Homosexual relations? Thou shall not judge.

Priest celibacy? Where is this discussed in the Gospels?

Female priests? We are all equal in the eyes of the Lord.

It is the duty of the Church to devote itself to the faithful and share with them the Word of God, helping the most needy, without regard to race or belief. To gain a closeness to other religions without judging their values or beliefs, but with fellowship and sharing wisdom and love. It will not be a dream created in Heaven that a Christian could pray to his God in a mosque, and a Muslim could pray to his in a church. Without censure or confrontation. Because Heaven can, and should, begin on earth.

How would the world be today if this pope hadn’t died? Sarah asked herself after reading this. She felt at once moved and elated. No doubt he would have revolutionized the Church. Finally she found a paper written in her native tongue. She immediately recognized the Third Secret of Fátima, as announced by Sister Lucía:

I write as an act of obedience to you, my Lord, since you ordered me to, through His Excellency the Bishop of Lereira and Your Holy Mother.

After the two parts already revealed, we saw to the left of Our Lady, a little higher up, an angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. Flames came off the sword that seemed about to set the world on fire, but the flames would die when they came in contact with the rays of light coming out of the right hand of Our Lady, who was moving to meet him. The angel, pointing toward the earth with his right hand, insisted in a firm, strong voice: “Repent, repent, repent!” And we saw a big, big light that was God Himself, and as if reflected in a mirror, we saw a bishop all dressed in white. We had a premonition that it was the Holy Father. Several other bishops, priests, monks, and nuns were climbing a rugged mountain. At its peak was a large cross made of rough logs that looked like cork oak. The Holy Father had to go across a great city in ruins before getting there. Almost trembling and with faltering gait, overwhelmed by sorrow and pain, the Holy Father was praying for the souls of the dead he met on his way. Once he reached the peak, while kneeling before the great cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers and some bishops and priests who were shooting bullets and arrows at him, but who were also dying in the same way. One by one, they all died: the bishops and priests, monks and nuns, and various laypeople, gentlemen and ladies from different social classes and economic positions. Two angels were on the arms of the cross, each one with a glass water sprinkler in his hand. In it they were collecting the blood of the martyrs and with it they sprinkled the souls of those approaching God.

“ ‘Killed by a group of soldiers and several bishops and priests who were shooting bullets and arrows at him,’” Sarah repeated to herself. “What other secrets was the Church hiding, replaced by lies proclaimed as absolute truths?” she mumbled.

“Are you okay?”

Rafael’s question pulled her out of her ruminations. He’d just come out of the bathroom, dressed after his shower.

“Yes, fine. Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m leaving. My mission is finished.”

The comment struck Sarah like a splash of cold water.

“You’re going?”

“I’m sorry for all I put you through. You should know I did it all for your benefit.”

“You’re going… where?” Her surprise and disappointment were quite evident.

“To save more souls in difficult situations,” he said jokingly.

Sarah got up and went to him.

“What about us?”

“Us?” Rafael was confused by her question. Sarah’s face got closer and closer to his. Her soft perfume started to reach him.

“Us… what about us? When are we going to see each other again?” she asked, gazing intently into his eyes. “Why don’t you stay a few more days?”

Rafael was visibly nervous, something that didn’t square with his usual self-assurance.

“I already told you that none of this ever happened, Sarah. Understand?”

She got a bit closer, without fear, without any shyness.

“Aren’t you going to stay with me?” she whispered to him. “You could rest, I’d keep you company.”

Their lips almost touched, but he stepped back at the last moment.

“No. I can’t. I really must leave now. I have to take these papers and return them to the Vatican. They will decide there what they want to do with them.”

Sarah got the impression he wanted to leave as soon as possible, as if he were fleeing from the devil, not from her.

“If this is because of my father-”

“No,” Rafael said. “It has nothing to do with your father.”

“Then?”

Rafael took the papers and walked to the door.

“It’s a life choice.” And he opened the door to leave.

“Wait,” Sarah held him back. “At least, tell me your real name.”

He looked at her for the last time.

“But, Sarah, what did I tell you when we met? My name is Rafael.”

Those were the last words they exchanged.

Time was running out. Lying on his deathbed, Archbishop Marcinkus knew that his real problems were about to begin when the time came to render accounts to the God he now feared so much, the one he had so often disregarded. “God’s banker” pictured himself showing the Almighty the account books of income and expenses, debits and deposits, the details of specific frauds committed, in an attempt to convince Him of the need to diversify investments and launder the money received from organized crime. His feverish state and the anguish of dying made him see God as the president of a board of directors, a CEO incapable of recognizing that everything his servant had done throughout his eighty-four years had been for the good of the enterprise.

Many thought that Paul Marcinkus, the old archbishop of Chicago, had been too isolated from the world in a remote parish in Illinois, and though he in fact had stepped aside, he had never intended to give up his power, and still remained in the service of the Catholic Church, in the diocese of Phoenix.

But the Sun City was very far from the center of the world, very far from Rome, and very far from God. Ever since the Italian judges charged him with the Banco Ambrosiano embezzlement, he couldn’t shed the anguish this had caused him, and that, in turn, had weakened his heart. He was afraid his old friends suspected him of having ratted them out to the police and the court, because vengeance could be extreme.

With his gaze fixed on the whiteness of the ceiling, Marcinkus could see himself as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Calvi, Sindona, Gelli, and himself, sent by God to put the world in order.

Marcinkus remembered Roberto Calvi’s horrible fate. He himself had barely managed to stay solvent after the bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano. And this depended on bribes and blackmail.

“What was that woman’s name?” Marcinkus asked himself out loud.

Graziella Corrocher was her name, and she was the one who had informed on Calvi before jumping out the window of her office and smashing herself on the pavement.

When the Milan judges sent him to the Lodi jail, he told them more than he should have: “The Banco Ambrosiano isn’t mine. I’m only in someone else’s service. I can’t tell you any more.” Friends don’t forgive indiscretions, and if Calvi was able to gain conditional freedom, it was only by betraying family and friends.