Crucified (5 page)

THE VATICAN, ROME

Unbeknown to those around him—and even to himself—the Legionary of Christ was in subconscious combat with Satan for possession of his soul.

Here, in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the young priest sat reading in a secret locked room, encircled by wooden cabinets inlaid with symbolic designs and by frescoes depicting the trials of heretics during the Inquisition. So ancient were the books and documents burying his desk that their centuries-old dust grayed his plain black cassock. As he studied the blasphemies that were wrenched from heretics by torture, his fingers caressed the crucifix on his chest. The page before him bore an incantation that was said to conjure Satan up from hell, and as his mind absorbed the words the Church's cardinal inquisitor had recorded, the nail-hole scars through his palms began to throb.

The Crucifixion of St. Peter
hung on the opposite wall.

From it, the eyes of the upside-down apostle met his.

"Get thee behind me, Satan," quoted the priest.

The Secret Archives of the Vatican occupy thirty miles of shelving in rooms that border the Belvedere Courtyard, beyond St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. Founded by Pope Paul V in 1610, the archives were originally "secret" in the sense that the records were for the
private
use of the pope and his advisers. But since 1881, they have gradually been opened for outside research, and have proved to be a treasure-trove for historians.

Some documents date back to the 700s, though most are from 1198 on. Recent revelations cover the years from 1922 to 1939, the era of Pope Pius XI, who some say was "Hitler's Pope."

The
real
secret archives of the Vatican were the dusty records in this room at the Palace of the Holy Office, or Sant'Uffizio, the home of the Inquisition. The building was lucked in the external crook of Bernini's colonnade, where the south arm arced in a semicircle around St. Peter's Square. For centuries—since 1542, when Pope Paul III set up the Universal Inquisition to defend the Church from heresy—confessions extracted under torture were filed here, building up history's largest library of satanism, witchcraft, and sorcery. Each means of torture was recorded in detail by a scribe and went into the heretic's file along with the evidence that had damned him.

Today, the Inquisition goes by another name: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Before his election in 2005 as Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—called "the Enforcer"—ran this office for a quarter century, defending the Church against heresy and silencing those guilty of offending the faith. Outside of this room, around forty people—theologians, scripture scholars, and canon lawyers knowledge-able in the laws of the Church—labored in four sections: doctrine, discipline, matrimony, and punishment of priests.

They examined writings and opinions for heresy, dissolved non-sacramental marriages, and investigated the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and "grave delicts" like abuse of the Eucharist.

To mark the third millennium of Christianity, Pope John Paul II decided to open "the archives of repression" to help the Church come to terms with its history. Some secrets, however, must be kept forever. So that's why the Legionary was locked away with these books and papers, charged with deciding what should be moved to the
new
secret archives.

Through the windows of this room, the Legionary could see the Christian cross crowning the Egyptian obelisk at the center of St. Peter's Square. In ancient times, this marshy, hilly waste across the Tiber River to the west of Rome was called Vaticanus. Known for its malarial mosquitoes, snakes, and sour wine, Vaticanus is where the mad emperor Caligula decided to build his circus. At the center of the hub—the
spina
—around which chariots raced, he erected the obelisk plundered from Heliopolis. When Caligula was assassinated before the arena's completion, it fell to his nephew, the psychopath Nero, to finish the job. The Circus of Nero became that tyrant's favorite playground. He would personally take the reins of a chariot and drive it around in a frenzy to soak up the obligatory applause. When Rome burned for nine days in 64 A.D., Nero blamed the obscure sect of Christians for the disaster. Dragged to the circus for execution, those early Christians were torn to pieces by wild beasts, immersed in tar and set ablaze, or crucified. Among those crucified was the apostle Peter, who had come to Rome in Caligula's reign to spread the word of Christ. Because he felt unworthy to hang upright as Jesus did, Peter asked to be nailed
upside down
to his cross near the obelisk.

In
The Crucifixion of St. Peter,
the apostle is naked, except for a loincloth, and already pinned to the wood. Three Romans, their faces turned away, struggle to lift the cross with the martyr head down. Bearded and bald, with tufts of hair on his wrinkled brow, the old man suffers in pain and fear of death.

His execution grim and humiliating, Christ's apostle glares at the nail affixed to his left palm.

 "What in hell!" the priest exclaimed.

As the Legionary stared at the painting hung high on the palace wall, St. Peter vanished from the cross of his martyrdom, and what remained was the inverted cross of the black Mass.

Stranger yet, the scars on the Legionary's palms ceased to ache.

Conjuring Satan?
the priest thought, recoiling from the blasphemy he had just read in the Inquisition record. He crossed to the windows that looked north to St. Peter's shrine.

After Peter's crucifixion. Christians secretly buried his body in the cemetery abutting the north wall of the circus.

The next 250 years saw martyrs die by the thousands, forcing members of the persecuted sect to hide in the catacombs of Rome. There, they continued to practice the rites of their faith, and they passed on the secret that Peter was buried under a simple shrine known as the Trophy of Gaius. In the early fourth century, the Great Persecution reached its height. Christian writings were burned and homes destroyed, and those Christians not tortured or mutilated died as gladiators.

In 306 A.D., Constantine the Great, in Britain battling the Picts of Scotland, was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. By 312, he was in a struggle with Maxentius for the throne. As he led his army south through the Alps to face his rival outside Rome, Constantine saw a vision of a cross superimposed on the sun and heard the words "By this sign, you will conquer." Ordering his soldiers to mark their shields with the sign of Christ, he trounced Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge and became Rome's undisputed emperor.

