Authors: Robin Cook
“Is that a lengthy process?” James inquired.
“Not if we’re lucky,” Sana answered. “It should take only a few days, although maybe as much as a week. I’d rather be careful than quick. There’s lots of opportunity for DNA contamination, which I’m intent to avoid.”
“What about the bones?” James asked. “What did you learn from the anthropologist?
Are they human? Are they female? Is it more than one person?”
“Yes, yes, and no,” Shawn responded. “They are definitely human, without doubt female, and it is only one person.”
“And there is a suggestion the individual was multiparous,” Jack added. “In fact, significantly multiparous, like more than five, maybe even up to a dozen children.”
James felt his pulse hammer at his temples and for a moment he was overheated, thinking of removing his sweater. After taking a sip of wine to relieve his suddenly parched throat, he asked, “What about the age of the individual?”
“That’s difficult to ascertain, but the anthropologist was willing to guess over fifty, probably more like eighty-plus.”
“I see,” James said simply. Doing a quick calculation in his head, he realized with yet another start that such an age would have been entirely appropriate for the Blessed Mother, considering Jesus’ birth around 4 BC and her death in AD 62. She would have been in her eighties.
James felt his general anxiety rising. Although he knew everything he was hearing was only circumstantial, he feared that such evidence could not help but harden Shawn’s opinion, making James’s job that much more difficult. It also suggested to him that he could not wait any longer. He had to state his case; otherwise, he would have to resort to plan B. Of course, the big problem with plan B was that there was no plan B.
With a shaking hand that he tried to hide, James took a fairly large mouthful of wine, savoring the taste, which was absolutely heavenly. Slowly he swallowed, bit by bit.
Then, sitting up straighter in his chair, he began, first by thanking his hostess.
“This has been the best dinner I’ve had since I can remember,” James said, looking to his left at Sana. “It has the most exquisite flavors and aromas, and strikingly tasty meat prepared perfectly. I salute you, young lady.” James raised his glass, and Shawn and Jack followed suit. Then, turning to Shawn, he again held up his glass. “Adding to this fine dinner has been this superb wine, which I pray did not require mortgaging the house.”
Shawn rocked forward and chortled appreciatively. “It’s been worth every penny to celebrate your birthday, which when we were in college always seemed to come at the most opportune time as an excuse to party rather than study, and to celebrate our favorite ossuary and the promise it has brought. Cheers!”
Everyone took a drink of their extraordinary wine.
“But now I must turn the conversation over to a more serious matter,” James said, looking to his right and engaging Shawn directly. “I can appreciate your excitement about the contents of the ossuary, but I must, I’m afraid, tamp your enthusiasm down a significant degree, as eventually you will come to realize as I mentioned back at the residence that this whole affair is all an elaborate fake, promulgated apparently by this mysterious Saturninus. After giving the affair considerable thought and prayer, I am even more certain this is the case. Why this individual did what he did I have no idea, nor do I care to know, for it is the work of Satan himself. Perhaps he had some personal grudge against the developing Church, most likely from the Church’s appropriate condemnation of the Gnostic heresy, which I understand his letter supports. At the same time, perhaps he was prescient about the future role of Mary as the single most important symbol of Catholic spirituality and faith, and the fact that a huge number of current-day Catho lics consider praying to her as an extraordinary aid in the search for personal holiness. Popes have always highlighted the close connection between Mary and the total acquiescence of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God. The Church is the people of God, and she is the Body of Christ. And for women, in general, she is the redemptrist for the sins of Eve. As much as Eve turned away from God, Mary accepted His wishes without question and bore His Son in perpetual virginity.”
“How can you possibly declare this affair a fake at this early stage of investigation?”
Shawn shouted, after pounding the table hard enough for the dishes and flatware to jump noisily.
“Faith, my son,” James said authoritatively, holding up one hand like a policeman stopping traffic. “By the Holy Spirit working both through the body of the Church as
sensus fidelium
and through the hierarchy, particularly the pope, through sacred magisterium.”
