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"Tell me, what should I do about all those crimes against humanity? Real crimes! Elvira had already been locked away in prison by the Inquisition for a year and she was then sentenced to imprisonment for three more years. She had to wear the yellow cross of shame on her clothes, which served to identify those condemned by the Inquisition. Last but not least, she was deprived of all her worldly goods. It was common practice for victims of the Inquisition to lose all their possessions which would be shared out among the inquisitors, pen-pushers, spies, hangmen and naturally, the pope himself. Which was precisely what happened at the foot of the Cross," He added.

A long pause followed, gloomier than dead of night.

"The Inquisition was not a cruel institution," His Holiness suggested cautiously, "if You look at it in perspective. The period was rife with phobias, fear and paranoia. It was the terror of not doing Your will that made the inquisitors so zealous. I cannot condone the folly which drives fanaticism but, in their way, the inquisitors were devout. Pitiless of course, but for Your sake. Bigoted rather than guilty, they were moved by a mistaken sense of orthodoxy."

"For my sake, indeed!" He repeated. "I would really prefer to be hated if deeds committed for my sake cause such suffering! It was not for my sake at all, it was sheer bigotry by fanatics who could not see that what they were doing had no other purpose than to strengthen the pope's hold over the people."

"It was to You that the inquisitors attributed the annihilation of heretics, not to their bigotry. You said nothing, accepting their praise, frankincense and myrrh, thanksgiving masses..."

"So, I should have done something about it, should I? And you rebuke me for not doing so? If I had intervened, I would have had to reduce the world to a heap of rubble with rotting corpses about every five minutes!"

"Then You could have built a better world! Maybe you would have been more careful, so as to avoid unpleasant surprises. It wouldn't have cost You anything! You create second-rate human beings and then You complain because things aren't quite ship-shape!"

"So I should have been checked out, should I? If I failed my exam I would have to re-sit it like some schoolboy! I'll have you know that what I create is sacred, unrepeatable and final."

"...like Paganini, who never repeated himself!" His Holiness quipped mentally. Then he replied:

"Well, You did intervene sometimes... what about the Flood? Or Your tricks with fire?"

For a moment or two He pondered, but when He spoke again He made no reference to His Holiness' insolent remark.

"The Inquisition is not cruel only if you think of it in its historical context, but it certainly is if you compare it to earlier times. In fact, the majority of European countries considered torture a relic of evil from a bygone age. The very principle upon which the Inquisition was founded was inhumane and impious; inhumane in that it sometimes lasted for years, nay decades, and even corpses were tortured! Inhumane again because those who spoke of the clergy or the pope were tried, even if they had uttered those words when drunk. Heresy was nothing more than forgetting to celebrate Easter, eating meat on a Friday, reading the Bible, not paying church tithes or merely being suspected of heretical attitudes.

"These offences were punished inexorably and sentences could not be appealed against. In any case, what appeal could there be against a sentence passed by an infallible institution like the church, in whose name the Inquisition acted! It would have been absurd to give credence to a heretic, because he opposed the Inquisition on principle. This procedure was ratified in about 1100 by Pope Paschal II.

"None of the dozens of popes who sat on the throne of Peter, from the 11th century onwards, ever disapproved of the methods used by the Inquisition. It never even crossed their minds that my Son, though innocent, had been condemned to death because the Jews considered Him a heretic."

"Unfortunately," His Holiness chipped in, "an institution which down the centuries has built up the notion of infallibility cannot refute its doctrines, though they may be seen to require radical changes in the light of the evolution of thought. As it cannot refute them nor repudiate any of the decisions made by previous popes, the Church can only try to forget that they exist."

"What you mean is that the church preferred to grind the Gospels into the ground, rather than retract any of its blasphemous bulls."

"And yet it is true of the Church that non novit sanguinem, it has never shed blood" His Holiness quibbled, "because those who were condemned were invariably handed over to the lay authorities, with a plea for pardon on the part of the inquisitors."

"Those fanatical judges were quite unexceptionable on the face of it. However, you know perfectly well that no lay authority ever granted a pardon. They were bloodthirsty, but not daft. Granting a pardon would have been tantamount to putting themselves in the hands of the inquisitors to be charged with heresy or sympathising with heretics. They would possibly have been tried by the same hypocritical judges.

"This is the most shining example of sanctimonious perversity that I have ever come across. Moreover, temporal rulers were in the habit of being even stricter than the church suggested, so as to show their devotion and profit by it. Those rulers were undoubtedly murderers, but less so than the popes who egged them on. Those popes passed off suffering as necessary for salvation, achieving it by murder.

"How many of those who were unjustly condemned preferred to die and be damned rather than be subjected to physical torture or just to put an end to it all! No crimes were more horrific than those perpetrated by the minds of people who, in the name of my Son and the salvation of souls, were capable of the most frenzied attacks that the human brain has ever thought up."

"Eternal, cruelty was typical of the period, and as for torture..."

"Don't speak to me of torture. The methods invented by the Inquisition have been imitated for centuries. Have you any idea of what the garrote is? This form of torture consists of binding the victim tightly with ropes. By gradually twisting the sticks that are inserted between the ropes and the skin, the flesh and nerves are mangled, sometimes even the bones are broken. This method was very popular in the Spanish dungeons of the Inquisition. The victim would scream in agony and shout out while the inquisitors - hooded and covered in black gowns like hideous catafalques - said their rosaries, interrupting their lazy chanting to request that the victim tell the truth. To my knowledge they never even listened to what the victim said."

