PROLOGUE

Man’s passionate search for himself and his sojourn through life’s opportunities and heartbreak…. and how he manages to take on the world and grapple with the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’.  This is the story set before you, the reader.

This tale of discovery begins on what, at first glance, seemed like a day wrought with a dark and foreboding aura.  One that began as a day of hope, but ended in the fracture of the equipoise of mankind’s religious sensibilities.  As is the case with many tragedies, a new strength of purpose is forged; a new direction, taking those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see, to higher levels of compassion is commenced.  A direction which will bring the many, ultimately, to a place in consciousness they had heretofore been unable to even realize was within them…. a direction which will lift them beyond their present ability to endure.

This day, like so many others, began with birds chirping; the colors of the rainbow spreading out along the horizon where the sun began to show its face to the near side of the earth, its rays lapping up the dew upon the grass, trumpeting yet another round of exuberance on the part of some, quiet desperation on the part of most others.  Nonetheless, this new day dutifully began its ritualistic pilgrimage into the night.

But this day, also, would prove to be different.  No one could have imagined the overwhelming burden of sadness and trepidation the world would experience before the sun set on this extraordinary arc of the sun, a tumultuous day wrought with confusion and learning.  A day that would live on into the future as one of the most infamous days of mankind’s existence on the third planet from the sun yet, also sounding forth, as it were, a clarion call, a harbinger of the transmutation of wrongs imposed upon an unsuspecting humanity, making them right…. marking a giant step in the direction of freedom’s mystery, at the very least.

CHAPTER I

Hanno  amazzato il  Papa!

HANNO  AMAZZATO  IL  PAPA!!

A chorus of screams rang out from the crowd like the last desperate chords of the verismo opera, “Cavalleria Rusticana”.  They’ve  killed  the  Pope!    THEY’VE KILLED THE POPE !!

The un-imaginable had happened.  A single gunman, a middle eastern terrorist by the name of Abdu-l-Sayf Haider, yelling out the oft-shouted refrain, “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Great), had just fired the round that pierced the heart of the whole of Christendom.  The protective shield surrounding the Pope in the guise of the Swiss Guard let their attention lapse, for only a fleeting second.  One moment he was smiling and blessing the crowd, the next a high-pitched firecracker sound pierced his armor, blowing a hole in his chest. 

Haider was a Muslim extremist who could not let stand, even the least criticism, real or imagined, of the most revered Prophet of Islam.  It was this Pope who, innocently enough, had mentioned the Prophet Mohammed in the context of a fourteenth century dialog between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. The controversial comment originally appeared in the Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of Manuel II, one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottoman Empire, on such issues as forced conversion, holy war, and the relationship between faith and reason, the subject of Pope Benedict XVI’s Address.

The Emperor stated:  "Show me just what Muhammad 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…. God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature.  Faith is born of the soul, not the body.  Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats…. to convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…."         

As the translation of the pope's lecture disseminated across the world, many Islamic religious leaders protested irately against what they said was an insulting mischaracterization of Islam.  Mass street protests were mounted in many Islamic countries.  Many Muslims were offended by what was perceived as a denigration of Muhammad, and acted out accordingly.  In Haider’s mind, by virtue of using that quote, the Pope had agreed with what the emperor stated, namely that the Prophet Mohammed attempted to spread his message by violence and inhumanity, and that Allah, and by inference Muslims themselves, are irrational.

That small imposition on Mohammed’s sacred standing became the fuel that Haider used to propel him to act in a way that is inconceivable to most people, especially those in the West.  Of course, publicly, the Pope maintained that the comment he had quoted did not reflect his own views, and he offered an apology to Muslims, but Haider just would not have it.  He had convinced himself that Pope Benedict XVI, the occasions where peaceful co-existence was negotiated with Islamic leaders not withstanding, used statements such as the one in his Faith and Reason Address to tell the world what he really thought of the devotees of Islam, and of the Prophet Muhammad.