Shawn threw his hands above his head and glanced at Jack while mockingly rolling his eyes. “Can you believe this guy? Now he’s trying to add Latin to confuse and impress me as a way of having a debate. It’s college all over again. And do you know where he is going with this? He’s going to the infallibility argument, the same one we had in college.
Certain things never change!”
Shawn redirected his attention back to James, who was still holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Am I right, lardo? Isn’t this about to dissolve into our old argument about papal infallibility such that when he speaks ex cathedra, meaning from the his official position as Bishop of Rome and head of the Church, on matters of faith or morals he is infallible? Isn’t that what this discussion is coming down to?”
“Let me finish my major point before we get sidetracked,” James said, forcing himself to stay calm in the face of Shawn’s impertinence. “The fact of the matter is this: Any publication about the contents of the ossuary and the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of God, according to the patriarch Cyril of Alexandria and the founder of the study of Mariology, and the Mediatrix Extraordinaire, according to Bernard of Clairvaux, will do irreparable harm to the Church in this regrettable era of low clerical authority stemming from the child-molestation crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people will have their faith challenged unreasonably. The celibacy issue, already being challenged, will be further challenged; priestly numbers will drop beyond their critical numbers today. I have over ten parishes under my authority of the Archdiocese of New York without a pastor. I don’t have enough priests as it is!”
“That’s not my problem,” Shawn snapped. “It’s the Church’s fault. They have to come out of the Dark Ages and stop painting themselves into the corner by relying on this infallibility issue rather than dealing with fact. It’s like the Galileo affair all over again.”
“That affair was not about papal infallibility.”
“Well, you could have fooled me. Galileo was tried for heresy because with his telescope he proved Copernicus’s heliocentric theory to be correct, whereas Church dogma said the Earth was the center.”
“It was an issue of sacred magisterium and
sensus fidelium
but not papal infallibility,”
James snapped back.
“Whatever,” Shawn flaunted. “It was an inexcusable disregard of fact and truth.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“Of course it’s my opinion!”
“Episodes like the Galileo affair have to be viewed in the context of the time at which they occurred.”
“I don’t think fact and truth are contingent on time,” Shawn stated, interrupting James.
His words were becoming progressively slurred from the scotch and wine, as he had started drinking before Jack and then James had arrived. “Does anyone else here besides James believe such a thing?”
Shawn glanced at both Sana and Jack and swayed slightly in the process, but neither responded. Neither wanted to take sides in an argument that clearly was not yet over, and by participating, someone’s feelings would get hurt.
“Would you please let me finish?” James demanded of Shawn.
Shawn made a spectacle of spreading his hands widely, giving James free rein to say what he wanted.
“Publishing an article about the ossuary bones being those of the Virgin Mary, therefore directly contradicting
Munificentissimus Deus,
Pope Pius the Twelfth’s 1950 infallible declaration regarding the Assumption of Mary, not only would have a devastating effect on the Church by undermining both the reputation of the Virgin Mary and clerical authority, but I fully believe it will have an equivalent effect on my career. As the issue is investigated, as it undoubtedly will be, it will soon come to light that it was my intervention with the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology that provided you, Shawn, access to the necropolis, which made it possible for you to steal the ossuary, which is what you have done.”
“I prefer to think of it as
borrow,
” Shawn said with a snide smile.
“For someone who purportedly likes to deal with truth and fact,
steal
is a much better term than
borrow.
Quite quickly, the truth and the facts of the matter will be that the archbishop of New York made it possible for the thief to take the ossuary without the knowledge of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, nor any of its archaeologists, and then compound the theft by illegally removing the important artifact from the Vatican and Italy and having it transported to New York, where it was violated without its rightful owner’s knowledge. With such an involvement coming to light, I would give the Holy Father about one week to recall me to Rome and then post me to some monastery, perhaps in the jungles of Peru or the deserts of Outer Mongolia.”
