The Celtic Conspiracy (37 page)

MacClary had his driver take him to the institute so he could make up his own mind about the historians’ independent evaluations. Now he was sitting in the room with the scrolls, thinking over the past several days. Emotions were running high on both sides. Essentially, he couldn’t plan more than a day in advance. What would the court do next? This whole thing had to come to a close tomorrow, and it would, one way or another.

“Good evening, Ronald,” Joseph Pascal said in greeting. Pascal had been picking apart the Old and New Testaments for a good thirty years, and he had been following MacClary’s efforts for a long time. Pascal was one of the scientists who, just before the press conference, had analyzed parchment that the archaeologists had rescued from the charred remains of the cave in
the Magdalensberg. Not only could the parchment and the writing be conclusively dated, but a small emblem, a druidic protection symbol, was on every one of the scrolls, including this one.

Every attempt by an opposing assessment to prove that the parchment originated from a much later period or that they came from outside the cave had been disproved, much to MacClary’s relief.

“Good evening, Joseph. What do you have to tell me?”

“Not much, except that despite the less-than-optimal circumstances, this is really a breathtaking find. It’s almost as if we had found the first pharaoh. We’ve always known that he had to exist, but now it’s as if we’re standing in front of him. At least that’s what it feels like.”

“Go on.”

“The assumption of God’s existence and its significance and the resurrection of his son Jesus are of central importance to the Christian faith. Both assumptions were, until the time of the Enlightenment, the explanation for everything that happened. Since the Enlightenment, however, they only play a role in religious debates.
That’s why we regularly hear from the Vatican that the decline began with the Enlightenment. This isn’t so far off, really. The only question is,
the decline of what
.”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with what we discovered? It’s not exactly revolutionary thinking.”

“That’s what you think, and I think so too, but the Vatican finds itself in the position of finally allowing people to open up a critical investigation of faith with the aid of scientific methods and their results. They can’t simply continue to be immune to every criticism, do you see? The Enlightenment was the first logical evolutionary leap. Now here come the testimonials from these old masters, and it’s quite astonishing. I don’t think that we have all the historical facts here about the history of the Church’s founding, but they are nevertheless some very important facts. And the impact of the scrolls alone should ensure that people make a return to knowledge and reason.”

“I understand what you mean, but Rome will never allow critical thinking that could potentially lead to atheism.”

“Of course they won’t, Ronald, but the negative image of the aging Vatican has already made it clear to most Christians that salvation is not to be found in the Church.”

“So my father was right all along.”

“About what?”

“If the philosophers, and I include the Druids among them, had managed to secure the favor of the emperor in this small window of time in the fourth century, the
Enlightenment would most likely have come much earlier. The Christians, with their systematic persecution of educated people, pressed the cultural stop button.”

“‘What if,’ Ronald, is one question that historians never ask,” Pascal remarked with a twinkle in his eyes as he started to get ready to leave. “At least not if there’s the slightest chance of anyone overhearing them. Anyhow, what holds for Christian texts would also have to hold for these scrolls. They were written for the people of their time.”

MacClary nodded his head. “They make statements about the events of their time, Joseph, but that doesn’t tell us the slightest thing about their intended audience. I’m not sure who they were written for. Perhaps the writers knew far more about the concept of time and space than we can imagine. Perhaps they were expecting us.”

With that, MacClary took his coat, cast a last thoughtful look at the documents, and headed back to his apartment.

It was cold in New York. It had even snowed the night before. In front of the United Nations Building, dozens of journalists were gathered to present live coverage of the first major speech by the relatively new president in front of the United Nations.

This day would either change the world or Diana Branks would no longer be in office that evening, or both, she had told her advisors, who left the room shaking their heads after they found out what she was planning.

A special General Assembly of all member states was an exceedingly rare event. The fact that the United Nations Security Council would be meeting two days later heightened the drama even more, as did the fact that the diplomats of the Vatican were no longer being admitted into the assembly.

Diana Branks felt like a racehorse at the starting gate. She gave a last look at her wristwatch. “Bill, do you have everything?”

“Yes, of course. And this just came from Rome.”

“From Rome? Give it here.”

“The pope requests that we await the results of the hearing before taking further steps that would harm the Church and the state of world peace and—”

“Oh good, nothing new, then. If you’ve run fresh out of ideas, just lump the well-being of the Church with world peace. I think I can read this later, Bill. Thanks anyhow.”

“Understood. Good luck, Madam President.”

Although Bill had experienced quite a lot in his time at the White House, he seemed exceedingly nervous, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants.

“What’s wrong, Bill? Still worried about losing your job?” The president gave an ironic smile. “Then we have something in common. But that’s the risk you take, if you’re going to put an end to lies and illusions.”

