The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (35 page)

Without another word or glance at his prisoners, the Colonel then led the sixty or so worshippers through a recitation of the Rosary. When he was done, Cardinal Redding processed down their make-shift chapel with four altar servers. Burt Owens was surprised to see that the Cardinal was sprung from prison. The Chief of Staff watched the Mass unfold, all the while wondering and worrying about the scope and reach of the coup.

Every glance at Pereira deepened Owens’ fears.

Burt knows the man well. The president’s Chief of Staff was one of the lawyers who advised the Senate Committee which charged Pereira with war crimes back in 2010. Owens’ role during the proceedings was simply an advisory one. He didn’t have to interact with the man personally during the hearings, but he remembers well the first time the Colonel set his eyes on him. It was the first day of the trial. Like everyone who was convened by the Committee, the White House Chief of Staff sought Pereira out as he entered the hearings chamber. Video of the bloodbath he made of the Iranian Martyrs Brigades was scrolling round the clock up to and through the trials. The streets outside the Senate were full of demonstrators demanding his head on a pike. Everyone wanted to take a good look at ‘the Butcher of Baghdad.’ When Burt entered the hearings chamber, the Colonel was already at his table, silent at his counselor’s side, scanning the faces of everyone who entered the room. The look on his face was more than contemptuous. Owens got the distinct impression he was committing them all to memory, passing judgment on the spot, determining the sentences to be carried out against them at his earliest convenience.

Burt recalls the memory of his glacial gaze with a shudder.

Cardinal Redding continues his sermon.

“Our long lineage of bloodied martyrs attests to that. We can trace that sacred line to the very beginning of the Christian community. A thousand years before the Church raised a single sword in crusade or held a single Inquisition, the world declared war on our Church. A whole millennium before the Church did any of the things our critics are always throwing in our faces, Christians were already hated. The Roman Empire which generously accommodated the
worship of a thousand false gods would not tolerate the worship of the One True God. They could expertly assimilate peoples from every alien corner of the world and yet ruthlessly single out one group for extermination. Persecuted from the beginning, the first Christians were hunted like criminals, whipped, stoned, impaled, beheaded and fed to flames and wild animals.

“Why?

“It’s simple really. To use a term much bandied about in the present culture, Christians were instantly reviled by their fellow man because they introduced into the world the first and the only, truly alternative lifestyle.”

The Cardinal pauses to look right at Owens, bushy eyebrows arched in seeming challenge. The Chief of Staff is sure that Redding is alluding to his earlier career with Freedom from Religion, the atheist advocacy group. Burt worked for them while in college, helping them take down many a cross and nativity scene across the country with his argument that such sites ‘were not only an affront, but also a veiled threat to all Americans who lived alternative lifestyles.’

“There is no lifestyle more alternative than the Christian’s,” the Cardinal continues. “The Christian does not justify the indulgence of his appetites merely because it feels good. That is the way of the world; it has always been the way of the world, the unbridled pursuit of pleasure. When he looks out for number one, the Christian is not thinking of himself. Selfishness is the way of the world of man not The Son of Man. The Christian eschews the ways of this world; he lives in it without being a part of it. Christianity dares to proclaim that there is a will greater than man’s will. The Christian rejects the self-determination preached by the world. Like the Blessed Mother of our God and Church, the Christian lives his life saying to his God, ‘be it done unto me according to your word.’ The Christian repeats after our Blessed Lord, ‘not mine, but Thy will be done, O God.’

“This alternative lifestyle of Christianity begins with Christmas and thus it is no surprise that so many are hostile to seeing any sign of it in the public square. This hostility is nothing new. In fact it could be argued that the war on Christmas began in Bethlehem…”

17:16:13

“…In Bethlehem, where our Lord and Savior was born under a death sentence, hunted by a jealous Herod, the ultimate battle between good and evil began.”

