A New Faith: Part 1: Chapter 9
The Pope’s assistant, John Murphy, was reviewing his notes before his daily briefing for His Holiness. The Catholic Church had been steadily losing followers for decades and it was not alone in this predicament. None of the major world religions were able to provide the succor their followers were desperately seeking in the increasingly turbulent times. How could the followers continue to bring themselves to believe in a higher power if that higher power seemed to feel no compunction in letting them suffer all the time?
Worse, the major religions were singularly inept at competing with the sheer showmanship of the charlatans. The literally mind-blowing displays accompanying each sermon made full use of the entertainment industry’s state-of-the-art skills. It created a magical mixture of exhilaration and numbness in the minds of the audience. That instant relief was akin to a drug that distracted the followers long enough for the charlatan to rip them off. Eventually, those victims would free themselves from the charlatan’s hypnotic control. Unfortunately, rather than learning from that experience, they would promptly choose another one to follow. And, in all likelihood, get victimized all over again.
Murphy, an Irish middle-aged man, sighed. This just happened to be the day when he was supposed to summarize the data about church attendance from across the world. The charts - like the corners of his mouth - glumly pointed down. He was not looking forward to sharing that data with His Holiness and the other staff. It invariably descended into another round of fruitless bickering and unnecessary recriminations.
Among the news headlines that had caught his eye that morning, was the news about the second-ever murder in Sequoia. That curious little city up by the north pole had more or less vanished from news over the last five years. There had been some hope when the city was being populated, that it would welcome the Catholic Church. After all, the entire population consisted of lonely people who came from the poorest and most climate-impacted places in the world. They would all need some spiritual help.
The Catholic Church had, along with most other religious institutions, lavished charity on Sequoia. Strangely, there had been no substantive response to those generous enticements. Maybe most of those folks were too numb from the shock of their relocation to have any capacity left to engage with the spiritual world. Murphy had shrugged that off as yet another instance in a growing list of failures.
Most folks around the world had lost interest in Sequoia a while ago. All that had changed within the last month. Apparently, after the first five years of no deaths (and no births either!) there had been not one but two murders within a few days of each other. The one and only thing that was common between the two murders was that both the victims were, apparently, Muslim men.
As is the instinct of most people, sure enough, the journalist (or was it some vapid opinion-writer?) had established a trend by connecting two data points. Really, Murphy thought, people need to be able to distinguish between data and anecdotes. This was one of his pet peeves - people extrapolating when they shouldn’t be. Murphy had scanned through several sources of news from around the world and it became quickly apparent to him that the Muslim rabble-rousers had already started pointing to this “trend” as proof that Muslims were not safe anywhere including Sequoia. This was, especially, galling because Sequoia was established for the express purpose of moving people from unsafe places to safe places. The usual garbage about persecution had been dusted off amazingly quickly. The references to the millennium-old crusades were not far behind.
This was the difference between the old religious institutions and the fly-by-the-night hucksters. The old institutions had survived for centuries because they had taken the long view while these frauds were in it solely for short term gain. Almost like the cut-throat capitalists, there had to be a return on investment and that too in the next quarter! Else, their followers would leave them in the same way shareholders abandoned the stock of the companies that were deemed to not have delivered big returns in every single quarter. Maybe the old institutions needed to find a better balance between taking the long view and the near term developments. Or else these old institutions might not survive.
All these thoughts about long- and short-term views reminded him of the famous Keynes quip, “in the long run, we are all dead!” Murphy had read economics and politics in Dublin before he found religion. He had always been good at math. It had been a simple choice for him between science and economics. He had not enjoyed science in school and hence, economics it was. He had fancied himself as a political economist who would shape the thinking of the world. But within two years of college, he had become disappointed by the ephemeral nature of the ideas that he was learning. He had briefly considered switching to science - maybe, Physics - but there also he felt that too many core ideas about how the universe worked were still being refined. He was thoroughly dispirited by all this constant evolution. It kept him on the edge, never allowing him to settle down. He didn’t like that feeling at all.
