The Shroud Codex (25 page)

“How’s that?” Castle asked.

“After he was scourged at the pillar, Christ was covered in a purple robe and mocked with the crown of thorns,” Morelli said. “I am afraid of what might happen next.”

“I’ll be right there,” Castle said, resolving it was best to go to St. Patrick’s immediately, rather than regret it later.

As the taxi approached St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Castle could see Fernando Ferrar’s mobile broadcasting truck was parked on Fiftieth Street.

Rushing inside, Castle found Father Morelli in the vestibule at the back of the church, at the Fifth Avenue main entrance.

“There was nothing I could do,” Morelli said pleadingly to Castle. “Ferrar charged past me saying I could call the police if I wanted to throw him out. He agreed not to put on the lights and begin taping unless something happens. So far nothing has.”

“How far along are we with the Mass?” Castle asked.

“We are not yet at the Communion blessing,” Morelli said, “but it’s coming up right after the sign of peace is given.”

Through a wireless microphone, Father Bartholomew’s voice could be heard clearly throughout the church. “Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant
us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever.”

The hundred or so worshippers responded in unison, “Amen.”

“The peace of the Lord be with you always,” Father Bartholomew continued.

“And also with you,” the worshippers answered.

“Let us offer each other a sign of peace,” Father Bartholomew said, signaling for the worshippers to turn and give a kiss or handshake of peace to those with and around them.

Right then it happened. As Father Bartholomew reached to greet the altar boys, he grabbed his head and let out a scream. The pain took him to his knees. Castle reacted immediately, running up the central aisle to the altar.

A
S BEFORE
, B
ARTHOLOMEW
’
S
mind tripped. Instantly he was back in the courtyard where his body had just been scourged unmercifully.

The centurions who had just beaten him were resting, breathing heavily, their naked upper bodies glistening with sweat. Methodically, they worked to free him from the pillar, making sure his hands still remained tied together at the wrists. Once free from the pillar, his body slumped hard to the pavement.

Two centurions picked him up roughly by the armpits and dragged his limp, nude body across the ground, his body leaving a trail of blood in his wake. When they got him to a corner of the courtyard, the centurions rudely twisted his body so it faced forward into the room, then lifted him onto a square stone that formed a hard, cold seat where two walls met. A centurion wearing a helmet with the red plume of command pushed Bartholomew’s head hard back against the wall and grabbed his beard to yank open his mouth. Down his throat the centurion poured what
tasted like a pungent mixture of old wine mixed with some sort of foul-tasting drug. He choked violently, struggling to get a breath.

The helmeted centurion laughed as he slapped Bartholomew hard across the cheek. “What’s the matter?” he derided Bartholomew. “Doesn’t the wine agree with you, Your Highness?”

The helmeted centurion backed away to allow two of his more brutish compatriots to grab Bartholomew by the shoulders, shoving him just far enough forward that they could throw a mantle of purple—the color of royalty—around his shoulders. “All hail, the King of the Jews!” they said as they tied the robe at his shoulders. Open in front, the robe did nothing to hide the embarrassment of his nudity.

Moving quickly, two more of the soldiers in the courtyard jammed onto his skull a cap they had formed from a thornbush growing in the courtyard. Taking rods, they beat the crown of thorns into his head, making sure it fit down on him like a hat.

Bartholomew screamed as the sharp thorns tore into his scalp, leaving gaping, bleeding wounds around his entire head. The centurions made sure their blows forced the long thorns deep into his scalp.

When they were finished pounding the skullcap of thorns onto his head, the centurions placed into his bound hands the wooden switch canes they had used to hammer the thorns. Bowing before him, the centurions honored Bartholomew as if he were sitting on a throne, holding a royal scepter as a symbol of his sovereign authority.

Finished with their rough work, the centurions resumed taking turns mocking him.

R
EACHING THE ALTAR
, Castle lowered to scoop Father Bartholomew off the floor into his arms. Moving Bartholomew’s ample hair aside with his fingers, Castle recognized immediately
that the priest’s scalp wounds extended from his forehead in a circle around his head, with punctures obvious everywhere across the top of the priest’s scalp. Rushing behind Castle, Father Morelli dialed 911.

