Hobbling up the aisle on his crutches, Ávila felt like a miserable cripple making a pilgrimage to Lourdes in hopes of a miracle cure. An usher greeted Marco and led the two men to seats that had been cordoned off in the very front row. Nearby parishioners glanced over with curiosity to see who was getting this special treatment. Ávila wished Marco had not convinced him to wear his decorated naval uniform.
I thought I was meeting the pope.
Ávila sat down and raised his eyes to the main altar, where a young parishioner in a suit was doing a reading from a Bible. Ávila recognized the passage—the Gospel of Mark.
“‘If you hold anything against anyone,’” the reader declared, “‘forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.’”
More forgiveness? Ávila thought, scowling. He felt like he’d heard this passage a thousand times from the grief counselors and nuns in the months after the terrorist attack.
The reading ended, and the swelling chords of a pipe organ resounded in the sanctuary. The congregants rose in unison, and Ávila reluctantly clambered to his feet, wincing in pain. A hidden door behind the altar opened and a figure appeared, sending a ripple of excitement through the crowd.
The man looked to be in his fifties—upright and regal with a graceful stature and a compelling gaze. He wore a white cassock, a golden tippet, an embroidered sash, and a bejeweled papal pretiosa miter. He advanced with his arms outstretched to the congregation, seeming to hover as he moved toward the center of the altar.
“There he is,” Marco whispered excitedly. “Pope Innocent the Fourteenth.”
He calls himself Pope Innocent XIV? The Palmarians, Ávila knew, recognized the legitimacy of every pope up to Paul VI, who died in 1978.
“We’re just in time,” Marco said. “He’s about to deliver his homily.”
The pope moved toward the center of the raised altar, bypassing the formal pulpit and stepping down so that he stood at the same level as his parishioners. He adjusted his lavalier microphone, held out his hands, and smiled warmly.
“Good morning,” he intoned in a whisper.
The congregation boomed in response. “Good morning!”
The pope continued moving away from the altar, closer to his congregation. “We have just heard a reading from the Gospel of Mark,” he began, “a passage I chose personally because this morning I would like to talk about forgiveness.”
The pope drifted over to Ávila and stopped in the aisle beside him, only inches away. He never once looked down. Ávila glanced uneasily at Marco, who gave him an excited nod.
“We all struggle with forgiveness,” the pope said to the congregation. “And that is because there are times when the trespasses against us seem to be unforgivable. When someone kills innocent people in an act of pure hatred, should we do as some churches will teach us, and turn the other cheek?” The room fell deathly silent, and the pope lowered his voice even further. “When an anti-Christian extremist sets off a bomb during morning mass in the Cathedral of Seville, and that bomb kills innocent mothers and children, how can we be expected to forgive? Bombing is an act of war. A war not just against Catholics. A war not just against Christians. But a war against goodness … against God Himself!”
Ávila closed his eyes, trying to repress the horrific memories of that morning, and all the rage and misery still churning in his heart. As his anger swelled, Ávila suddenly felt the pope’s gentle hand on his shoulder. Ávila opened his eyes, but the pope never looked down at him. Even so, the man’s touch felt steady and reassuring.
“Let us not forget our own Terror Rojo,” the pope continued, his hand never leaving Ávila’s shoulder. “During our civil war, enemies of God burned Spain’s churches and monasteries, murdering more than six thousand priests and torturing hundreds of nuns, forcing the sisters to swallow their rosary beads before violating them and throwing them down mineshafts to their deaths.” He paused and let his words sink in. “That kind of hatred does not disappear over time; instead, it festers, growing stronger, waiting to rise up again like a cancer. My friends, I warn you, evil will swallow us whole if we do not fight force with force. We will never conquer evil if our battle cry is ‘forgiveness.’”
He is correct, Ávila thought, having witnessed firsthand in the military that being “soft” on misconduct was the best way to guarantee increasing misconduct.
“I believe,” the pope continued, “that in some cases forgiveness can be dangerous. When we forgive evil in the world, we are giving evil permission to grow and spread. When we respond to an act of war with an act of mercy, we are encouraging our enemies to commit further acts of violence. There comes a time when we must do as Jesus did and forcefully throw over the money tables, shouting: ‘This will not stand!’”
I agree! Ávila wanted to shout as the congregation nodded its approval.
“But do we take action?” the pope asked. “Does the Catholic Church in Rome make a stand like Jesus did? No, it doesn’t. Today we face the darkest evils in the world with nothing more than our ability to forgive, to love, and to be compassionate. And so we allow—no, we encourage—the evil to grow. In response to repeated crimes against us, we delicately voice our concerns in politically correct language, reminding each other that an evil person is evil only because of his difficult childhood, or his impoverished life, or his having suffered crimes against his own loved ones—and so his hatred is not his own fault. I say, enough! Evil is evil! We have all struggled in life!”
The congregation broke into spontaneous applause, something Ávila had never witnessed during a Catholic service.
“I chose to speak about forgiveness today,” the pope continued, his hand still on Ávila’s shoulder, “because we have a special guest in our midst. I would like to thank Admiral Luis Ávila for blessing us with his presence. He is a revered and decorated member of Spain’s military, and he has faced unthinkable evil. Like all of us, he has struggled with forgiveness.”
Before Ávila could protest, the pope was recounting in vivid detail the struggles of Ávila’s life—the loss of his family in a terrorist attack, his descent into alcoholism, and finally his failed suicide attempt. Ávila’s initial reaction was anger with Marco for betraying a trust, and yet now, hearing his own story told in this way, he felt strangely empowered. It was a public admission that he had hit rock bottom, and somehow, perhaps miraculously, he had survived.
“I would suggest to all of you,” the pope said, “that God intervened in Admiral Ávila’s life, and saved him … for a higher purpose.”
With that, the Palmarian pope Innocent XIV turned and gazed down at Ávila for the first time. The man’s deep-set eyes seemed to penetrate Ávila’s soul, and he felt electrified with a kind of strength he had not felt in years.
“Admiral Ávila,” the pope declared, “I believe that the tragic loss you have endured is beyond forgiveness. I believe your ongoing rage—your righteous desire for vengeance—cannot be quelled by turning the other cheek. Nor should it be! Your pain will be the catalyst for your own salvation. We are here to support you! To love you! To stand by your side and help transform your anger into a potent force for goodness in the world! Praise be to God!”
“Praise be to God!” the congregation echoed.