“You’d be surprised,” her husband responded shortly, leafing through the second-hand copy. “The Koran is widely read here.”
It was all part of his education, he told her in the days and weeks following his release, as they trekked through Rome, searching for an apartment.
Two years spent among what he called ‘America’s walking dead’ had given him a lot of time to think about where the West was headed.
“If the greatest democracy the world has ever known can fall this far in just a few short years,” he told her suddenly the night before as they sat on their terrace drinking Orvieto Classico, “just what is next?”
Michelle didn’t know, but it was clear that somehow Dyson felt that Rome was central to the drama now unfolding before their eyes.
CHAPTER 5
The two prelates faced each other across the long table. This same table had hosted decades of Board of Directors meetings for a once-mighty American airline, now defunct. The Community had acquired the property in suburban Boston fifteen years before, announcing their intention to use it as a seminary.
That was, however, before the swirling tropical storm of the US sex abuse cases had swept through, unfortunately first exploding into the headlines in the Diocese that was hosting them. Suddenly Catholic families with impressionable teenaged boys became deeply suspicious of the intentions of an Order which featured glamorous Latin American priests, handsome and perfectly coiffed, driving shiny German cars.
As such, the plans for the seminary were quietly shelved but the Community hung on to the property as it continued to serve very well for its original intended purpose of money laundering for the drug cartel which underwrote its existence. And when the Community’s founder came under deep suspicion brought about by a global outcry against the Community’s well-documented predatory homosexual environment, his ‘suicide’ was quietly arranged for by the cartel. (As an old poisoner, the Founder should have been more careful about what he ingested, Community insiders pointed out.)
For its part, the Vatican issued press releases about the need for the Community’s accounting procedures to be reformed and dismissed its senior level of prelates. Within hours the world media had moved on to juicier stories.
Now, there was a new Cardinal in the Diocese. This was a concern to Father Pilar, who had maintained a cordial relationship with his predecessor, a smooth-talking Redemptorist brought in to calm the city after the news broke that his predecessor had aided and abetted sex abusers. Together, they had worked to quell the rumors, stoked to a fever-pitch by law firms scenting blood in the water.
REGINA | 98