Authors: Glenn Kleier
“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
general
teachings of Abraham, Christ, Muhammad and the many great Messiahs remain valid. It is when the autocracies of religion have sought to complicate these principles that they err.
“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
all
religions are failures?” Litti questioned.
“That religion which asks
nothing
for itself from its membership may call itself worthy,” the prophetess responded flatly.
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
objet d'art,
complete with accounts of its origins.
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.
Feldman noticed that Jeza had also closed her eyes in silent meditation. Not having much alternative, Feldman and the rest of the party maintained their positions, patiently awaiting what was to come next. A few rows behind Feldman, Hunter was busy zooming his camera in on points of interest around the basilica, and Cissy occupied herself with adjusting sound levels of the choir on her portable, digital recorder.
When the choir suddenly fell silent, Feldman took this as a good sign something significant was imminent. In a few moments, tall bronze double doors from a side sacristy opened wide with a heavy metallic
bong.
The choir erupted in a joyous hymn, the huge audience rose, turning as one in excited reverence, and the media pressed in as close as the cordons and stationed Swiss Guards would allow.
First to emerge through the bronze doors was the papal master of ceremonies in white and black robe, flanked by the procurators of the ecclesiastical colleges and two Swiss Guards. Behind them followed the Capuchin preacher to the Holy See, clad in dark brown. Then the papal father-confessor, dressed in jet black; after him, a series of monsignors in deep purple; a group of protonotary apostolics in white; and a chaplain bearing the papal mitre.
Next were six judges of the Rota and legal officials carrying candles, followed by two deacons, one Western, one Eastern; then abbots, bishops, archbishops and patriarchs, succeeded by two clergy with flower-bedecked staves; next came the entire College of Cardinals in brilliant crimson robes; after them, the prince assistant at the pontifical throne, dressed in black with silk hose and white lace fichu.
And finally, in gala uniforms of the court, came the papal chamberlains, who bore upon their shoulders the
sedia gestatoria
—the royal sedan chair—bearing His Holiness the Vicar of Rome, the two hundred sixty-ninth successor of Saint Peter, Pope Nicholas VI.
The pontiff was spectacularly arrayed in a flowing white robe of the finest silk, with short shoulder
mozzetta
of crimson velvet. Towering atop his head was a magnificent, three-tiered papal tiara, once the property of his predecessor namesake, Nicholas V. It gleamed of burnished gold, set off by nearly one thousand rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and pearls.
Floating above the tiara was a white, mobile canopy, held aloft by eight
monsignori,
as two privy chamberlains walked alongside with white, ostrich-plumed
flabelli
on long poles. Behind the caravan, following with a satin pillow, was the dean of the Rota, whose responsibility it was to bear the heavy papal tiara, when not in use. Bringing up the rear was the papal majordomo, then a selection of other papal officials and, finally, the high generals of all the noble religious orders.
The elaborate, regal train maneuvered slowly toward the High Altar as the pope magnanimously bestowed blessings upon his adoring faithful and saluted them with small, wristy waves of both hands. As the sedan chair glided up to the altar, a mendicant scurried in from nowhere with golden-carpeted, portable steps which he placed at the side of the carriage. Removing his unwieldy tiara, the pope handed it down to the dean of the Rota for safekeeping and awkwardly exited his sedan. The choir continued its glorious chants until the pope had ascended the altar and seated himself in his throne.
There was a full three minutes of applause and subdued cheering before the pope lifted his left hand slightly from the armrest and called for silence. Breck Hunter, with Cissy at his elbow, moved with impunity directly up to the side of the High Altar for an acolyte's-eye view.
As soon as the great cathedral had quieted, the papal master of ceremonies strode up the steps of the altar and bowed slightly to Nicholas.
“Holy Father, may we ask for your blessings upon our assembly?”
To which the pontiff made an aerial sign of the cross in front of his heart and whispered Latin words.
“Holy Father,” the master of ceremonies continued, “may I present to you Silvio Cardinal Santorini, who marshals today's delegation.”
Santorini mounted the steps and dropped to one knee before the throne as Nicholas extended his hand. Kissing the Ring of Peter, Santorini rose and descended on the right to the base of the steps, taking up a mirror reflection of his former position.
Standing next to the pope, di Concerci's face was implacable. But behind his back, his clasped hands were locked in a tight grip. The pope's state of mind was evidenced in the steady creasing of his brow.
“May I present to you Alphonse Cardinal Litti, escort,” the presiding master announced, and the stout cardinal made his way energetically up to the throne.
Just as di Concerci had predicted, Litti genuflected and kissed his pope's ring. Nicholas gave him a slight wink, and Litti rose with a broad smile on his face, descending to join Santorini. Over among the pope's entourage, a chamberlain was readying an armchair, presumably for Jeza. He held off installing the chair on the altar until after the prophetess could be announced.