If writers tend to write stuff they enjoy, what about A Pius Man?

If you've even looked at the back of novels by long time novelists, like David Morrell, you will notice that there are a lot of other authors who give him blurbs for his novels. I have noticed that a lot of authors who write books I enjoy, tend to read other authors whose books I enjoy. Authors tend to cluster like that for at least the last century. Tolkien was a friend of CS Lewis. Chesterton, Dorothy Lee Sayers, Ronald Knox, Agatha Christie, and Baroness Orczy were all connected....or well networked, if you want to put it another way. If you have no idea who I'm talking about, Amazon.com will be helpful.

So, if the author's book collection tells a lot about what he writes, then—without going into footnotes—what is the background for A Pius Man?

In general terms, anything that isn't nailed down.

What do I read that I would recommend to other people? Well, I can do a simple breakdown by genre.....

Let's the the borderline inconsequential out of the way: Romance.

Yes, I read some romance, but these usually come with thriller elements.



Catherine Coulter-- her FBI series is quite entertaining. At least for the first six or seven books. The Cove is possibly the best constructed mystery out of the bunch, and it opens with a fifty page long chase through several states. It works surprisingly well.



Sherrilyn Kenyon-- Imagine vampires mixed with Greek mythology so much that they're not really vampires. If you're a fan of Greek mythology, interweaving new mythology and modern action thrillers, read her “Dark-Hunter” series. Preferably in publication order, otherwise you can get very lost, very fast. The romance elements are there, that's her primary classification. And don't be put off by the titles or the covers, most of which are embarrassing to look at. But if I had any shame, I would probably be in a different line of work.



Andrew Greeley-- Irish Chicago Catholic priest who writes romance novels. Some people tend to have brain-freeze at that point, so take a moment if you need to. If you can, read any book of his BEFORE 2000. After that point, well, his books start to suck. They almost always have a fairly solid mystery, but there's always a romance-- however, avoid the books "Cardinal Sins" and "Love song" (Early books, awful books.). The Search for Maggie Ward was excellent, as was Irish Gold, and he has an entire Beatitude series of murder mysteries. And he has three books of an Angel trilogy which are EXCELLENT.

Now, enough of the mushy stuff. Now we blow stuff up....Thriller/ mystery authors:

David Morrell: Yes, he created John Rambo in his novel “First Blood.” However, I would suggest that it is not his best. In “The Spy Who Came For Christmas”, a wounded spy seeks refuge in a home while being chased; to keep the occupants calm, he tells them a spy's version of the three wise men of the Bible. In “Creepers”, a group of urban explorers enter into an abandoned hotel, onto to discover that they're not alone. “Scavenger,” the sequel to Creepers, finds the survivors of the hotel incident trapped into a deadly game—a real life role playing game, set in a hostile wilderness.

Jeffery Deaver: I'm not entirely certain about the order of novels, but Deaver has a wonderful way of messing with one's mind. In my household, “to Deaver” something means to put a backspin on a storyline so hard that the audience gets whiplash. When I mean thriller, I mean it doesn't slow down-- at least not for long. The Blue Nowhere (thriller with hackers), The Bone Collector (ignore the film), The Coffin Dancer, The Vanished Man, A Maiden's Grave, The Devil's Teardrop, the Empty Chair, and other fun stuff.



Vince Flynn-- Unfortunately, offhand, you'll have to look up his titles, and read him in order. he writes about a CIA assassin named Mitch Rapp, and the first one was about terrorists taking over the white house. This was before terrorists became popular (1999), and he does a wonderful critique of what went wrong during the 1990s in the intelligence world.



Douglas Preston &; Lincoln Child: just start by reading "Relic" (for the love of all that's Holy, IGNORE THE MOVIE) and "Reliquery," then let the games begin. If you want to read either individually-- just read Lincoln Child. Preston on is own is not Preston at his best. Lincoln Child has written “Death Match” (match.com meets serial killers), Utopia (Westworld meets Disney World), both of which are at the top of the list for recommendations for these two as individuals.



Matthew Reilly-- in order of speed and publication: Contest, Temple, Ice Station, Area 57, Scarecrow. Contest is sort of science fiction, an interstellar gladiatorial slug fest in the New York City Public Library. Temple is a race for an element that makes uranium look like M&M filling. Ice Station is just pure fun. Area 57 is the sequel to Ice Station (imagine a shootout in Area 51). And Scarecrow is a nonstop running shootout. Each book involves at least a four to six sided shootout, so they don't have time to slow down.