Joe Corelli feels pretty certain that the priest’s accent is Lebanese. He picked up French-tinged hints of it in his recitation of Latin. It is much more pronounced in the delivery of his homily.

“Make no mistake, my friends, we Christians are at war and we fight behind enemy lines. We are, in fact, charged with taking the battle to the very gates of Hell. The Church, one might say, is the point of heaven’s spear driven at the heart of the enemy.”

More striking than his accent is the appearance of the man. The priest is six and a half feet tall, slender and olive-skinned. Waves of white, feathery hair crown his head and drop like a cape to his shoulder blades. He has a cloud of a beard that hangs to his belly. The man’s sun-bronzed face is heavily creased within the nest of soft, snowy hair. And he is missing an eye. A white patch, matching the Christmas vestments, covers his left socket.

“Our share in salvation history is to be both ‘the light of the world’ and ‘the salt of the earth,’” the priest continues. “In our Lord’s description, the Church Militant is given her twofold mission. The light of the world is easy enough to comprehend; expose the truth by scattering shadows and dispelling darkness. The salt of the earth, as an expression, has however been diluted over the centuries to mean merely a simple and guileless people. While there is some truth in that definition, the expression would have meant a lot more to Christ’s first century audience. Salt in the ancient world was both a preservative and a corrosive element. Salt could both preserve food and render a land lifeless. We are called to do both, preserve what is good in this world and destroy evil, by salting the ground on which it grows.”

The chapel is full. Corelli estimates there are four hundred worshippers crammed cozily into two rows of dark, mahogany pews. The walls and arched ceiling are paneled in the same wood, giving Joe the impression of being in an overturned boat. The nautical feel is reinforced by the round and back-lit stained-glass depictions of the Stations of the Cross placed high on the walls in lieu of windows. A life-sized Crucifix is suspended high in the air above the communion rail. The high altar is made of intricately sculpted white marble. Quinn and he are seated on the next to last pew on the right side. The sniper has the aisle position on his left. A young, black woman with corporal stripes on her sleeve is on his right.

“Christmas marks the beginning of the end of Satan’s rule. He knows it and his minions, here on earth, can sense it. They are frightened. This fear is the
source and fuel of their hatred of us. It has led them to persecute Christians in every age. It compels them to exterminate us in this age. We need not fear them however. Our Lord, you will recall, did not come down to us unaccompanied. The shepherds in the field looked up to see a host of angels in the sky above Bethlehem. The Greek word used in scripture is
stratius
. We get the English words, strategy, strategic and stratagem from it. The word can be better translated as, an army. The new born King of Kings arrived on earth with an army of angels, an invasion force, at his back, beck and call. They are the same legions of angels that ministered to our Lord during His forty-day duel with Satan in the wilderness. They are the same angels that are with us in all our struggles against the world and the Powers and Principalities that presently rule it.

“Tomorrow we shall offer the world the chance to join us in this great campaign. Let us all pray they accept our offer.”

Or else what, Joe wonders?

“In the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost. Amen.” The priest crosses himself and returns to the center of the altar.

Joe Corelli rises with the worshippers.

“Credo in unum Deum,”
the priest intones, beginning the Nicene Creed which ends the first half of the Mass, the Mass of the catechumen.

“I believe in one God,”
Joe recites from memory, silently in English.
“The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…”

Everyone around him recites along with the priest in Latin. Corelli is impressed by their command of the dead language. This is his first time experiencing the old rite and, despite the circumstances, he finds himself fascinated by it. The church his family attended years ago celebrated Mass in English. In his youth, he didn’t know that the Mass was celebrated any other way than in the vernacular. Ironically it was only long after he stopped going to church that he became aware of the liturgical differences and the politics thereof.

“Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum…”

“And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Born of the Father before all ages. God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God. Begotten not made; consubstantial with the Father; by Whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven…”

The worshippers genuflect. Joe follows suit, a beat behind them, amused at how deeply ingrained in him the minutia of the faith remained.