One day, he had been sitting in the back row of a church, when he started listening to the priest’s service. He hadn’t even realized that it was a Sunday and this was the weekly mass that he had walked into. He had been whiling away his time by biking through the hills near Dublin all summer wondering what to do with his life. That day, the uphill ride had been quite steep and the sun had been, especially, hot and relentless. Not a cloud in sight all morning. He had felt a bit light-headed and entered through the first open door he had come across. It had been that of the church. And his life had changed. He had found certainty in the venerable priest’s service that morning. He, no longer had any doubt about his true calling from that moment on.
Murphy glanced through the open window that looked over the oval ground in front of the Basilica. Tourists had started gathering. It was another hot day in the Vatican. Many tourists were carrying parasols and umbrellas to find some respite from the sun. As usual, the touring groups were the first ones to arrive and congregate in the oval. He had gotten good at recognizing from afar which groups were from which country. The Chinese and Indian groups were always the largest ones and most common ones. No surprise there! The Chinese tourists dressed very conservatively while the Indian tourists were always easily identifiable because of their vibrantly colored clothing. Quite a visual contrast to see these groups gather around their tour leaders who were reciting the standard instructions about the dos and don’ts.
Murphy found it quite interesting how tourism to religious places never actually changed anybody’s mind into adopting a new religion. Tourists - from all over the world - were somehow able to consistently maintain a distance between themselves and the place or people they were visiting. It was no different than humans going to a zoo to look at animals. If only that had not been the case! The Catholic Church would have had no trouble adding new devotees as the Vatican continued to draw in tens of millions of tourists, many of them not Christians, every year. They came and ooh-ed and aah-ed at the artwork in the Church’s museum, ate the gelatos and pastas, took a gazillion pictures of every church in Rome, and then went back to their un-Christian lives.
Murphy stood up and started organizing the papers that would go into his attache. He was, momentarily, distracted by the sound of fire crackers going off in the oval. It was dangerous to do that in a crowd. But there wasn't much parents could do to keep their children in check. Kids will be kids. But even as he was mentally shrugging his shoulders at that thought, he heard several screams. They seemed too loud to be caused by the fear of a kid’s firecrackers. Murphy rushed to the window and was aghast to see the carnage that had taken place in mere seconds. Several people were lying covered in blood. He couldn’t understand what was happening even when somewhere in the back of his mind he kept hearing the firecrackers. And then he saw the two gunmen gliding through the crowd smoothly as they ruthlessly mowed down the people in a hail of bullets.
They looked too stable to be running and were probably using a hoverboard, Murphy thought subconsciously. More people keeled over as they got cut down by the killers who were shouting something as they kept going. Pieces of paper were also fluttering all around them as if they had disturbed a flock of white pigeons. It was happening so fast that Murphy’s brain was the only thing functioning while his body had become completely paralyzed. But all that changed in an instant when a stray bullet hit the window where he was standing. The shards of glass hit him as if in slow motion. Instinctively, he dropped down with both his arms covering his head.
Then as if by magic, both the gunmen crumpled up in the same instant as the snipers finally managed to nail their moving targets. Of course - the Vatican had snipers posted all around the oval for exactly this kind of a situation. Unfortunately, they had been too slow in killing the two gunmen because the gunmen had been moving really fast and in an unpredictable manner. And that too in the middle of the crowd. The snipers had been, rightfully, reluctant in taking multiple shots as they feared they might hit innocent people.
Once he felt sure that the shooting had indeed stopped, he stood up careful to maintain a safe distance from the window. To Murphy, the tableau seemed inconceivable. The pop-pop of the guns had stopped and the screaming had ratcheted up in a big way as the survivors of the assault came out of their daze. The long drawn out wails of the injured then seamlessly blended into the sirens of the emergency vehicles. Loud screeches of tires spinning pierced through them, as the police cars and ambulances pulled up to the oval.
The entire oval felt like an artist had gone berserk and splashed red paint around willy nilly with all his paintbrushes. To Murphy’s conservative sensibility, this Jackson Pollock-like image was unspeakably disgusting. He finally regained his will to look away from it. He was still shaking as the adrenalin continued to course through his veins when the door to his office was whipped open and a Swiss Guard swept in without any warning. He stumbled back toward the window as if hit by a truck and almost over-pitched through the window before the Swiss Guard pulled him back into the room.
