Adrian D'Hage - The Omega scroll

As Cardinal Petroni listened, his agile mind formulated a plan.

‘I agree completely, Ashton, the Muslims can’t be allowed to gain the upper hand and I’m much obliged. When are you coming to Rome? We must have dinner.’

Cardinal Petroni put the phone down and got up from behind his desk, deep in thought. Ever since that impostor Muhammad had tried to usurp the role of Christ in the world and proclaimed himself the messenger of God, the evil followers of Islam had tried to extinguish the one true Faith. Now they were trying it again and the peace process in Jerusalem was a clear danger. In reality it was an accommodation with Islam that must never be allowed to gather strength. His mind made up, Petroni punched the preprogrammed number for the Knight Commander of Malta in the CCN studios in New York.

‘Daniel, it’s Lorenzo. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, Lorenzo, although we are all praying for Il Papa. It sounds very serious?’

‘I’m afraid so, Daniel. He has been a wonderful leader and he will be very hard to replace. The good fight must go on though, which is the real purpose for this call. This peace process in Jerusalem has us all very worried here.’

‘I couldn’t agree more, Lorenzo. We seem to be making a lot of concessions to the evil of Islam.’

Ten minutes later Petroni was confident the story would get a run. Anything that kept the Muslims and the Jews at each other’s throats could only be to the benefit of the one true path. Satisfied, he sat back to watch the progress of his intervention in the ceremony. Petroni was back in control, or so he thought.

Jerusalem

Marian looked at her watch, less relaxed now. ‘I wonder what’s keeping David and Allegra,’ she whispered to Giovanni.

‘They’ll be here,’ he whispered back. ‘Patrick told me they had some very urgent business to attend to, but they’d be back as soon as they could. The music is telling you not to worry,’ he added reassuringly.

‘Isn’t it magnificent.’

Giovanni smiled. ‘God knew what He was doing when He gave Levi Meyer a baton,’ he said, as the voice of one of the world’s truly great sopranos, Michelle Ortega, carried clearly over the Damascus Gate. As the orchestra and the choir reached their finale, and to a growing applause from those seated, as well as from the thousands crowded into Nablus Road, Prime Minister Yossi Kaufmann and President Ahmed Sartawi came in from the Old City side of the Damascus Gate. They walked side by side towards their seats on the podium.

‘In the one hundred and fifty thousand years or so that we have inhabited this planet,’ Giovanni began when the applause had died down, ‘we have fought and killed each other, only to have one war finish and another one begin. Sometimes it seems that we have not taken the slightest notice of the lessons of history, but I am here tonight to tell you that there are two great leaders behind me who understand the futility of killing your brother or sister.’

Yusef shivered as he fingered the small transmitter hidden in his pocket. From the shadows of the control marquee next to the podium that was located to one side of the Damascus Gate, he stared at the brother he no longer knew. The two had not spoken since that fateful day they had buried their family.

‘Too often these wars have been fought in the name of religion and culture,’ Giovanni said. ‘As a Christian I can tell you that is not what Christ had in mind. He didn’t believe that one man’s faith and culture is better than another’s and that we should all fight to the death to prove it. The Prophet Muhammad was also a man of great tolerance and justice,’ Giovanni continued. ‘He is credited with saying “if you wish for others what you wish for yourself, you become a Muslim”, which has given rise to the Golden Rule. Sadly though, the Muslim is often portrayed in the media as a terrorist or a fanatic. I have come to know the true Muslim as a man and woman of peace and prayer. I have also had the privilege of meeting many marvellous men and women of the Jewish faith, a faith that alongside Islam and Christianity shares the one father, Abraham. So often we seem to behave like a bad family, arguing over his will, over what we think belongs to us. There are some within the Jewish religion who claim Abraham for their own, maintaining that God’s blessings and the land are only for the Jewish people. There are some Muslims who claim Abraham as the model for Islam alone; and there are some of my own faith who would claim that the promises given to Abraham have only ever been fulfilled by Christ.’ Giovanni smiled. ‘Abraham is entitled to be a little confused.’ Laughter reverberated off the ancient walls. ‘Like all good fathers, Abraham has been all of those things to all his children. It would be a very strange God who, having created a Muslim child in Baghdad, or a Christian child in Bogota, or a Jewish child in Berlin, would then turn around and close the gates of the Kingdom to two thirds of those children because they were not born into the correct culture.’ Giovanni was being characteristically bold in his quest for greater peace and tolerance. This comment, he knew, would be greeted with quiet fury in the Vatican, but it was a stunning public admission from a cardinal that there was more than one path to the Omega, to eternity.

Yusef Sartawi listened. He was sceptical, but he was also touched by this man. Yusef felt the safety catch for the hundredth time, instinctively trusting this Christian priest, which made it more puzzling as to why the infidel would want him assassinated.

‘I know,’ Giovanni concluded, ‘that Abraham, Muhammad and Christ would all applaud this peace agreement as a turning point in the history of civilisation. A turning away from the killing and the bloodshed, a turning towards tolerance and recognition of the values of different cultures and religions. A move towards justice and peace.’ As the lights shone on the smiling Italian cardinal, the crowd rose to their feet in a standing ovation.

The tension in the CCN news room in New York was rising.

‘We can’t run that, Daniel! It will derail the peace process before it even gets off the ground,’ Geraldine argued passionately. She glared at the Head of News and wondered how such a detestable little man managed to be so well informed.

‘It may have escaped your notice, Ms Rushmore, but you do not decide what goes to air at this station. I do,’ he said icily, his eyes more piercing than usual. ‘The public has a right to know and we will run it. Now. Does Schweiker have the copy?’ he asked, turning to his secretary. She nodded, alarmed at the ferocity of the meeting. In Jerusalem President Ahmed Sartawi was beginning his address.

‘I am indebted to the vision and wisdom of His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Donelli and to that of my friend, Prime Minister Kaufmann,’ Ahmed began.

Yusef watched as his brother endorsed the sentiment of peaceful co-existence as the only alternative to the killing. His brother urged the West to get behind Yossi Kaufmann’s broad-sweeping vision and to provide the support and investment for a Middle Eastern Economic Union. This and Giovanni’s words on the futility of killing your brother brought back a long-forgotten memory, a memory of picking olives and of dreams for the future. Torn and confused, Yusef took his hand out of his pocket.

‘For Palestine and Palestinians,’ Ahmed concluded, ‘it will mean equality and justice. Palestine will be a country that is characterised by neither a godless secularism, or a fanatical adherence to religion, but one that is based on justice and freedom of choice. I would remind those who might seek to impose their will to the exclusion of any other,’ he said, in a clear warning to those at the militant end of the spectrum, ‘that in countries where extremists have sought to impose their will, the results for Islam have been catastrophic. I am reminded of what the Great Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon Him, had to say about violence. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, let me quote from the Qu’ran: Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in a most kindly manner – unless it be such of them as are bent on evildoing – and say: ‘We believe in that which has been bestowed on high upon us, as well as that which has been bestowed upon you; for our God and your God is one and the same, and it is unto Him that we all surrender ourselves.