He went on indignantly. "This is nothing though, in comparison to some of instruments of torture that were used. For example the cog wheel, which was used to tear limb from limb, special masks and gloves which tore into the face and hands, or the nut which was clamped and tightened over the skull and other parts of the body, the drill which was used to bore down the limbs, or the billy-goat - a revolting instrument used on women which consisted of a sharp wedge of wood which was rammed up the lady's private parts, tearing her apart. Then there was the bell, which was clanged for hours and hours in the victim's ear...

"How many unknown martyrs have been forced to undergo similar tortures and blurt out their guilt in their tormentor's ear! How many were condemned without any evidence and with no litis contestatio!"

"There was always a doctor present at the torture session, though."

"Undoubtedly. But he was not there to treat the wounds or give comfort, only to certify the death of the victim. If the victim was innocent the torturers had no qualms. They said a quick prayer for his soul and entrusted it to my mercy, certain that I would send it to Heaven and forgive them their trespasses."

"Just consider, Eternal," interjected His Holiness, "how many rumours abound about torture. Far-fetched novels and films have grossly exaggerated the subject in order to satisfy people's morbid curiosity. Torture was often the exception rather than the rule..."

"Far-fetched novels? Nasty films? What do you take me for, Holiness? You reckon I need to read comics or go the pictures on Sundays to find out what's going on? I know, because... well, I just know, and that's an end of it!

"As for the tortures, there are records of them. In the pope's palace at Avignon an enormous amount of space was taken up by courts, cells, dungeons, in addition to penitence chambers, torture chambers and religious prisons. The torture chambers were built with asymmetrical walls to muffle the cries of the victims. The judgement chambers had ceilings with circular vents, so that even a whispered confession could be clearly recorded by the inquisitors on the floor above. Is there anything more dreadful than a torturer who will not watch the victim suffer but is quite content to hear his laments from a distance, echoing with pain? Preventing a prisoner from seeing his accuser's face must be the basest form of torture!

"The Palace of the Inquisition in Rome was every bit as sinister..."

"Eternal, the dungeons at the palace were turned into archives back in 1870," His Holiness rejoined.

"A most convenient conversion," He retorted, before continuing apace.

"Someone wrote that the Inquisition was the most widespread and consistent atrocity in the history of the civilised world. Someone else added that never had such lengthy and constant brutality been seen. Others claim the Inquisition was the cruellest institution that humanity has ever known and the most hypocritical to boot, as the church dared to say it did not shed blood, What else can I say?"

"Eternal, I am deeply grateful for Your visit," said His Holiness, lying through his teeth. "Yet I find it difficult to understand why You come and complain to me about the inquisitors' crimes. Why didn't You do something about it at the time? Why didn't You crack down on it right away? Why take it out on little old me? You should have appeared to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, my guest at dinner. I work for You, and You could have given me a hand.

"You see, I'm trying to get him to be reasonable about certain points of the doctrine, but he isn't half stubborn! A visit from You would soften him up a bit. But no. You loom up in the dark like some sentinel, and it's... Who goes there? What's your business? Then I get all this spiel about crimes committed by popes and inquisitors!"

"Put your mind at rest - I haven't forgotten the Patriarch of Jerusalem. So you reckon I fiddled while Rome burned? Maybe I didn't go far enough, but they all had some saint to vouch for them... it's one of your weaker traits! The saints come to me wringing their hands, and if saints come to you asking favours for their earthy protégés, what do you do? Tell them to get lost?" He asked sarcastically, shaking a finger.

"If the protégé does not deserve it..." His Holiness began.

"If the protégé doesn't deserve it. Easier said than done. Sometimes you have to say 'yes' just to keep the peace. I have to keep things on an even keel, and I don't want the saints to get upset now, do I?" He confided.

"In short, some sort of democracy exists in heaven, though without immunity, without proxy, I gather because You don't abdicate, You don't appoint: there is only You and the Trinity at the top of heaven's hierarchy." Commented His Holiness caustically.

"You expect par condicio, equal opportunities, in heaven, do you? Holiness, don't forget it's a kingdom not a republic. My enlightened mind makes the decisions, not parliament. You should know that the Trinity is not a triumvirate, as you may believe. The Trinity is Me!" He decreed regally. It is I who say what goes, for the benefit of all and sundry," He stated categorically. "And up there we don't have commissions or no confidence votes!" He added facetiously.

"Down here, when somebody makes decisions which affect all, then we start to get worried," His Holiness remarked enigmatically.

"I am Eternal," He retorted. "Man judges as only a mortal can with his earthly faculties; he cannot comprehend the extent of my thought processes nor my ability to perceive the whole of history simultaneously."

He stopped for an instant, before pursuing the same theme.

"I did send a lot of sinners to hell, but I could hardy have opened a branch of the Inquisition of my own in heaven, or set up torture chambers and built dungeons, now could I? That's not how justice is done in my book, though no doubt I could have intervened in some other."

He drew a deep breath, while he tapped his forefinger on his brow. His Holiness knew there was more to come.

"What about that pervert Innocent VIII who succeeded Sixtus IV in 1484?" He resumed with renewed vigour. "Towards the end of his days he used to drink milk from a woman's breast. Three innocent people were even sacrificed, because they were forced to give him their blood drop by drop. His was putrid and needed replacing, which was hardly surprising, seeing it came from a heart black and dry like a pumice-stone, masterpiece of my Adversary... For example, he issued an edict forcing thousands of Jews to leave Spain or be converted."

