How It All Goes Down
- Bishop Aringarosa's surprised how much it hurts getting shot.
- He blearily looks up and realizes Silas is carrying him, pleading for medical help. He's devastated that he shot Aringarosa.
- Aringarosa is resigned to his fate. He feels like this is all his fault.
- …and so he flashes back to five months ago, when he first received news that Opus Dei's success was in jeopardy:
- It was the meeting alluded to earlier at Castle Gandolfo with the Vatican secretariat and two smug high-ranking Italian officials.
- They'd voted unanimously to revoke the Vatican's sanction of Opus Dei. (Yeah. That'd be a big deal.)
- The new Pope saw Opus Dei's policies (corporal mortification and their treatment of women) as an embarrassment.
- So, the church's going to pay Opus Dei a severance package, (that's the weirdest thing we've read in this whole book) but six months from now Opus Dei would have to be their own church without support from Rome.
- Only a few weeks after that meeting was when the Teacher had contacted him, somehow already knowing about his predicament.
- The Teacher was asking for Aringarosa's help procuring a sacred relic that would give them both immense power over the Vatican, so of course he'd accepted his proposal.
- Back to present day. Silas's finally reached a hospital, where the docs aren't too sure they can save the bishop.
- Aringarosa tells Silas that instead of seeking vengeance on the person who deceived them, he needs to pray and seek forgiveness.