Father Baillie waved to Signore Chiari, below, then settled
comfortably into his favorite spot to begin his daily three-hour
vigilance. The crowds are sparse today, he thought.
Father Baillie, or Father Fitz as he was known to his
parishioners back home, was born in the year 1696 as Fitzroy
Baillie, the only child of Gilliosa and Doileag Baillie of
Winchburgh, Scotland. The Baillie clan was well known as the finest
distiller of Scotch whiskey in the West Lothians. Gilliosa Baillie
had expected his son to continue the tradition of the family
business, but Fitzroy had never felt inspired to spend his days
toiling in a distillery.
Young Fitzroy was a philosophical boy, and his particular
interest in life was trying to understand his unique relationship to
his God. So father often awoke to discover that son had journeyed
into the countryside in the early morning hours, over to the Mid
Lothians and the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew. There, Fitzroy
passed his days in deep thought, imagining that he was a great
priest standing upon the altar and beseeching God to reveal Himself
and the mysteries of all the world.
Fitzroy left home at age sixteen to attend the College of St.
Mary’s in the city of St. Andrews. There, he spent the next three
years pursuing his seminary education. Father Baillie worked his way
up through the Church hierarchy for the first fifteen years after
college, gaining the prerequisite experience of his profession,
until fate again found him standing upon the altar, this time,
exulting to God in front of a flock of parishioners who came to
affectionately call him their own Father Fitz.
Father Fitz settled comfortably into the surroundings at his
parish and was quite content in his work for the next four years.
Then he caught the attention of Cardinal Vincetti, who was traveling
as an emissary of the Vatican throughout the northern regions of the
Kingdom of Christ. The Vatican still hoped to reestablish a strong
presence in Scotland after the Scottish Reformation, so Cardinal
Vincetti had been sent to find a protégé who could be molded into a
great leader and voice for Vatican ambitions. The Cardinal perceived
Father Fitz to hold great promise, so a friendship quickly
developed. Within a year of their meeting, Father Fitz began working
at the Vatican as an understudy of the Cardinal.
The young apprentice was truly amazed at the wonders of the
Vatican and the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica. More wondrous to
him, however, were the secret Vatican archives that contained
information about the spiritual nature of man, man’s origins, and
numerous prophecies yet to unfold in mankind’s history.
One of these prophecies—the Prophecy of Peter—foretold the return
of St. Peter to reclaim his throne. Some thought this reclamation
would be the prelude to the Second Coming of Christ. Simon Peter had
been posthumously elected the first pope, and all popes since had
considered themselves nothing more than temporary caretakers of the
throne, all eager to relinquish the scepter to St. Peter upon his
return.
The Prophecy of Peter had gained further prominence in the ninth
century, when Pope Joan, the only female pope, and a gifted seer,
provided additional clarity to this prophecy—through a vision. She
had foreseen that St. Peter would be identified by two
distinguishing characteristics: a noticeable limp to his stride and
the rough outline of an inverted cross appearing on his right hand
in the form of a birthmark. Pope Joan had further stated that this
person would travel from distant lands and would be identified when
paying homage to an image of his own likeness.
Pope Joan had subsequently issued a secret papal decree requiring
a constant vigil at the statue of St. Peter whenever the Basilica
was open to the public. Pilgrims to Rome were plentiful, even in the
ninth century. Paying homage to the statue of St. Peter and
caressing its right foot had been part of the ritual pilgrimage
since the statue had been installed.
The longstanding tradition that resulted from the secret decree
nearly nine centuries earlier is what had caused Father Fitz to be
presently sitting in the Basilica choir balcony. He sat in the
northwest corner of the nave above the statue, where he looked down
to observe the sparse crowds this particular day.
Over the centuries, rumors of the Prophecy of Peter had seeped
out to the far reaches of the Kingdom. Father Fitz had passed this
rumor off, just as much other hearsay, as the idle gossip of the
faithful too far removed from the daily workings of the Vatican to
know what really transpired there. So it was with a sense of irony
that he had found himself for the past five months sitting in a
choir balcony for three hours each day on constant vigil for what he
had only six months earlier discounted as a fanciful rumor.
Truthfully, he did not mind the three hours alone to himself each
day, because it provided time for him to engage in his two passions:
contemplating his relationship to God and taking an occasional sip
of his father’s produce, which he kept in a flask hidden within the
inner pocket of his cloak.
Father Fitz was now happily and deeply engaged in contemplation.
How many people over the centuries have caressed the right foot of
this bronze statue of Saint Peter, causing its features to be worn
and shiny? Perhaps all these pilgrims know of this Prophecy of Peter
and caress his foot as a metaphorical way to soothe the limp in his
leg that Pope Joan had seen in her vision. Aye, and that Pope Joan
must have been quite a woman! Imagine, a person rising to the papal
throne by concealing her own identity as a woman, until she was
finally discovered when giving birth to a baby while traveling from
this very church to her throne at the Lateran. She may have been
tied to a horse’s tail, dragged and stoned to death for her
abhorrent deception, and her name stricken from the historical list
of holy pontiffs because of her female sex, but her papal decree has
survived all these centuries, notwithstanding. Aye, what an irony it
is for me to be sitting here each day as the result of a secret
papal decree from a woman who officially does not exist.
Such were the wandering thoughts of Father Fitz when he raised
his flask for the first time to take a sip of "contemplation." He
glanced at the crowd below just before the flask reached his lips.
"What is this, a robed figure limping slowly on his right leg
toward the statue?" Father Fitz quickly corked and concealed his
flask, arose in the choir balcony, and intently watched the robed
figure.
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