"Those conversions were usually feigned," His Holiness sneered.

"Which gave the Inquisition plenty to do for several centuries."

There was a long pause while He waited for His Holiness to say something, but as he did not have the courage, He took up the cudgels once more.

"However, this was small beer in comparison to what one of his successors got up to: Leo X, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. I refer to indulgences peddled in the squares, taverns and brothels, authorised by Leo. That extraordinary peddler known as Father Tetzel even guaranteed that by paying a quarter of a Lorraine florin one could buy a place in heaven...

"What blatant unscrupulousness for money! His church was not content with everything he had stolen in my name but expected to snatch Caesar's money and his subjects' as well."

"But, Eternal, this is of little account: de minimis non curat pontifex. Tetzel was an exception. Today the situation is much improved. As for the power of the Church, it was important to stress its authority so that faith in Your Son would triumph. If they feared us - the Vicars of Christ - the powerful rulers of the earth and the peoples they governed would fear and respect Your name..."

"For thousands of years I've been trying to get people to understand that I do not wish to be feared, merely to be loved..." He burst out, angry again.

"Well, You didn't make Yourself very clear, that's all I can say," His Holiness muttered sullenly, then added:

"You could not expect people to love You for the murders committed by the Jews all that time ago in Your name, which it appears You condoned..."

"Murders?" He queried disbelievingly. "I condoned murders?"

"I do not wish to appear disrespectful, Eternal," His Holiness replied, perceiving he might have breached His defences, "but if I remember rightly, there are passages in the Old Testament which relate the military conquests by Your chosen people, the Jews... Well, You have to admit they got up to all sorts of tricks with Your not so tacit approval. And sometimes even on Your orders."

The apparition was silent, as if rummaging through the records of His boundless memory in search of such remote events.

"You know how it is," He added, His voice softer now, "my early chroniclers - the patriarchs and prophets of Israel - had to deal with a rather stiff-necked bunch of people, who had to be told what was what. So they had to use language their brains - which were even stiffer than their necks - would understand."

"I see, Eternal..." murmured His Holiness, with a pregnant pause. "But can You really expect us, thousand of years later, to consider You merciful when we read about the massacres committed in Your name, alias Yahweh Sebaoth - the God of armies? Thousands upon thousands of poor devils were brutally sacrificed in the struggles which led Israel to the conquest of the Promised Land.

"As I recall, there are quite a few passages from the books of the Pentateuch and Joshua where those popes you mentioned earlier clearly got their inspiration from!"

"What is quite clear is that you do not understand the language of the Bible," He stated. "The Jews attributed their deeds to me. Their defeats they considered nothing more than a punishment I inflicted on them for their disobedience, just as their victories were seen as a reward for their loyalty. You know full well that when they were defeated it was because they were disorganised, and when they won it was because they had used better tactics or their enemy was weak. It is understandable that some events were described in crude terms... But cruelty was practised only by the leaders. They had to make their enemies terrified of my people. For this reason Israel survived, despite all its enemies."

"You let them get on with it. You allowed massacres to be committed in Your name. In other terms, You turned a blind eye to them!" His Holiness goaded Him.

"It was necessary at that time for my people to fear my name more than their enemies. It was me they needed and it was to me that they came when they were defeated. They fell on their knees with their hearts bleeding, they tore their clothes in sorrow, scattered ashes on their heads and begged me to avenge them. I was all they knew. I was the only role model they had who could stop them from following the idolatry practised by the Canaanites. It was essential that they saw me as a vengeful god, jealous of my unique status and easy to anger, but also merciful when I forgave their frequent descents into idolatry..."

"I wouldn't have thought You feared competition from other gods," His Holiness made so bold as to remark.

"I am That I am; I am the true and only God! Thou shalt have no other gods before me... I ordered on Mount Horeb."

"That is what is written, and what we believe, Eternal, though I don't think Your chosen people did. I don't need to remind You that they called You EI Elohim, God of Gods. So You were only one god among many, no doubt greater than them, but not unique..." His Holiness ventured wryly, pausing again deliberately before continuing.

"Your Jews had other gods and they worshipped them because their cult permitted a number of earthly acts which You had forbidden. So they fornicated with the daughters of the Moabites and committed indecent acts before their idols. On that occasion Your reaction was anything but loving - according to the records - because You struck down twenty-four thousand of them on the same day. That was how you showed Your mercy!"

"The other gods were rubbish - all I had to do was look at them and they disintegrated, like Dagon who toppled over before me, his head and hands severed from his body. Worshipping idols distracted my people from worshipping me. So it was necessary to use the might of my arm and mete out just punishment for their offences. Only this way could they comprehend my greatness. The leaders were my representatives, and that is the way they depicted me so that the people would know me and love me."

"You mean fear You. There's no love where there's fear," His Holiness remarked cynically.

"When the time was ripe nobody ever doubted my mercy. There were many times when people made me angry but I forgot the retribution I had in mind for them. There were times when they really deserved another Flood!"

"Presumably there are still times today when people deserve something similar. Who would criticise You if You decided to... Hopefully not! It is not true, though, that You have always been merciful. You could destroy everything mercilessly, and only because, as we read in the account of Your Flood in Genesis, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair and took them to wife. Incidentally, I must admit I never did understand who the sons of God were, nor the daughters of men. And it repented the Lord - that's what it says about You - that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. Then You announced: I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

"I confess I over-reacted somewhat in Noah's time with the waters..."

