Robert Sawyer: Come All Ye Faithful

Rome didn’t commit itself easily to miracles, I knew. After all, there were charlatans who faked such things, and there was always the possibility of us getting egg on our collective faces. Also, the dogma was that all revelations required for faith were in the scriptures; there was no need for further miracles.

I looked out the shuttle’s windows. The sun—tiny and dim compared with how it appeared from Earth—was touching the western horizon. I watched it set.

The shuttle sped on, into the darkness.

“We speak today of the Third Secret of Fatima,” said Jurgen Emat, robust and red of face at almost eighty, as he looked out at his flock. I was watching a playback of his broadcast on my datapad. “The Third Secret, and the miracle I myself have observed.

“As all of those who are pure of heart know, on May 13, 1917, and again every month of that year until October, three little peasant children saw visions of our Blessed Lady. The children were Lucia dos Santos, then aged ten, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages eight and seven.

“Three prophecies were revealed to the children. The third was known only to a succession of Popes until 2000, when, while beatifying the two younger visionaries, who had died in childhood, John Paul II ordered the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith to make that secret public, accompanied by what he called ‘an appropriate commentary.’

“Well, the secret is indeed public, and has been for almost seventy years, but that commentary was anything but appropriate, twisting the events in the prophecy to relate to the 1981 attempt on John Paul II’s life by Mehmet Ali Agca. No, that interpretation is incorrect—for I myself have had a vision of the true meaning of Fatima.”

Puh-leeze , I thought. But I continued to watch.

“Why did I, alone, see this?” asked Emat. “Because unlike modern astronomers, who don’t bother with eyepieces anymore, I looked upon Mars directly through a telescope, rather than on a computer monitor. Holy Visions are revealed only to those who gaze directly upon them.”

An odd thing for a televangelist to say , I thought, as the recording played on.

“You have to remember, brethren,” said Jurgen, “that the 1917 visions at Fatima were witnessed by children, and that the only one who survived childhood spent her life a cloistered nun—the same woman Pope Leo XIV intends to beatify in a few weeks’ time. Although she didn’t write down the Third Secret until 1944, she’d seen little of the world in the intervening years. So everything she says has to be reinterpreted in light of that. As Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said upon on the occasion of the Third Secret’s release, ‘The text must be interpreted as a symbolic key.’ ”

Jurgen turned around briefly, and holographic words floated behind him: We saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire …

“Clearly,” said Jurgen, indicating the words with his hand, “this is a rocket launch.”

I shook my head in wonder. The words changed: And we saw in an immense light that is God—something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it—a Bishop dressed in white …

Jurgen spread his arms now, appealing for common sense. “Well, how do you recognize a bishop? By his miter—his liturgical headdress. And what sort of headdress do we associate with odd reflections? The visors on space helmets! And what color are space suits? White—always white, to reflect the heat of the sun! Here, the children doubtless saw an astronaut. But where? Where?”

New words, replacing old:… passed through a big city… half in ruins …

“And that,” said Jurgen, “is our first clue that the vision was specifically of Mars, of the Cydonia region, where, since the days of Viking , mystics have thought they could detect the ruins of a city, just west of the so-called Face on Mars.”

Gracious Christ , I thought. Surely the Vatican can’t have sent me off to investigate that? The so-called “Face” had, when photographed later, turned out to be nothing but a series of buttes with chasms running through them.

Again, the words floating behind Jurgen changed: Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels …

“Ah!” said Jurgen, as if he himself were surprised by the revealed text, although doubtless he’d studied it minutely, working up this ridiculous story.

“The famed Northern Cross,” continued Jurgen, “part of the constellation of Cygnus, is as clearly visible from Mars’ surface as it is from Earth’s. And Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos, depending on their phases, might appear as two angels beneath the cross…”

Might , I thought. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

But Jurgen’s audience was taking it all in. He was an old-fashioned preacher—flamboyant, mesmerizing, long on rhetoric and short on logic, the kind that, regrettably, had become all too common in Catholicism since Vatican III.

The floating words morphed yet again:… two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand …

“An aspersorium,” said Jurgen, his tone begging indulgence from all those who must already know, “is a vessel for holding holy water. And where, brethren, is water more holy than on desiccated Mars?” He beamed at his flock. I shook my head.

“And what,” said Jurgen, “did the angels Phobos and Deimos do with their aspersoria?” More words from the Third Secret appeared behind him in answer: They gathered up the blood of the Martyrs.

“Blood?” said Jurgen, raising his bushy white eyebrows in mock surprise. “Ah, but again, we have only blessed Sister Lucia’s interpretation. Surely what she saw was simply red liquid—or liquid that appeared to be red. And, on Mars, with its oxide soil and butterscotch sky, everything appears to be red, even water!”

Well, he had a point there. The people of Mars dressed in fashions those of Earth would find gaudy in the extreme, just to inject some color other than red into their lives.

“And, when I gazed upon Cydonia, my brethren, on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima, I saw her in all her glory: the Blessed Virgin.

“How did I know to look at Cydonia, you might ask? Because the words of Our Lady had come to me, telling me to turn my telescope on to Mars. I heard the words in my head late one night, and I knew at once they were from blessed Mary. I went to my telescope and looked where she had told me to. And nine minutes later, I saw her, pure and white, a dot of perfection moving about Cydonia. Hear me, my children! Nine minutes later! Our Lady’s thoughts had come to me instantaneously, but even her most holy radiance had to travel at the speed of light, and Mars that evening was 160 million kilometers from Earth—nine light-minutes!”

I must have dozed off. Elizabeth Chen was standing over me, speaking softly. “Father Bailey? Father Bailey? Time to get up…”

I opened my eyes. Liz Chen was plenty fine to look at—hey, I’m celibate, not dead!—but I was unnerved to see her standing here, in the passenger cabin, instead of sitting up front at the controls. It was obvious from the panorama flashing by outside my window that we were still speeding along a few meters above the Martian surface. I’ll gladly put my faith in God, but autopilots give me the willies.

“Hmm?” I said.

“We’re approaching Cydonia. Rise and shine.”

And give God the glory, glory … “All right,” I said. I always slept well on Mars—better than I ever did on Earth. Something to do with the 37 percent gravity, I suppose.