“Et incarnates est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine…”

“And was made flesh by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: And was made man…”

Joe has never thought himself capable of faith, not much of it anyway. Corelli counts himself among the agnostics, believing reason can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, despite the contrary claims of both atheist and theist. He figures his death will one day lift that final veil and he will know at last. Until then, he sees little reason to concern himself with the matter, figuring the here and the now is the purpose and the point of the life he possesses.

“Crucifixus etiam pro nobis…”

“He was also crucified for us and suffered under Pontius Pilate and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the scriptures. And ascending into heaven, He sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and of His Kingdom there shall be no end…”

Could Annie be right, Joe wonders? Are they witnessing the first effort to establish a Christian theocracy in the United States? Can those gathered in prayer around him be the Christian equivalent of Muslims who sought to establish a worldwide caliphate? Could it be that easy? If so, what role did Earl Forrester, who ‘isn’t the church going type,’ play?

“Et in Spritum Sanctum…”

“And I believe in the Holy Ghost, Lord and Giver of life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Who together with the Father and the Son is no less adored; and glorified: Who spoke by the Prophets.”

Joe feels suddenly tired, overwhelmed by the seemingly endless supply of ‘crazies’ running rampant on the planet. Six weeks ago, he was feeling good about his job. Six weeks ago he helped foil the murderous plot of five militant environmentalists. The eco-terrorists planned to bomb New York’s Herald Square, detonate a van full of explosives in the middle of the throngs about their Thanksgiving shopping. Hundreds would have died, maybe thousands, and the five wacko tree-huggers justified the act as an appropriate response to the ‘government’s refusal to give global cooling serious attention.’ He was elated at their capture, but moments like that were rare and short-lived. The celebration at the office that afternoon was cut short when the news intruded with video of the rocket attack on the Texas oil refinery.

Corelli may have helped to save hundreds of lives that day, but as of this afternoon, the counter at the office which tracked the number of yearly deaths attributed to terrorism reminded him that there were eleven thousand, three hundred and six people that he and the government failed to protect. They died by the dozens, victims of suicide snipers firing into busy streets, they died by the score, shredded to bloody bits by the shrapnel of explosive-laden vests and they died by the hundreds in more ambitious acts of destruction. They died and they died and every year their numbers were tallied, a testament, Joe thought, to civilization’s losing battle against the forces of extremism.

This year’s death toll was already thirty-one hundred over last year’s. How many, Corelli wonders, would the soldiers in the chapel be willing to add? And for what?

“Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam…”

“And I believe in One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead…”

Priest and faithful cross themselves.

“Et vitum venturi saeculi…”

“And the life of the world to come. Amen.”

Corelli crosses himself and feels the prick of conscience at his hypocrisy. He has recited the creed from memory, believing none of it. They take their seats again. He collapses into himself, unable to follow the second half of the Mass, the Mass of the faithful. He tries but he just can’t; the Latin no longer fascinates, but rather irritates him.

Joe retreats into memories of his youth. He recalls his family at Church. They went regularly until his father was killed in the attack on the World Trade Towers. Dumb luck landed his father in the towers that morning. He wasn’t a cop or fireman or even an office worker. He was a caterer. His dad was going over the menu for an exec’s daughter’s wedding when the first plane plowed into the towers, instantly killing him and everyone else in its fiery path. His father was only twenty-seven at the time. He left behind a wife of twenty-three and two sons. Joe was six and Nuncio was only four. The family never really recovered. It was his father, Joe later learned, that was the devout parent. He brought his religion to America from the old country when he emigrated from Italy at age eleven. With their father gone and their grief-stricken mother suddenly overwhelmed by single-parenthood, church-going fell to the background
of their lives. Their attendance became irregular and then infrequent. By the time Joe turned ten, they stopped attending altogether. He supposes that some might blame his tender age and its awkward grappling with a father’s loss for not allowing the proper formation of faith.