"Over-reacted? I'll say so! The world's population was wiped out - man and the animals he had tamed, all flushed down the tubes! What's more it took You one hundred and fifty days to check nothing was still moving."

"Yes, it was all a bit excessive," He admitted, after briefly pausing for thought. "However, some other crimes committed by mankind were far worse, and the disasters I have a mind to cause could never begin to atone for them..."

"Quite frankly, Eternal, I don't reckon You've been overgenerous with the human race so far. There have always been disasters: the annals of the history of mankind are full of the direst trials and tribulations. You don't need me to remind You how many times You let rip with Your retribution and caused earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, famine, plagues, epidemics, all sorts of nasty diseases affecting innocent adults and little children alike, AIDS, and all those other countless catastrophes which You use to show how great You are..."

"You mistake natural events and the consequences of human depravation for my anger..."

"Eternal, maybe I shouldn't respond, but I shall," announced His Holiness pedantically. "Here on earth they say not a leaf moves without Him knowing, meaning that You know everything that goes on - You even know how many hairs each person has on his head. So when nature takes its toll, can You wash Your hands of it? Without listing every single incident which made You angry when you ordered the Flood, I am bound to say that the Scriptures, where Your deeds are recorded, report in minute detail every time You got hot and bothered. And in my humble opinion, it wasn't always justified."

"Just give me one good example... in your humble opinion!" He replied, feigning curiosity.

"I'll try, Eternal, but don't blame me if I get my dates wrong. You appeared to me so suddenly I didn't have the time to prepare for Your visit, so I hope my memory serves me right. Right, let's see then..." he began.

"You got angry with us because the Jews were persecuted, for their torture, their ghettos, the pogroms and so on. But surely You behaved the same way?"

"The Jews are my people and if I decided to punish them it was because they deserved it. I will not permit man to judge my actions. Man cannot persecute my people because I have done so myself," He reasoned solemnly.

"So effectively You're saying that it's up to You to punish them? You've got to admit though, you were a bit heavy-handed, weren't You? And they were Your chosen people who were privileged because they had made a covenant with You! Goodness knows what would have happened if they hadn't had the benefit of Your compassion!"

"The Jews have borne witness to me down the centuries and have survived all their enemies - the Canaanites, Egyptians, Babylonians, Macedonians, Romans, and all the other peoples who subdued them, massacred them and scattered them to the four winds trying to blot them out - of all these peoples nothing is left except their history. Inquisitors, anti-Semites, even Nazis have been confounded, while my people are still here, alive among the ruins, demonstrating by their sheer existence that I have kept faith with the patriarchs. Does this not prove that they are my chosen people?"

"Eternal, I have to say it is all a bit confusing. What I find quite amazing though, is the extraordinary ability of those people to bear Your severity."

"Severity?" He queried.

"Maybe severity is rather euphemistic - I correct myself: maltreatment. How else could I define Your behaviour towards them?"

His Holiness scanned His face for a reaction. Then, starting with early times, he listed all the disasters caused by divine rage.

"You had a fit of anger, though I really can't see why, when you tried to kill Moses and all his family, simply because they were not circumcised. You blew Your top when Moses' brother Aaron made the golden calf for the Jews to bow down and worship. Let me alone - You said to Moses - that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them... Moses besought You to change Your mind: Turn from Thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against Thy people. Fortunately for those poor devils, we are told You did repent, but not without demanding Your pound of flesh, or should I say three thousand dead!"

"Repentance is a word invented by the human race to refer to the property of my mercy, just as wrath stands for the supreme expression of my justice," was His cryptic explanation.

"Then the people rebelled again," His Holiness persisted, missing the nuance, "and You felt offended. Once again Moses had to intervene, but he told You a fib when he said You were merciful and long-suffering... because he wanted Your forgiveness for their iniquity and transgression and sins, hoping You would grant Your clemency. However, You were not impressed and complained because You had been put to the test ten times over, so You decided to drive them out into the desert and consume them. And that is precisely what You did.

"Let me remind You about that time when the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant and You afflicted them with a plague of tumours, which in layman's terms means piles. This persuaded them to give back the ark to the Children of Israel. However, some of them - namely Jeconiah's offspring - did not exactly go out of their way to thank you for returning the ark, meaning they did not make the sacrifices to You they were supposed to. You didn't take too kindly to that: on the same day You destroyed seventy members of their family with all their possessions."

His Holiness paused a while, as if collecting his thoughts, before following on along the same lines:

"When Your people did bad things You kept silent. And there were some really bad things, like Abraham offering his wife Sarah, as if she were a common prostitute, first to the Pharaoh and then to Abimelech. And what about Jacob who was so cunning as to deprive Esau of his birthright as firstborn? And You didn't like Esau very much, did You? Then there were Simeon and Levi, Jacob's awful renegade sons, who butchered the male inhabitants of Shechem, looted the city and made off with their possessions. Or there was Judah who committed incest with Tamar... The Scriptures are crammed with incidents like these."

"My justice cannot be interpreted by your limited logic. My justice has more profound dimensions and has nothing in common with the rudimentary scale of crime and punishment set up by the human race. Because your vision is so limited, you can only understand the direct link between cause and effect. And no more. I can assure you no criminal act has ever escaped my judgement."

His Holiness appeared not to comprehend the complex paradigms of divine justice, as he persisted in the same argument.