“Sir… are you alright?” he asked calmly.
“Yes… yes… I… I am fine,” Murphy managed to stammer out as a part of his mind was marveling at how this youngster was able to stay calm through this upheaval.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Sir - if you are okay, then I shall go and check on the other staff members. My superior will come and brief you on the situation in a few minutes.”
Murphy nodded and sat down heavily in his chair.
As the guard bolted out of the room, he felt sick as bile rose up in his throat. He had barely managed to grab the waste basket when he threw up several times. There wasn’t much that came up as he had not had any breakfast yet. He was still retching when he heard clipped footsteps approaching his desk. The Captain of the Swiss Guard had arrived.
“Sir - may I request you to come with me to His Holiness’ chamber?” the Captain asked urgently. Unlike the young guard, the Captain seemed to have been far more affected by the tragedy. His face was crisscrossed with lines of worry.
“Yes - you go ahead. I will follow you in a few minutes. I need to use the bathroom to tidy myself up,” Murphy waved at him without looking up. He was still feeling sick. Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to stand up immediately. He was completely drained of strength after throwing up. He needed a few minutes just to catch his breath.
“Okay! Please be there in five minutes,” said the Captain. It was obvious that the Assistant must have seen the carnage from his window unlike His Holiness who had been in the process of dressing for the day and had neither heard nor seen anything until the Captain had gone over to his quarters.
Murphy rinsed his mouth and washed his face with cold water. That seemed to do the trick. He felt much stronger and refreshed. He straightened his clothes that had somehow gotten all twisted up when he had thrown up. They, most definitely, did not look as freshly pressed as they had been a few minutes ago. But they would have to do. He drank a couple of glasses of the cold water. It tasted bitter at first and then sweet.
His Holiness was calmly sitting at his desk while the Captain stood in front of him across the desk. A couple of His Holiness’ senior staff were standing on the far side of the desk as Murphy entered the room. The door had been left open and there was obviously no need to knock under the circumstances. Murphy went and stood by the side of His Holiness. His Holiness waved the Captain to get started with his briefing.
“Your Holiness, it was a terrorist attack. There were two gunmen who were shot down by our security team. There are numerous casualties. We don’t yet know how many are dead and how many injured. Once I get the report, I shall bring it to you,” the Captain spoke calmly and precisely. Not one unnecessary word anywhere. Simple and short sentences with no ambiguity whatsoever.
Murphy asked, “who were they and why did they attack?”
Even though Murphy had asked the question, as was the practice, the Captain continued to address His Holiness.
“They appear to be Muslims. We don’t know their identities yet. They were shouting ‘Alla-hu-Akbar’ as per the accounts of our security team. They also had flyers that were falling through their satchels. The flyers had the pictures of two men. Both the men in those photos appear to be Muslim based on the names printed below the pictures. The rest of the flyer clearly states that this was an act of vengeance. The two gunmen, it seems, were avenging the wrongful deaths of the two men whose pictures were on the flyers.”
Again, the clipped precision from the Captain. While one part of Murphy was listening to the Captain and observing him, another part of his mind was wildly gesticulating. Murphy knew the answer to his question even before the Captain replied.
“By any chance were the names of the two men on those flyers Qasim and Nadeem?”
The Captain was taken aback and lost his composure for a brief moment as he took his eyes off His Holiness and stared at Murphy as if he was seeing a ghost.
“How did you know that?” the Captain had forgotten the protocols in this moment of disbelief.
“Your Holiness,” Murphy turned and said, “the two young men mentioned in the flyer had been murdered in the last few days in the refugee city of Sequoia. Qasim was murdered four weeks ago and Nadeem, last week. I had read the news but had not felt it important enough to include in your daily briefing. I had assumed that the two murders were local affairs and not of importance to us.
In any case, the few details that I had seen, suggested that the murders were not connected. There didn’t seem to be any indication of religious violence. Now, after all this, it seems that there are at least a few who think otherwise. And going by the scale of the tragedy that happened a few minutes ago, these people feel so, quite strongly.”
“Oh dear!” His Holiness murmured.