Once James had finished, a silence settled over the cozy dinner party such that the only sound came from the Daughtrys’ cat scratching in its litterbox down the hall. No one spoke. No one even looked at one another. The uncomfortable sense of betrayal hung in the air like a miasma.
Suddenly, Sana pushed back her chair and stood. “Why don’t all of you head back into the living room, where I’ll bring dessert. Shawn, you see to the brandy.” Sana took her plate and James’s back into the kitchen proper as the others got to their feet. Still, none of the men spoke. Instead, everyone carried either their plates or other objects from the table back to where Sana had retreated.
“It’s actually easier if you all head into the living room as I suggested,” Sana said, as the men divested themselves of their loads, trying vainly to put them directly into the dishwasher but bumping into one another in the process.
“Who’s for brandy, and who’s to stick with their wine?” Shawn gaily questioned. He grabbed the nearly full second bottle of Pétrus and started for the living room, weaving precariously. “If you want wine, bring your goblet,” he added, as he snatched his own from the countertop.
In the living room, each took his original spot. Prior to sitting down, Shawn put the wine bottle and his glass on the coffee table, then got several more logs to lay on the glowing coals, which the original fire had been reduced to. He then got James the brandy he’d requested and then filled Jack’s wineglass and finally his own.
“Such contentment,” Shawn voiced, after finally sitting down. He stared into the now softly crackling fire. He was content, except he knew the ball was in his court to respond to James’s comments. Thanks to Jack’s warning him the night before in his office, Shawn had thought about the issue and had decided the ossuary affair too important to be put off, even if there was the slight possibility the Church might be foolish enough to shoot itself in the foot by punishing one of its best and brightest for something that was clearly not his fault. Shawn had decided not to allow himself to be goaded by any of James’s entreaties.
“James,” Shawn said, taking a small gulp of wine. “Do you really, truly believe the pope would punish you for something clearly not your fault? I mean, I take full responsibility for what I’ve done and will do.”
“I think there is a distinct chance I will be punished.”
“Ah,” sighed Shawn, content to hear that James’s supposed banishment had gone from a closed deal to a chance in five minutes, which is quite a rapid change of probability. “I believe the Church makes some strange decisions, like not allowing condom use in sub-Saharan Africa to prevent massive death and suffering from AIDS, but I don’t think they’d be stupid enough to terminate your career because of my transgressions.”
“I believe I know the inner workings of the Church better than you.”
“That might be, but it’s my opinion. Most significantly, you are not going to goad me into abandoning a project that I see as inordinately important. From my perspective, presenting a challenge to papal infallibility is a positive, not negative, thing, particularly since his infallibility supposedly extends to the arena of morals. The mystical workings of the Holy Spirit aside, it strikes me as nuts to let a supposedly avowed celibate dictate morals in relation to sex and marriage, and declare him to be infallible. It’s contrary to human intuition and cognition, and besides, when you consider
sensus fidelium,
which you brought up, the Church via the pope and the Catholic laity have been at odds about sex for years, even probably several generations.”
“And I suppose you would be a better arbiter of sexual mores?” James questioned superciliously. He knew his old friend was in his cups.
“I’d be more popular than the current arbiters,” Shawn said. “Why is it that the Catholic Church, particularly the American Catholic Church, has had such a hang-up about sex?”
“The Christian Church from its early days has always felt that marriage and sex have been an impediment to a true union with Jesus Christ, which is certainly the origin of celibacy being required of priests. It is certainly the reason I have been celibate all these years. The sacrifice has made me feel decidedly closer to God, without an ounce of doubt.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, but it doesn’t surprise me because you’re crazy. After all, you had Virginia Sorenson in the palm of your hand and then let her go. Was she a piece of ass, Jack, or what?”
“She was definitely a looker,” said Jack, who was equally aware of Shawn’s mental state. “And a smart, lovely person as well.”