Attributing his victory to the God of the Christians, Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan, granting Christians freedom of worship throughout his empire. The Nicene Creed affirmed the divinity of Christ, deeming it heresy to denounce the son of God. Overnight, the Church of Christ was transformed from an underground sect to the official religion of Rome. To advance the banner of Christ, Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher above the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem and St. Peter's Basilica here.

"You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church . . ."

So says Christ to the first pope of Rome in the Gospel of Matthew, back when Peter was the leader of his twelve disciples. Today, the words are inscribed in Latin around the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and thanks to Constantine, Christ's biblical prophesy has
literal
meaning.

The Legionary of Christ's eyes slid down from the cross atop Michelangelo's magnificent dome to the church below.

Hugging its flank was the Square of the First Christian Martyrs, at the center of which had stood Caligula's obelisk, close to the spot where St. Peter was crucified. The Arch of Bells between the church and the colonnade swept eastward into St. Peter's Square, which was dotted with worshippers splashing to Mass through gusting gray rain. The twin arms of the colonnade resembled shepherds' crooks. They ran parallel from the facade of the basilica, then bulged around the obelisk at the hub of the huge circle to give the plaza its keyhole shape.

"I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven . . '.'

So Christ also says to Peter.

Across the square from the Holy Office, the papal apartments were dark. The pope was in St. Peter's Basilica for Mass. In his troubled mind, the priest imagined the rite.

Directly beneath the cross surmounting the dome soared the twisted columns of Bernini's bronze canopy over the altar.

 There, the pope raised the Host. The present-day basilica—begun by Pope Julius II in 1506, and completed 120 years I.iter—stood on the footprint of Constantine's church, which was itself constructed over the cemetery and the Trophy of Gaius, preserving the grave of St. Peter. Between the pope at the altar and the bones of Christ's apostle in the shrine sixteen feet beneath his shoes ran a succession of 265 popes.

And from the beginning, centuries before the reign of Constantine, St. Peter's faithful had battled heretics.

"Get thee behind me, Satan . . '.'

"You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it'.'

Now, as he watched black clouds churn above the Vatican, the priest wondered how any believer could reject the Roman Catholic Church as the center of the Christian world. It was Peter who led the disciples after Christ ascended to heaven. He organized the election of Mathias as the twelfth disciple, in place of Judas, and turned all the disciples into apostles at the feast of Pentecost. He took the teachings of Christ to the capital city of their oppressors and passed them on through the Gospel of Mark, the record of his faithful companion. He "stretched out his hands" in crucifixion, just as Christ foretold, and became the "rock" upon which Constantine built the basilica. He was
first
among the apostles, and he passed that divine primacy down through the Vatican's popes so the rite of the Eucharist could provide the keys to heaven. The authority of the Roman Catholic Church was traceable from the current pope back without a break in the chain to Peter, and through him, to the son of God.

Amen.

Anyone who threatened that was a heretic.

Thus the Holy Office in which the Legionary worked.

 A sudden flash of lightning took the priest by surprise. It must have cracked behind the building, out of sight, for all he saw was a burst of brilliant blue intensity. As the Vatican turned dark from a downpour of black rain, the Legionary glimpsed the netherworld on which it was built. The field of blood that once had soaked the Circus of Nero spread beneath the Palace of the Holy Office, and he could hear the wailing of Christian martyrs as they were burned, eaten alive, or nailed to wooden crosses. Below that, he gazed into the mouth of hell, a gobbling, fanged maw gorged with unre-deemed sinners boiling in oil and broiling in flames.

Was the Last Judgment upon him?

Had time run out?

The priest could smell brimstone and the stench of burning human flesh.

Turning from the window, he found himself locked in battle with Satan, for instead of St. Peter, the demon riding the black Mass crucifix was the Devil himself. Never had a creature as foul as this plagued his imagination, for the monster seemed to be a great red dragon with seven horned heads. Its seven mouths flicked snake tongues from shark teeth surrounded by slimy black lips. Its filthy fingers were crooked claws and its feet were hoofs, and behind it lashed a cruddy tail forked with spikes.

Blasphemy . . .

Perversion . . .

Abomination!
he thought.

The priest fumbled for the crucifix on his chest, his only defense against insanity.

But then he heard the snick of a key slipping into the lock, and the biblical vision of doomsday swiftly retreated into the subconscious pit of his mind. Gazing toward the door, the possessed priest was quite himself again, for there was the most influential person in his life, the churchman who'd recruited him into the Legion of Christ.

"How goes the work?" asked the Secret Cardinal.

"Slowly, Father."

"You've been secreted away in here how long?"

"Two years."

"That's too long to wallow in the muck of the antichrists' blackest heresies," said the older priest, twenty years his senior.

"We have a crusade for you to undertake. This threat could be the worst in the history of our faith."

The Secret Cardinal held out the copy of the British newspaper given to him by the Art Historian to the Secret Archives of the Vatican yesterday in New York.

"What is your will, Father?" asked the Legionary of Christ, taking the paper in his hand. For his mentor to take him away from
this,
it must be for a reason of dire consequence.

The Secret Cardinal touched the photo of Sgt. Mick Balsdon. "Find this man and have him tell you what he knows."

"Forcefully?"

"If necessary. On
my
authority."

From the pocket of a suit that belied his status, the elder priest withdrew a ring and slipped it on his finger. Holding out his hand for the
baciamano,
he said, "This secret will remain between you, me, and God. Because the Inquisition no longer 'exists,' I'm the
Secret
Cardinal of the Inquisition.

I hereby appoint you my Inquisitor, with all the holy power that entails."

Bowing, the Legionary kissed the ring depicting the crucifixion of Christ. Because the Devil was in him, hiding from sight, the band burned his lips.