The Omega Factor(68)

“I speak honestly. Catholicism wanted Mary to be a woman who never sinned. Never did a thing wrong in her life. Birthed children, but was still a virgin. They went to those extremes for good reason. They needed a goddess, and the worship of her proved quite lucrative.”

He realized that everything associated with Mary had been manufactured early on, seizing on the wants and desires of the faithful since the adoration of pagan goddesses had been so prevalent. Christianity was then a male-dominated religion. Mary added a new dimension, one that quickly gained traction. She aided with the recruitment of new followers and opened the purses of the existing faithful. She acquired her own prayer, the Ave Maria, along with a rosary. Eventually, she established an autonomy—not a god, but more than a saint—blessed the term appended to her. She became the voice of heaven and even appeared on earth from time to time. At Guadalupe in Mexico. Czestochowa in Poland. Lourdes and La Salette in France. Fatima in Portugal. Beauraing and Banneux in Belgium. Medjugorje in Bosnia. And many other places, some recognized by the church, most not. Always to the poor or the downtrodden, leaving cryptic messages to decipher. Hundreds of churches, cathedrals, and basilicas around the globe were still, to this day, dedicated to her. A myth that became a reality. One that was never widely debated, or ever challenged.

Just adored.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked Fuentes.

They still lingered in the square before the basilica, under one of the overhead lamps, the hour approaching 10:00 p.m. Fewer people were now moving about in the darkness, nobody paying them any attention.

“What do you know of the Virgin’s grave?” Fuentes asked.

Quite a bit actually.

Eastern Christianity taught that Mary died a natural death, like any human being. Then her soul was received by Christ and her body resurrected on the third day into heaven. The Roman Church went a step further, teaching that Mary ascended into heaven in full bodily form. But had she died first? That point was never resolved until 1997 when John Paul II decreed that Mary had in fact died before ascending. But how would the pope have known that? Easy. It was all a matter of faith. Aided by the fact that no one knew where Mary’s tomb lay. Some said in Gethsemane, others in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and still more thought she was laid to rest in Ephesus.

He told Fuentes what he knew.

“An old account said Mary was buried somewhere in the valley of Jehoshaphat and, lo and behold, a tomb was found there in the sixth century. After the crusades, in the twelfth century, so many pilgrims flocked to that tomb that the Church of the Assumption was built to take advantage of their presence. But after Pius XII declared her Assumption we abandoned the site to the Orthodox churches.”

Which made sense. “You could not on the one hand say Mary was brought into heaven, body and soul, then, on the next, have a church standing at her grave.”

“No,” the cardinal said. “We could not. In 1950, prior to Pius XII’s decree on the Assumption, the church sent an archaeologist from the Vatican Museums to investigate that tomb. Relics supposedly found there turned out to be sheep’s bones. Not a shred of evidence existed that the site was associated with Mary. You would think that conclusion would have been welcome. No bones. No body. Exactly what the church would have wanted. But the Vatican, in its usual infinite wisdom, promptly ordered that archaeologist, on threat of excommunication, to discontinue his work and never publish or speak of the tomb again. Being the good Catholic that he was, that man complied.”

“I never knew that.”

“It was not something we broadcast. And then there were the secret archives.”

Vilamur smiled at the label. The press loved the term Vatican Secret Archives, which were no secret at all. They’d been open to the public since 1883. The real secret was their organization and condition. They were once a total mess, and it had taken the last forty years to bring a measure of order to the collection.

“Information was found there in 1934,” Fuentes said. “Old information that had been known, then lost, then refound. It was a copy of a text that detailed Mary’s life after the crucifixion. The Testimony of John.”

He’d never heard of it.

“An ancient manuscript. Quite informative.”

“Authentic?”

Fuentes nodded. “Without question. It was recovered during the Albigensian Crusade from an old church in the Roussillon. Experts all agree it is from the fifth or sixth century. It states that it’s a copy of a much older manuscript from the first century. Is it true? Factual? Accurate? Impossible to say. But according to its text the Blessed Mary lived to the age of seventy-four and was interred, after dying, according to contemporary custom.”

“Why has no one heard of this text?”

“It was sealed away. Only available to popes.”

“And apparently you.”

Fuentes nodded. “The pontifical commission head has been traditionally made aware of the manuscript. But there’s a reason for that.”

Which he could hardly wait to hear.

“The account is quite specific,” Fuentes said. “Mary left Jerusalem and, for a time, lived in Ephesus. Then she left there and traveled east, on a pilgrimage, eventually ending in southern France, where she died near a town called Las Illas.” Fuentes paused. “And was buried there.”

“I know that village. I’ve been there.”