

Chapter 33 coming soon…

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© 2007-2008 Renzo di Lorenzo — All rights reserved

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