The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (40 page)

Deeply offended and angered by what he’d just read
, Franco reached for the shot glass of grappa that his housekeeper Beatrice had placed beside his espresso cup. Since he was putting in a late night, she’d brought him a
caffè corretto.
Rather than pouring the pomace brandy into the espresso, to ‘correct’ the strong brew, he downed the glass of spirits in a single gulp.

An
instant later, a fiery heat exploded in Franco’s lower belly, causing him to involuntarily grimace.

During his tenure as the head of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had overseen the excommunication of a Jesuit priest who’d postulated that the virgin birth was merely symbolic. At the time, he’d bitterly lamented that the Church no longer burned heretics at the stake.

As for the content of the second plate
. . . as much as it pained him to concede the point, it wasn’t out of the question. In the Gospel of John, there was a tantalizing hint that Jesus was something other than a carpenter’s son.

‘
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
’

Even if it could be proved that
Jesus spent his youth in India, the Church would simply deny that Christ patterned his ministry on Hindu gurus or Buddhist llamas. The notion that God sat atop the mountain and that there were numerous paths to ascend the divine summit, all equally valid in the eyes of God, was not only a false precept, it was a blasphemous doctrine that smacked of Freemasonry. Orthodoxy had always been crystal clear on that point:
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
‘Outside the Church there is no salvation.’

Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, they were all damned. The Protestants, too.

While the content of both plates was shocking, to his frustrated ire neither plate contained ‘The Great Heresy’. The secret that could destroy the Church in one fell swoop. As Franco knew full well, the Great Heresy was the only weapon powerful enough to coerce the College of Cardinals into electing him the next apostolic successor to Peter.

I must
have the third plate in hand before the conclave convenes!

Roman Catholics the world over
clamored for a pope, a savior, who would reassert the authority of the one, true Church and deliver them from the soulless decrees of Vatican II. That
was the reason for the spiritual malaise that now permeated the Faith. If the College of Cardinals elected another liberal pontiff, the Roman Catholic Church would eventually lose all relevance.

‘
And I’m not about to let
that
happen,’ Franco muttered as he got up from his desk.

Needing to take a break, bleary-eyed from the strain of having spent hours translating the two copper plates, he stepped over to the bookcase where there was a CD player wedged between the stacked volumes. He flipped through several plastic CD cases, selecting one of his
favorites,
The Very Best of Maria Callas.

Years ago, he’d taken his mother to hear Callas sing in
Washington at the DAR Constitution Hall during the soprano’s 1973 farewell tour. Although he’d never been a big opera fan, Rosella loved it and Maria Callas had always been her favorite. Franco, who’d been given the tickets by a parishioner, didn’t know what to expect on that chilly November night when he and his mother were ushered to their orchestra seats. He certainly didn’t expect that when the lights dimmed and the statuesque dark-haired woman stepped on to the stage, he would become transfixed.

Some critics claim that Callas had a flawed voice. But, oh, what a flawed beauty she was. Utterly ravishing.
La Divina.
As though it had happened yesterday, Franco could still vividly recall sitting in that dark concert hall, in his plain, black clerical suit, mesmerized, unable to take his eyes off the Greek beauty in the flowing long gown.

‘
Bravissimo! Bravissimo!
’

His only regret that night was that he hadn’t had the foresight to purchase a bouquet of red roses to toss at her feet.

A sucker for romantic arias, Franco popped the CD into the player and adjusted the volume. Loud enough that he’d be able to hear it on the terrace, but not so loud that it would awaken Beatrice.

On hearing the opening strains of the hauntingly beautiful ‘
O Mio Babbino Caro
’,
he stepped outside. In the near distance, the illuminated dome of St Peter’s stood in stark contrast to the night sky. A beacon. A constant reminder of the great work that lay before him.

When he became the next pontiff, Franco’s first priority would be to repeal Vatican II and clean house, disinfecting the Church of the liberal rot.
Toss the hippy-freak Catholics and their hootenanny guitars to the curb.
Along with any sexually deviant priests. If he had his way, the cassocked perverts would all be strung up by their testicles in the middle of St Peter’s Square.

Disgusting homosexuals, the lot of them!

Franco was living proof that a heterosexual man
could
overcome sexual lust and devote his life to the Church. And that Church would be pure
,
purged of liberals, feminists and sodomites. Bigger was not better, the Big Tent church an utter failure. The Holy See needed to cull the herd of all the undesirables. For too long now the Church had carried the sinners and heretics on its back. Coddling them as though they were naughty children. Unwilling to take a hard stance.

Over the course
of human history, when did appeasement ever work?

In a word, never. A man cannot bargain with purveyors of vice and lust and deviant
behavior. The end result of sin was eternal damnation. Full stop. The end.

Those sinners and liberals who were unwilling to repent
would be
excommunicated. Dragged from the pews kicking and screaming if need be. And to ensure that happened, the CDF would be given greatly expanded powers to fast-track the excommunication process, a necessary measure to protect the flock from heresies and to keep the laity firm in their beliefs.

One Church, one Faith. Heresy would not be tolerated.

Those who clamored for a ‘kinder, gentler’ Church had no true comprehension of the dynamic of faith. The Faith of the Church Fathers was not meant to be easy or convenient. No drive-through church-on-the-go for the men who forged a religion at Nicaea in 325.

Leaner and meaner. That’s how it was done in those days.