Screams went up from worshippers who stood seemingly frozen in the pews, unable to comprehend what was going on. Others grabbed cell phones and began recording. A few ran from the cathedral in panic. Some started crying, while others were unable to utter a sound.

Directing the action from the side of the altar, Fernando Ferrar had his film crew turn on their lights and begin taping. He quickly led the film crew directly to the altar, almost on top of Dr. Castle.

Just then, Father Bartholomew’s arms shot out left and right in a straight line from his shoulders.

In a series of sharp, jerking movements, Father Bartholomew’s body began lifting from the floor, as if he were levitating.

With his arms outstretched like one nailed to the crossbeam of a crucifix, Father Bartholomew lifted off the ground. His shoes fell from his feet as he floated high above the altar to where he was clearly visible throughout the church.

B
ARTHOLOMEW
’
S MIND SNAPPED
immediately back to Golgotha. The rough centurions with the stale breath who had nailed his wrists to the crossbeam were standing below him, waiting as a group of soldiers using a pulley mechanism lifted the crossbeam up from the ground in several strong yanks, to a height where it could be slotted down into the vertical pole of the crucifix that was permanently implanted at this fearsome site of execution.

The pain was indescribable as Bartholomew’s wrists bore the full weight of his body swinging free in the air as the crossbeam made its slow journey upward.

With a jolt, the crossbeam fell into the slot, giving the immediate signal for the two centurions with the mallets to go back to work. One centurion roughly forced the sole of his right foot flush against the upright beam. The other centurion moved simultaneously to bend his left leg so his left foot rested on top of his right foot. One centurion held the feet in that position as the other began driving yet another long nail through his feet. The nail entered his left foot through the long metatarsal bones forward of the heel, which lead down to the toes. With studied blows, the nail continued through the left foot onto the right foot below. The centurion angled the nail to be sure it also passed through the metatarsal region of the right foot, angled back toward the heel. Once it was through the right foot, the centurion drove the nail home into the wood of the upright beam.

Their work finished, the sweating team of soldier executioners looked with satisfaction on the crucified man, hanging with his weight supported entirely by the nails through his wrists and feet.

Bartholomew’s mind went cold in shock as he realized he had been pinned to the cross to die. The damage done to his nail-pierced and scourge-beaten body was so severe that he could not last long. Still, the pain was anguishing. Even breathing was excruciating. He realized he would have to lift himself up using the nail in his feet as a pivot, just to relieve the pressure on his lungs long enough to exhale—otherwise, he would suffocate.

For Bartholomew, now nailed to the cross, the thought was terrifying beyond comprehension that the Roman executioners had calculated the torment of crucifixion so precisely that each new breath would require a cruel repeat of this macabre dance in which his arms and feet would have to work together in their passion, raising him up and lowering him down. To stay alive even one instant longer, to avoid suffocating from the weight
pressing down on his diaphragm, he was now forced continuously to scrape his bones and flesh in synch against the nails. In this final hour of life, the practiced Roman crucifiers had skillfully enlisted Bartholomew’s body to complete their work of execution.

W
ATCHING THE NAIL
wounds appear on Father Bartholomew’s feet, with the priest suspended in air above the altar of New York’s great midtown Catholic cathedral, several still in the cathedral let out even more terrified screams. They echoed around the church’s vaulted ceiling, adding to the horror of the event.

Then, as suddenly as he had levitated, Bartholomew’s body came crashing to the cathedral’s floor.

Examining Father Bartholomew quickly, Dr. Castle could see that the stigmata on the priest’s wrists had opened once again, as gaping, bleeding wounds. Reaching under the priest’s purple vestments, the doctor felt blood soaking the tunic, meaning the scourge marks on his body were likely also raw and bleeding.

Running into St. Patrick’s, the New York Police Department assisted Father Morelli in shutting down Fernando Ferrar’s film crew and escorting them outside.