"Don't blow Your top, Eternal. A man can only understand what he sees, and in Biblical times what he saw confounded him and frightened the life out of him. You hammered the Egyptians with the famous plagues - boils, gnats, locusts, hail, flies, lice, darkness and more - then You punished them again when You had all their firstborn male children killed off. You indiscriminately slew man and beast, the just and the unjust, to show a stubborn Pharaoh just how powerful You were. You sent the whole lotto to their Maker... to Yourself, that is it. How could innocent people be to blame, eh? Wouldn't it have been enough to simply waste that obstinate old Pharaoh? Instead of punishing the person responsible it pleased You to smite the defenceless, who had to bear the consequences. This is why I cannot grasp the concept of divine justice, so You must excuse me!" His Holiness sneered, and without waiting for an answer he pressed on.

"But this was nothing in comparison to the massacre You ordered Your chosen people to carry out. The Amalekites, for example, on Your command were all put to the sword; the Amorites were to be eliminated lock, stock and barrel, and the Midianites wiped out and their cattle and material possessions seized."

By now His Holiness was in full flow.

"You lost Your rag when You ordered the destruction of Bashan and the entire populace - no-one was to be spared - or when You torched sixty cities in the Argob strip in the land of Og. Burnt to the ground they were, with all the men, women, children and cattle. Then You decided You would get rid of the Canaanites by driving them out of their land because You had promised it to the Jews: Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perezzites, Hivites, Jebusites..." he counted, rattling off the names without needing to use his fingers, "all exterminated en masse."

His Holiness broke off to draw breath. So His interlocutor took advantage of the pause to remark:

"They were an idolatrous people and I had to drive them from my sight..."

"But what about Your mercy? After all, You did create them. You did not forgive the transgressions of the Jews but You approved them when they killed, tortured and looted, as You ordered them to do, and if they were sometimes moved to pity (meaning You felt they had turned soft), You would turn against them. You blew a gasket when they didn't put the women and children to the sword too, and they obeyed You just sparing the virgins for their pleasure, as You had commanded them.

"You were like an all-consuming fire to the enemies of Your people, to whom You had promised Canaan..."

"This is a highly simplistic version of events which require a completely different interpretation, as I keep telling you. As it happens, I had to keep my side of the bargain with the patriarchs. My people had to inherit the land where milk and honey ran."

"Really Eternal, from what one reads that was a land where all that ran was blood, and nothing has changed since, incidentally. There is just one small detail You've omitted - that land belonged to other people, who were forced to move out. Joshua, the son of Nun, blasted the walls of Jericho to kingdom come, when the Israelites sounded their trumpets, and then his hordes utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass with the edge of the sword. He took Ai by a ruse and killed all the inhabitants - every man Jack of them. He even followed them out into the country and the desert where they had sought shelter. You had twelve thousand of them blitzed in one single day and all their cattle seized."

"I am getting tired of telling you that the stories you refer to express the events in human terms, the significance of which is not what appears evident but rather what becomes manifest over time," He explained indulgently.

His Holiness once more ignored the nebulous words and soldiered on.

"Joshua attacked Gibeon and committed a great slaughter there, but You lent a band by casting down great stones from heaven. There were more who died from the hailstones than were slain by the Children of Israel. Fancy taking on mere mortals! Descending to their level! And yet after Your argument with Jacob You hadn't rowed with anyone! You must admit that on that occasion You behaved like the Greek gods during the Trojan War," he commented caustically before continuing his tirade.

"You ordered a motionless star, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon so as to give Your people time to avenge themselves upon their enemy. Joshua, not content with that, blew away the inhabitants of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Jezer, Hebron and Debir and of many more cities too, by putting their inhabitants to the sword. The lot of them. No-one was spared, just as You had commanded. And just so there would be no doubting his devotion, Joshua blasted a few more Canaanite cities: Hazor, Madon, Shimron, Achshaph and Tirzah, where the people were massacred even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude to pay homage to you. All slain. Total extermination, in fact, because no-one was spared in accordance with what the Lord had instructed, as it says in the Bible. God's works are supposed to be good, not bad... and You have the courage to lecture me about the Inquisition, and the iniquity of the popes! I have never ordered any persecution, and as for popes unworthy of their office, I never elected them! It was wrong of man to set them upon the throne of Peter, I agree, but You created them in the first place!"

The moment had come to lose His temper and He lost it completely.

"Blasphemer, foul-mouthed heathen, abomination unto me." He burst out, no longer able to contain Himself, shaking his fists which had hitherto been covered by the wide sleeves of His tunic. His knuckles were white with rage. The halo in a triangle round His head flashed, shook, bent, sparked, then gave up the ghost like a dud light bulb.

"You dare to judge my works and my designs!" He bellowed. "You, an imperfect creature, a lump of insignificant matter, you... son of iniquity and source of perdition, dare to suggest how I should interpret my decisions!" His anger was fearful to behold as He panted uncontrollably. "Of course, I should have remembered what a gloomy soul I gave you! Your heart is as black as midnight! Your god is the lord of darkness! it is he you work for."

After that outburst He calmed down for a moment, before letting rip once more.

"How can I expect the truth from someone who lives by deceit! How can I expect you to comprehend and respect my mysteries! The laws of life which I have decreed have an equilibrium which your sick human mind could never grasp. My ways are infinite, don't forget. My mercy manifests itself through events which are apparently destructive and cruel," He spat out. "For the sake of the human race, made up of conceited brass-faced individuals like yourself, I have been merciful and sacrificed my own Son for you..."