Be that as it may, Haider was seen by the world, in that moment of unbridled anger, as a representative of the religion of Islam.  Taking what he perceived as a slap in the face of his Prophet to the extreme, and lashing out with vengeance, he, in spite of all the ongoing diplomacy between East and West, nevertheless, brought to the surface an underlying animas between two of the world’s great religions.  The ‘religion of peace’ could no longer hide behind its misleading moniker.  The world could no longer justify its unreasoned resolve to turn the other cheek in the face of Islam’s many insults to the theme of peaceful co-existence.  The ruse was fully uncovered with this ultimate act of terror.  Even the forever sympathetic minds of far-left liberal minded individuals, sympathetic to the extreme, were shattered by the cruel and meaningless slaughter of one who had ceaselessly attempted to uphold the ideal of the Faith of the Western world, even in the face of continued treats on his life.        

One threat too many produced the result of now having a Pope lay on the blood-stained red clay brick steps of the Basilica of Sant Ambrogio; lifeless.  Benedict XVI extended the olive branch of peace to those in the world suffering from past scars of religious abuses.  He, who tried to galvanize the leaders of the world with reason and hope, lay mortally wounded.  The promise of his Pontificate, on the verge of blossoming to fruition, had been silenced with one mighty blow.  The Pope, along with his efforts to heal the wounds of the past, was no more.  But like the seed fallen on the furrowed ground, his death would germinate until there rose above the ground, reaching to the sun, a new life…. filled to overflowing with the promise of a more enlightened future.

The scene at the Basilica became chaotic.  The perpetrator was tackled and subdued immediately.  Many fell to their knees and wept, praying, not only for the fallen Pope, but for the future of the world as well.  The news of the assassination spread throughout media outlets worldwide.

“The Pope has been assassinated! A gunman, said to be of middle eastern descent, allegedly aimed a small caliber hand gun and fired it at Pope Benedict XVI while he was giving a benediction to a crowd of well-wishers at the Basilica of Sant Ambrogio in Milan, Italy.  The Pontiff, it seems, has succumbed to his wounds!”

A shaken and numb populace waited with bated breath while the talking heads flung insults; argued back and forth concerning the justification of such an act of terror or the lack thereof; and bickered about every possible scenario surrounding the taking of the life of a Pope, with all its staggering ramifications.  Yet, all agreed that a more heinous act had not been perpetrated on humanity in centuries, if ever.

On every broadcast of the news across the globe voices rang out in abject horror and repulsion at what they had just witnessed.  The re-play of the assassination was shown over and over again.  The masses were enthralled, yet reeling in disbelief.  While many in the Middle East cheered and shouted praises to their God, there were level headed Muslims throughout the world who expressed their outrage that such an act as this could have happened.  Many expressed their anguish over what they deemed would be a backlash against them, especially those in the United States.  While not a land with a majority of Catholics, America’s tie to Catholicism reached back to its earliest beginnings.

What was to be done now? The burning question of the day was on the lips of all peoples of the world.  Not a corner of the globe escaped the ongoing debate.  Where does one begin to understand the ramifications of such an act?  How does one punish the guilty?  Was this another case of a ‘lone gunman’?  Or was there a conspiracy to kill the Pope brewing for years?  Who, in their right mind, would want the leader of a church with over a billion members assassinated?

So many questions, so few answers.  Within days the result of extensive polling data was being offered to the public.  Overwhelmingly, people believed that a cover-up had already commenced; that disinformation had reared its ugly head and the truth was being overcome by innuendo and rumor; so much so that the possibility of revealing what really happened, the whys and wherefores, were lost to the rank odor of backroom deal making, but, more pointedly, to the smoke-screen of political correctness.

The Pope was dead.  Representatives of the Catholic Church, as shaken to the core and overcome with grief as they were, nevertheless, were determined to forge on regardless of what the world might think.  It was their solemn duty, their obligation to the faithful, to call all Cardinals from every corner of the earth to come home to Rome, where all roads lead to the Vatican, and specifically to the Sistine Chapel, for the making of a new Pope.

A Conclave of Cardinals was first on the agenda of the ‘Princes of the Church”.  The wounds of the terrible event that had befallen their leader had to be addressed, with haste and temerity.  The august body of Cardinals would gather together at the Vatican where a Conclave would be called to order.  The new Pope would be elected from among them; a new “Servant of servants” who would take up the mantle of Peter the Apostle.  One who would willingly step into the “Shoes of the Fisherman” and shepherd the flock of the Church of Jesus Christ, the most Holy Roman Catholic Church.