The ambulance medics rushed in and took over. Within a minute Father Bartholomew was in the ambulance, headed back to the hospital.

“His pulse is weak,” Castle told the medics. “His blood pressure is probably low and falling. He’s in the first stages of going into shock. But don’t be alarmed; he’s been through this before.”

“I don’t understand,” one of the paramedics said loudly as he jumped into the back of the ambulance.

“It’s what I expected,” Castle said, trying to calm things down. “I’ll explain it on the way downtown.”

Squeezed into a corner in the back of the ambulance, Father Morelli quietly took out his stole and his prayerbook, ready to administer extreme unction once again to Father Bartholomew.

Dr. Castle ordered the driver to get to Beth Israel Hospital as fast as possible.

Ahead of them a police escort led the way once again with lights and sirens blaring.

Sunday afternoon

News Headquarters, Forty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, New York City

Day 18

Fernando Ferrar and his mobile television crew raced their van back to television news headquarters, a few blocks away from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Already the editors were working to package his video into a breaking news segment, aiming to be the first with live coverage of Father Bartholomew and what was being called the “Miracle at the Cathedral.”

Anchor Dave Dunaway broke into the Sunday afternoon coverage with a “news extra.”

“I have with me here on the set today our correspondent Fernando Ferrar, who has just returned from St. Patrick’s Cathedral here in New York City, where something extraordinary has just happened. New Yorkers are buzzing about what is being called the ‘Miracle at the Cathedral.’ Fernando was there. Tell us, Fernando, what happened?”

“It was quite extraordinary.” Ferrar began with obvious
excitement at having just recorded the scoop of a lifetime. “Father Paul Bartholomew, the Catholic priest we have been covering—the one who has manifested on his wrists the stigmata, the nail wounds of Christ crucified on the cross—was saying Mass.”

As Ferrar related what had happened, the national TV audience saw the video his crew had captured inside the cathedral.

“Just as the Mass was getting to Communion, the high point of the Mass, Father Bartholomew grabbed his head and fell to the ground. Our film crew was inside the church and we rushed forward to get a close-up.”

“Looking at this for the first time, it’s quite remarkable,” Dunaway said. “It looks like blood is coming through his fingers as he grabs his head there. He looks like he’s in severe pain.”

“That’s right, Dave,” Ferrar said. “You’re not going to believe this, but what it looked like to me was that Father Bartholomew was suffering the wounds Christ received with the crown of thorns.”

“How is that possible?” Dunaway asked in amazement.

“Wait,” Ferrar continued. “That’s not half of it. Just watch the film clip. Within a minute or two, Father Bartholomew’s body looked like it was being jerked upward in several distinct motions.”

“I can’t believe it,” Dunaway said. “It looks like the priest is levitating.”

“He was,” Ferrar said anxiously. “At least, that’s how it looked to me. But there’s more. As you can see, his arms were outstretched, just like he was the one being nailed to the cross. And then—take a look at this close-up—the nail wounds on his wrists began bleeding again.”

“It’s amazing. I can’t believe it,” Dunaway said again, unable to control his sense of befuddlement at what he was seeing with his own eyes. “Is this some kind of magic trick?”

“Not that I could tell,” Ferrar said seriously, “and I was standing right there, not ten feet away from Father Bartholomew when he levitated above the altar today at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It happened just like you are seeing, only a few blocks from here, right in the heart of midtown Manhattan, right on Fifth Avenue.”

“It looks like Father Bartholomew was unconscious,” Dunaway observed. “Was he still alive?”

“As far as I can tell, he was alive.”

“How long did he stay like that, completely suspended in air, just like he was crucified?” Dunaway asked.

“It was only a few minutes,” Ferrar answered quickly, anticipating what was coming next. “But look at this close-up. Hanging there, the priest’s legs looked like somebody was positioning them to be nailed to a cross.”

“That’s right,” Dunaway said. “It looks like the left foot is being placed on top of the right foot and then—what’s this? It looks like the feet are being nailed. I can see the bleeding wound on the left foot on top. I can’t see any nail, but I can see the wound developing. Could that possibly be what is happening?”