* * *

More than ten thousand demonstrators had gathered in front of the United Nations building. There were fierce confrontations between outraged Christians and opponents of the Vatican. At the same time, throughout the world, more and more influential members of the Church were joining with atheists and Muslims in calling for profound reforms and the avoidance of all violence. The World Council of Churches in Geneva called on Rome to open up a historical debate.

* * *

The president entered the hall where three hundred heads of state and diplomats from all over the world were gathered and went to the lectern.

“Ladies and gentlemen, nations of the world, as I was thinking once again about recent events and the position we will be taking with respect to the claim of the Republic of Ireland, I remembered a statement made by one of our senators during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He said then that it was God’s decision when we die and not that of the president. He was trying to question the ability of the president to make such a monumental and assuredly fateful decision to engage in nuclear war.

“I would not like to live in a world where I was no longer able or allowed to make profound decisions on my own in my capacity as the president of the United States or in my capacity as a citizen of this planet. I would like to live in a world in which every human being possesses the maturity to take responsibility for their own decisions. I would like a world in which we understand that it is an act of our will, and not divine providence, when we wipe each other off the face of the earth in a war or in reckless acts.

“If we miss this opportunity to make central decisions about which common values and visions we want to use to construct our future, then we, and our children, no longer have a peaceful future worth living, and that is
more certain than a church’s amen. I cannot and will not leave our destiny to a fatalistic belief in God. If we remain on this low level of consciousness, one that only serves our egocentric interests, our questionable needs, then...”

* * *

People around the world watched their televisions and computer screens in astonishment over what was unfolding in New York. There were few who didn’t have strong feelings about what was happening here. The president of the United States was dropping the Vatican and calling, in all seriousness, for a new world order.

In Israel, Jewish and Christian children were sitting and praying together. In Jordan, Muslims were staring at the television and discussing their own faith. And in Austria, the son of an innkeeper started to feel uneasy as he began to understand that, without knowing it, he had been a participant in dramatic events. Yes, they had helped this man who had come from the cave badly injured. They may even have saved his life. Who knew? But when they realized that the Church was mixed up in the case, they had denied everything to the police.

“We should have told them everything,” he said now to his father, who was raising his hands defensively. “We should never have lied to protect the Church.”

* * *

“I have here in front of me, as do you all, the draft of a reform of international law, about which we will have to make a decision in the coming days. In this draft, the experts come to the conclusion that the Vatican is no longer entitled to its old status, independent of the many international lawsuits currently pending against it. But I also see all the important contributions performed by many organizations that are supported by the Vatican and other Christian churches, for peacekeeping missions and humanitarian relief for example.

“Therefore, I am charging the United States to rescind the Vatican’s recognition as a state under international law and to give every individual organization the status already accorded to other relief organizations within the structures of the United Nations. This will create more parity moving forward. The period in which the Vatican was able to exert direct political influence here and in nations throughout the world is, in our viewpoint, a relic of the past. But it is important that Christian relief organizations and bodies such as the World Council of Churches in Geneva be allowed to continue their work, unimpeded, as nongovernmental organizations.

“Any and all clerical influence that goes beyond this is to be rejected. The world community should unambiguously unite in rejecting any further religiously motivated politics, and the United States of America will support such a unification.”

* * *

After the president had concluded her speech, the Secretary-General was hard-pressed to keep the heated emotions of the pro-Vatican representatives under control before he could turn the floor over to the next speaker.

Diana Branks sat down in her chair, her knees weak and trembling. She had pushed her luck. Whatever might happen in the days to come, though, she had said what had to be said.

* * *

Outside an apartment building near the United Nations building, two passersby were arguing about the position of the Vatican. A poor soul sat on the stairs begging.

One of the men interrupted the argument and stopped on the stairs.

“What are you doing?” the other asked.

The first man pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet, went over to the man on the stairs, and placed it in his hat.

“God provides, God provides,” the beggar said. “Thank you, sir.”

The man who had given the money turned back to the man he’d been talking with. “What was I doing?”

“A good deed? Well, yes, that’s brotherly love and sympathy, but—”

“Do you need a pope for that? A podium for dogma? St. Peter’s Basilica? Do you need thick books, the Bible,
showy bishops’ palaces? In short, do you need the Vatican for that?”

The other man looked at the homeless man who was still enjoying his good fortune as he headed off to get something to eat, and most likely to drink.

“No.”

“Now you’ve understood the most important of Jesus’s teachings.”

* * *

In the Austrian Foreign Ministry, State Secretary Anton Schick was looking out of his office window at the Minoritenkirche, one of the oldest churches in Vienna and the center of the Italian-speaking community. For hours his telephone hadn’t stopped ringing since the American embassy had asked for administrative assistance with a rather explosive matter.