The Hand of Christ Read Online Free

Catholic doctrine and had intended to release it by week’s end for use by the Church’s Bishops around the world. But his current state of duress had him thinking only of one thing, and that one thing wasn’t the Encyclical.
    I wish I had not been elected the Pope , thought Leo.
    He wanted to regret this thought, but did not and would not. Leo’s recent discovery had changed him.
    A worker must have put it there , he thought.
    It was a thought – a hope – that he had had numerous times.
    But he knew that it couldn’t have been a worker.
    He buried his face into his hands and repeated the thought: I wish I were not Pope.
    Only a few months prior, upon the deliverance of the white smoke from the Conclave, the Cardinals seated around the wall of the Sistine Chapel all decisively wrote on folded paper, Eligo in summum pontificem Joshua Apalis Reisenberger , electing him Pope.
    His election was not without some controversy, and this bothered Pope Leo XIV; Leo wanted this controversy to be the basis off his first communication to the Bishops and, thus, to all Catholics worldwide.
    The center of the controversy around his selection as Pope emanated from the time that he had held a position as an influential member of the Roman Curia, the administrative arm of the Holy See and the governing authority for the entire Roman Catholic Church.
    His selection as Pope came as a bit of a surprise to the world mostly due to a document published in 1999 – written by him while he had worked in the Roman Curia – titled The Dominion of our Lord. The publishing of this document had sparked heated debate, outrage even, amongst the world and with many Catholics. Most troubling was the contradictory nature of his document’s main theme of salvation against the view held by many young Catholics that the Church was finally modernizing.
    By electing Joshua as Pope, many within the flock had felt the Church was taking a very large and unnecessary step backward.
    During his time with the Curia, he felt that he had been correct in writing that the Roman Catholic way is the only way. The main issue with the central theme of the document had been the manner in which it was interpreted; to many, the document clearly had denied salvation to non-Catholic Christians.
    The recent death of his friend, the last Pope, had shaken Leo. The death of a great man and close friend, coupled with his own recent brush with mortality and impending open heart surgery, had forced Leo to think once more of the path to salvation. Must one necessarily be a Roman Catholic to find his path to heaven? Wouldn’t a benevolent God accept all into his kingdom that had led a virtuous and moral life whether Catholic or not?
    Time and age tends to make a man more conservative, more reserved, and unwilling to see beyond his own periphery. Leo had fallen into this same geriatric trap, but as of late was seeing quite a bit more clearly and beyond his own diminishing horizon.
    He had become much more introspective and realized that as his life was nearer to the end the opportunity to create a new beginning for the Church was at hand. Leo wondered if what he had found – the source of his worries – was some sort of divine inspiration showing him a way to give the Church that new beginning.
    Lost in his thoughts, Leo’s gaze drifted unknowingly back to the rays of light coming through his window.
    Today was no different than that day three months ago. Is God reminding me of what I found, somehow telling me what to do? Leo looked skyward and hoped that some divine message would be there answering his question.
    He thought back to that day. Just like today, he had been annoyed by the persistent distraction from the sunlight.
    He had intended only to close the curtains.
    But he had tripped on the broken tile.
    Leo looked down at his pen; it was the same pen he had been holding on that day. Rolling it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger, he was instantly shamed by the