So it was back to the mysteries of God then... This really was a sticking point, but it was also an easy way of solving problems. The Eternal Father used this ploy when He ran out of inspiration. By now His Holiness had rumbled it: the mysteries of God could be safely used whenever it is necessary to mask the face of ignorance. But he let that one go and remarked instead:

"It was You who wanted mankind to be profligate and impertinent. So why do You complain when people behave outrageously? Your gesture is no doubt magnanimous - the human race is indebted to You for sacrificing Your Son. But wait a minute - are we sure man has actually been saved by Christ's sacrifice? People seem to get worse and worse and kill in ever more subtle ways! I feel that Christ, rather than a channel for repentance and reflection is frequently an excuse, so that they can let their hair down.

"Look what happens at Christmas! It's nothing more than crude revelry - ludibrium et debacchatio oscenum! Hardly the way to celebrate the day the Saviour was born, is it? Some like to spend Christmas skiing or sunbathing on tropic islands, and the other feast-days are treated more or less the same way.

"I carry out my duties, I try to keep things on an even keel: I admonish, preach, bless, and so on, but the crowds of people who come to see me seem more interested in the pomp and ceremony surrounding me than in the religious importance of my role."

His Holiness was whinging again.

"The synods, conferences, councils, meetings behind closed doors make little impression on people. My encyclicals and pastorals are read only by the clergy. People are fickle. They bear what they want to bear. They are no longer committed to a cause to fight and win. The allure of Your Son's sacrifice has evaporated, because the very idea of sacrifice is unpleasant. Maybe it was unnecessary, too! An empty gesture, know what I mean? And the result in terms of human gratitude is hardly encouraging."

"People are blind. They have a false sense of security gained through material possessions. They do not heed my words, and your church has encouraged them to yield to temptation by emphasising the outward and ceremonial aspects of religion. Man has become lazy and indifferent; or it has pleased him - merely as an intellectual challenge - to invent doctrines and theories which have led him to posit that God is dead. It is a philosophy which kills more than the Cross." He muttered less angrily. His great eyes, usually overflowing with goodness, were dimmed by demoralisation.

"The Church is nowhere near as rich as it was" His Holiness explained. "And anyway, weren't you criticising material possessions just now? You must admit that people believed in You when the Church had the voice of authority..."

No answer was forthcoming, as He looked down pensively and smoothed His beard.

"We are light-years away from the truth of Christ," His Holiness continued, "because His sacrifice is increasingly difficult to understand the way people reason today. In effect, Your Son's sacrifice is nothing but an illusion - Jesus was dead pro tempore, shall we say, seeing as You resurrected Him. So it was little more than a trick, a sleight of hand, a void deed. People are not very impressed with that kind of thing nowadays. They feel it is an insult to their intelligence."

"My Son's sacrifice is the highest expression of my justice and mercy," He decreed peevishly.

His Holiness really could not understand what all this business of divine justice was about. However, he pursued his argument.

"So if I may sum up: You create man as a sinful insolent creature, almost as if to test Your own endurance, then You lose Your temper (a frequent occurrence) and what happens? To satisfy Your superior sense of justice and because You cannot go on destroying this creature of Yours which has been so unsuccessful, You pretend to sacrifice Your Son... in other words, You punish Yourself. So everything's fine and dandy! Justice has been done! But I wouldn't say it solved the problem, because the indifference of the human race is ample proof of it."

"So I pretended to sacrifice my Son! My Son who died on the Cross suffering the martyrdom of humiliation and the death of an outcast..." He burst out. "He was sacrificed for the sins of man! Consciously and painfully!" He pointed out. "You know how many people were blindly slaughtered by the sins of the popes - even you have a guilty conscience about it - so you should be able to understand the enormous significance of this act of mine! The sacrifice of my Son saved man from eternal damnation and made him my heir and joint-heir with my Son. This was made clear by Paul in Chapter VIII of his Epistle to the Romans..."

"No doubt, but Your Son knew he would rise again, because the Son of God cannot die. Anyway, what was the purpose of this sacrifice if man whom You saved from the sin of Adam has not been saved from himself and his devilish intellect? He has worsened to such a degree, as I pointed out earlier, that he fully deserves Your punishment, like a good old Flood for example, and instead You reward him and talk about making him Your heir..."

His Holiness pondered for a moment on the significance of the word heir. He really could understand nothing more than its earthly connotation.

"Man as Your heir..." he announced in some bewilderment. "According to the laws of the land, the heir stands to inherit the estate of a deceased person. Thus, we will all be Your heirs and joint-heirs with Your Son. When You die.

"Sorry... Good heavens, what I meant was the death of God... just in theory of course, though the atheistic theology of Christianity has certainly muddied the waters... it's all nonsense really - pointless speculation... a paradoxical intellectual exercise. Without God faith has no meaning; neither does religion, nor man himself, because he would be deprived of hope, which gives existence meaning. You speak of a celestial inheritance? The death of God which is the only way to justify this inheritance also paradoxically renders it void, because inheritance, which is life eternal in this case, would not be enjoyed in the light of Your glory, but in the sight of Your... corpse. It's grotesque!" He squeaked, giving vent to his emotion.

"As usual you follow your own logic and get the wrong end of the stick," He replied, unexpectedly quietly. "Just forget for a moment your notions of what my inheritance means and recognise the fact that if man has got worse much of the responsibility lies with your predecessors. It is they who distorted the message of my Son." He was blustering now, breathing heavily through His enormous nostrils which were like two deep black wells "Eternal, we have already said that..."

"Yes, I know, I haven't gone gaga yet!"