His second priority would be to get the Vatican’s financial affairs in order. Years ago, when Pope John XXIII was asked how many people worked at the Vatican, he famously quipped, ‘About half.’ When Franco became pontiff, the other half would get the axe. The Church could no longer afford to keep an army of ‘do nothings’ on the payroll. Also, by immediately eliminating all ecumenical outreach programs, the Vatican would save untold millions.

Becoming the Vicar of Christ wasn’t a vainglorious desire rooted in the ego. In truth, it would require that he make a tremendous sacrifice.
But he was willing to make that sacrifice to save the Faith. The Church was his family. And had been ever since he received his Holy Orders. Like any man, Franco would do whatever was necessary to protect his family from the evils of the world.

Oh, there would be the inevitable hue and cry. The protests. The backlash. The hippy-freaks and their infernal marches. But those who braved the storm would soon bask in the Church’s love. More importantly, they would deepen their bond with the heavenly host through the sacred mysteries. Through the old rituals and rites, their souls
would be burnished, their faith renewed.

Franco stared at the illuminated dome dramatically outlined against the horizon
. Michelangelo’s masterpiece. To his surprise, he realized that there were tears streaming down his face.

Mi struggo e mi tormento! “
I am anguished and I am tormented!”

His heavenly benefactors had brought him so very far. They would not
–
could not –
abandon him now. They
wanted
him to refurbish the Church. To make it whole. And pure. As it had once been.

They
wanted
him to purge the Church of all heretics. All liberals. All of those who, through sin and vice and heresy, followed the Wicked One.

They
wanted
him to declare open warfare on the enemies of the Church. To battle those who refused to follow the dictates of the one true Church.

Commissioned by the Queen of Heaven Herself, Franco had pledged to do just that.

And I will take no prisoners.

Paris, France

0215h

‘I believe that it was Napoleon who said “history is the lie commonly agreed upon”,’ Caedmon remarked as he handed Edie a wine glass half-filled with amber Muscat.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ she murmured, everything that she thought she knew about Jesus having been turned on its head.

Glass in hand, she sat down in a leather club chair. A short while ago, they’d adjourned to Caedmon’s study to discuss the second plate of the
Evangelium Gaspar
.

‘How are we doing on time?’

Caedmon glanced at his watch. ‘We have two hours and thirty minutes before we make our escape.’

Already anxious, Edie peered at the closed window. ‘Is Calzada still –’

‘Yes, unfortunately, he’s still on the prowl,’ Caedmon interjected as he sat down in the club chair opposite hers. ‘Vigilant bastard.’

Hearing his muttered addendum, Edie tore her gaze away from the window. Like
Caedmon, she was worried that Calzada’s vigilance would prove a dangerous monkey wrench.

Caedmon
jutted his chin at her untouched glass. ‘Well, drink up. It’s Falstaff’s favorite sack, so do it justice.’

‘S
mells a little bit like raisins.’ She took a measured sip, well aware that the ‘sack’ was Caedmon’s not-so-subtle attempt to calm her nerves before they flew the coop.

‘
What’s so bloody astounding is that the
Evangelium Gaspar
explains the mystery of the eighteen “Lost Years” on which the canonical gospels are strangely silent,’ Caedmon remarked, returning to their original conversation. ‘Only one of the gospels, Luke’s, mentions in passing that during those years “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” A mere fourteen words to describe more than half of a man’s life.’

‘
Yeah, well, I gotta tell ya, it’s an astonishing explanation as to how he gained his wisdom and stature.’ Edie paused, the images swirling through her head in cinematic fashion. ‘We’re talking about Jesus meditating and practicing yoga. Like everybody else, I thought he was in the carpentry shop making tables and chairs with –’ She stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly noticing that Caedmon appeared remarkably blasé. ‘Aren’t you the least bit surprised to find out that Jesus spent eighteen years cozying up to Magi, Hindu gurus and Buddhist sages?’

‘
Actually, it explains a longstanding mystery,’ he informed her. ‘In the
Hadith
, which is the collected sayings of the prophet Muhammad, Jesus is referred to as the “Prince of Travelers”. Anyone who’s ever seen a map of the Holy Land knows that the journey between Galilee and Jerusalem hardly warrants such a noteworthy title.’

‘So why isn’t Jesus called the “Prince of
Travelers” in the New Testament?’

One side of
Caedmon’s mouth twisted in a caustic sneer. ‘Because in the third and fourth centuries, the Church Fathers carefully cultivated the image that they wanted us to have of Jesus.’

Edie shook her head, angered by the centuries-old deception. ‘
What do you wanna bet that it was the Church Fathers who concocted the myth about Jesus building furniture with Joseph in the carpentry shop?’

‘Oddly enough
, it’s a myth grounded in the truth. Just a moment . . . I need to retrieve my Aramaic dictionary.’ Gripping the arms of his chair, Caedmon pushed himself to his feet and walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on the other side of the study. Hands on hips, he perused several rows before pulling the wheeled ladder to the center case.

A few moments later, he
walked back to the club chair, a leather-bound volume tucked under his arm. ‘Keeping in mind that Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples, the Aramaic word
naggar
, which was used to describe Jesus,
has two distinctly different definitions.’ Retaking his seat, Caedmon balanced the heavy dictionary on top of his legs and flipped through the yellowed pages. ‘Ah! Here it is. The first definition is a carpenter or woodworker. However, the second meaning of the word
naggar
is a learned man. Given that Jesus studied with religious teachers from the age of six to twenty-nine, he was a scholar by anyone’s definition.’ Point made, he closed the dictionary and set it on a side table. ‘The Church does not want the Faithful to know that Jesus was influenced by the ancient Eastern religions.’