"Sometimes one just repeats things without realising it. Even I do it," His Holiness added facetiously. "Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, all I can say is that the Church has done everything it could to provide moral guidance. There may have been some bad popes, but they were a minority compared to all the saints and martyrs that Catholicism has produced in the course of the centuries for the edification of man and the exaltation of Your name."

"That's as may be, but if I had had to accommodate them all heaven would have been chock-a-block. What's more, you lot have tried to pass off quite a few as saints who were anything but saintly. Others were not even converted to Christianity, like all those Hebrew prophets - Zacchariah, Amos, Hosea, Haggai, Habbakkuk, just to name a few. Then there were the patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so forth. There was even Esau, whom you made a saint, knowing full well I couldn't stand the man. Moses and Joshua became saints too, and they had guilty consciences, didn't they? You said so yourself just now. And what about David and Solomon, who were certainly no angels - you elevated them to celestial glory. Adam and Eve? I throw them out of Eden because they were sinners and you return them to me as saints.

"Not to mention all the other blessed souls you never stop recommending. Asking favours is one of your distinguishing characteristics, as I said, and it is by no means limited to saints..."

"Canonisation of biblical characters is a sign of devotion towards Jesus' forebears and all those who foretold His works and predicted His coming," His Holiness remarked.

"That's not devotion, it's absent-mindedness. You invented saints and martyrs to fill a calendar which was already overloaded. You canonised roles too, for example - St Christopher the carrier of Christ or Christian; pagan divinities like St Dionysius, the Greek god of intoxication, and St Bacchus, his Roman counterpart; St Isidore, a combination of Isis and Horus; St George, who for some is the Egyptian god Horus and for others symbolises Gea, Mother Earth, which is why he is the patron saint of countryfolk. You made Gabriel a saint - my messenger and an archangel - and he became the patron saint of postmen. Then there was St Onesimus - a slave who escaped and was mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to Philemon - who was given the job of patron saint of domestics and waiting staff."

It was not over yet.

"By simple alliteration you made a saint of Latinus, whose name resembles latte, the Italian for milk, who is invoked by women when suffering from lack of milk; St Lucy is the saint who protects eyes and light sources, like television; St Faith (virgin and martyr) is a symbol of virtue who personifies the ideal of faith, together with her sisters Hope and Charity (also virgins and martyrs) - all daughters of St Sapience, who was a martyr but clearly not a virgin. I could reel off a list as long as your arm: St Gennaro, St Castrese or female saints like Philomena, who is usually inscribed on ampullae found centuries ago in the catacombs of Priscilla."

He stopped for an instant, lifted His gaze heavenwards as if in search of inspiration from some unknown source, and set off again.

"You had St Longinus canonised, who killed my Son. His name comes from the lance which he used to pierce my Son's side. Even mere objects have been canonised, like the vera eicon - the cloth used to wipe the sweat from Jesus' brow along the Via Crucis. This became St Veronica. You even found a husband for this saint: Amator, who quite possibly became a saint because of his lewd habits.

"And what about Pilate? You even made him a saint! Pilate, the man who had my Son crucified! He came before me, a basin under his arm and washing his hands, which was supposed to prove his innocence. When I threw him out of heaven, he realised that it is I who say what goes up there. This was a group canonisation - just fancy - because you made his wife Claudia Procula a saint too. Then there is a bunch of saints all to do with sex: St Phallianus, St Genitor, St Fotina, and so on."

"But they were all demoted!" His Holiness was quick to respond.

"They may not be formally recognised any more, but you can be sure they are all venerated: superstition has only been abolished officially. No-one dares to suggest the faithful should not worship them any longer."

"Oh You couldn't do that, Eternal, you have to be flexible! Never mind about St Philomena, St Faith or St Pilate, but St Gennaro! He's got plenty of punters. How on earth can You forget him? He doesn't do any harm, after all. And just try telling the Neapolitans their patron saint is a nobody! They've always so many problems, why not let them have their own special saint? It doesn't take much to satisfy them. I grant You, the swear words start flying when the saint's blood doesn't liquefy, but that's all. The people are quite content with this inoffensive miracle. Each one interprets it as he or she wishes, and they are happy till the next event."

"That is nothing but superstition! Fancy insulting a saint in church, blaspheming at the altar..."

"The followers of St Gennaro are a special case. They swear a lot, as I have said, but inspired by faith and as a sign of faith."

"Superstition!" He bellowed. "Instead of the blood liquefying - if it really is blood - why doesn't the saint soften the hearts of stone of those people? The truth is that this so-called miracle is nothing but a way for you to divert the attention of Christians away from more important religious issues, so that you can harvest the material benefits. For example, the cult of saints is backed up by the cult of their remains, which is sheer idolatry.

"Just think how fruitful the souvenir market has been. The folly of gullibility reached its climax with the adoration of my Son's foreskin and tummy-button. Not even I have been able to count how many foreskins and tummy-buttons are kept in churches - all of which purport to be the real thing, needless to say. There are lots more relics, too: bones, teeth, nails, hair, limbs, footprints, hands, even entire bodies - mummified, skeletal and stiffened - of saints, virgins, martyrs, monks, anchorites, many of whom were never even born."

So the litany went on.

"Several heads of John the Baptist are venerated; a dozen of St Juliana; there are about ten bodies of St George, and amazingly this saint never lived either alone or as a group, as someone once said. Then there are the jaw, shrivelled tongue and even the vocal chords of St Anthony. Just fancy - even a feather from the wings of my archangel Gabriel has been preserved (but there's also one of Brother Cipolla, mentioned in the Decameron), in addition to a finger belonging to the Holy Ghost... a wing I suppose, but a finger! How pagan and vulgar it all is!

"As for relics which are not parts of the body the list is long, and it would probably turn your stomach over again..."

"For God's sake... I mean Your sake, please refrain," His Holiness interrupted, as His words had started off the burning pangs in his belly again, "it's been absolute hell... Spare me, I beg of You. In any case, I know all about those relics... a piece of the iron chain used to bind St Peter; the grille from St Laurence's cell; the knife used to circumcise Jesus; Mary's personal belongings..."

"That's right!" He commented disinterestedly as if to punish him, "but don't forget the holy shroud of Turin - the winding sheet used to wrap Jesus in, which apparently has the impression of His body on it. Amazing, isn't it, that the sheet was made at least a thousand years after the year of His death. Then there are lots of other shrouds - about forty I believe - all equally authentic and cult objects; and how about the nails used to crucify Jesus? There are literally thousands of them around."

It wasn't over yet.

"The thorns in His crown? A veritable forest it would be if you put them all together. And the splinters of the Cross? You say: God only knows, but I assure you - I don't," He confessed in some bewilderment.

"Eternal, these are things which should induce us to reflect..." His Holiness suggested mellifluously, massaging his belly.

"I realise I can't hold you responsible for everything, Holiness. Actually, you are just the last link in a very long chain. You are even capable of philosophical concern for my health, which worries you because any deterioration of it would affect man's welfare. Maybe I should blame myself if things have got this bad. I should have done something earlier, like striking while the iron was hot. It's clear something needs to be done."

Silence fell.

A silence so deep and gloomy that His Holiness did not dare to speak. He trembled. Whatever the outcome, He would have won. In any competition between God and man God always wins. His Holiness felt his hour was nigh.

"What on earth will my punishment be?" was his anguished thought. "It's quite clear I'll be the first: He'll drive me from His sight, as He used to do to people in the past. He'll burn me to ashes on the spot or the earth will suddenly open up beneath my feet, which is what happened to Korah, Dathan and Abiram..."

"It's no good. It won't do!" He pronounced pensively. "Destruction by fire or purification by water... Then we'll see if the human race will come to heel! We shall see what we shall see! But you, Holiness, just think... think on..." He said, shaking His white head sadly while His voice started to fade and the apparition became hazy.

"Destruction by fire, purification by water," His Holiness repeated anxiously. Those words were as clear as crystal. They were His traditional instruments - the tools He had often used so successfully...

All at once, against the blue background of the sky, the white of His beard seemed to dim the redness of His face. Might these colours red, white and blue - symbolic of the French revolution where so many had died - signify another revolution? The triangular halo around His head gave off a few sparks then went out completely, and the immense cloud which was the Eternal Father evaporated little by little into nothing more than a black speck, like a tiny bird fluttering its delicate wings on its way up to Heaven.

"Ah," His Holiness thought, "it's turning into the Holy Ghost."

He opened his eyes, rubbing them hard, while Sister Candida, who was opening the shutters, made a reverential bow to him.

Suddenly a shaft of light shot through the dull panes of glass in the window, followed by a crash of thunder. Sister Candida automatically made the sign of the cross.

It was pouring down outside.

"He's decided it's to be water!" His Holiness surmised, resigned to his fate.

On the wall opposite the bed, set against the pale blue, the enormous black cross loomed, the bars stretching from side to side like in a prison. Silhouetted there was the black speck, which had now turned into a harmless little bat flapping its wings, frightened by the sudden light. It was desperately trying to get out, deceived by the artificial sky blue behind the cross.

"A very good morning to you, Your Holiness," beamed Sister Candida. "It's raining cats and dogs outside!"

"Alas, so I see. It was only to be expected."

"Oh, my goodness!" Exclaimed the shocked nun, lifting her hand to her mouth. "A bat! How could it have got in?" She gave a start and made the sign of the cross again.

"He doesn't need to announce His arrival - He just appears when He feels like it," mused His Holiness.

"The nuns who do this room will get a right telling off, I can assure you!" she said, upset. "I promise Your Holiness it will not happen again. I shall order Father Jacob to go through the room with a toothcomb every evening, and shut the doors and windows tight."

"As if that were enough!" His Holiness remarked to himself, automatically groping for his slippers with his feet as he got out of bed.

"Surely it didn't come in by way of the Holy Spirit?"

"Who can tell?"

"Fortunately nothing nasty happened," the nun remarked, concerned for His Holiness. "You know, they say bats can cut your face open with their wings..."

"Worse, Sister."

"Worse?"

"The worst of all nightmares. Like Jacob, I'm safe by a miracle."

"Father Jacob?"

"No, that other Jacob... the Patriarch."

"The Patriarch too?" The poor nun mused in bewilderment. "I don't understand Your Holiness... Father Jacob, the Patriarch of Jerusalem?"

"Forget it, Sister," His Holiness retorted.

"Your Holiness, you are all red and perspiring, you've got awful bags under your eyes...! Are you sure you fell all right?" She asked anxiously.

"Yes, I'm fine now. It was the Eternal... nightmare... I mean, the bat. But luckily it's gone... at least I think so!"

Rain lashed the window pane.

"It's pouring down, you say Sister," he repeated pensively. "Maybe the worst has yet to come."

"Thy will be done!" She recited, without understanding. Once again, she instinctively made the sign of the cross.