James Rollins (publication order)-- Sandstorm, Map of Bones, Black Order, The Judas Strain.... oh, to heck with it, just look for any book labeled a “Sigma Force Novel.” Imagine scientists with guns. Rollins was writing world spanning ancient mysteries and high-tech thrillers before anyone ever took note of Dan Brown. When this man writes cutting edge, he gives the footnotes, citing articles that are, in some cases, only available overseas.

David Hagberg-- his books are about CIA assassin Kirk McGarvy; the novels improve as you read through them. The first three books can be taken or left behind, since they are still dealing with the end of the Cold War, and are rather depressing.



David Lindsay's career is, at the moment, based on four books about his scalpel wielding sociopath and serial killer named Dexter. Yes, these books spawned the cable TV show of the same name-- a serial killer who hunts serial killers. It starts with Darkly Dreaming Dexter, followed by Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, and Dexter by Design. Even if you've seen the tv show, read the books anyway.

And speaking of Napoleon, David Cornwell's Sharpe series is entertaining-- a fictionalized infantry-man's view of the war against the tiny Corsican tyrant.



Joseph Garber- - his books “Verticle Run” and "In a Perfect State" are the best thrillers I may have ever read, second to Vince Flynn



Clive Cussler -- if you've not heard of Dirk Pitt, go read about him.

FANTASY

Terry Prachett-- co-author of Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens." Also creator of a fantasy land called Discworld. As far as that goes, read anything that has to do with the city of Ankh-Morpork. This covers everything from his Commander Vimes novels (mystery with fantasy), or even Going Postal and Making Money, which are sideways political comedy-thrillers (yes, that's a mouthful, and no, I don't have a better way to put it).



Neil Gaiman – I like the man. I liked his books Neverwhere (Alice in Wonderland as done in the London underground), Interworld (alternate reality commando teams—the same person from a hundred different realities), and The Graveyard Book...and I'm not even sure where to begin describing that one.



F. Paul Wilson -- ignore the film called "The Keep," read the book. It starts like Dracula and ends like Lord of the Rings. It's part of his Adversary Cycle, which can be found at the front flap of any of his paperbacks. It is fun, and epic, and Stephen King is the President of the fan club for one of his characters.

Jim Butcher-- creator of the books which loosely inspired the short lived scifi channel series "The Dresden Files." The premise: think of one parts Philip Marlow and one part Gandalf on meth; Wizard as Private Eye. The series starts with a serial killer in Chicago who kills people by magic, with a sequel that recreates the Terminator in a police station, only with a werewolf. It evolves into a world war with vampires, and is building up to an “apocalyptic trilogy” for a finale that will probably involve wizards, vampires, the fae, skinwalkers, werewolves, demons, advanced assault weapons, aikido, and Excalibur-level swords

Jim Butcher's second series is The Codex Alera—fantasy, Lord of the Rings style. The hero is the only person in the world who can't use magic, but he can use his mind to do more damage than any spellbook. It's the second time I have seen a novel use magic as a well thought out tactical weapon. There is no “massive fireball inflicts +100 damage, kills everyone” versions of magic. It starts with political intrigue and espionage, and turns into a sweeping epic.



Terry Goodkind -- creator of the Sword of Truth series. Think Robert Jordan, only entertaining, and a lot less wordy. It is the first series that I have ever seen use magic and tactics in a fantasy setting. Wizards do not abound, but they are like heavy weapons specialists in a vast army. If you can imagine Objectivist philosophy, tempered with natural law, then put into a fantasy setting, you have the intellectual background.

SCIENCE FICTION.

J. Michael Straczynski was an executive producer on Murder, She wrote, created Babylon 5, and writes almost anything else he can get his hands on. He's written comics, tv, novels, science fiction, battling demons.... Just look him up on amazon, buy everything except for “Rising Stars” and “Supreme Power.” I'm not joking. Go now.

Timothy Zhan will always be marked as the man who resurrected the Star Wars series from it's unholy grave. He wrote three books in the early 1990s, and the Star Wars book series was born. Though, to be honest, Zhan is the only person in the Star Wars world I'll ever read. All of his books are well thought out, and no one is stupid. There are some cases you can probably say that everyone thinks too much, but a smart book is never a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned. Blackcollar is his first book and book series; the Cobra trilogy was a multi-generational examination of guerrilla warfare and high-tech implants. Angelmass was an interesting one-shot.

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This is where it gets interesting. Baen books has a marketing gimmick. The theory is that if they allow books out for free online, it will prompt people to buy the books in real life. Below, I have assembled not only the lists of series and novels for each author, but also the link to each author's current novel series. You can download ANY of the books listed below.

DAVID WEBER

David Weber writes so many series in so many worlds, even he's starting to get sick of it. Most notable is his Honor Harrington series-- a female space naval officer, usually worrying about 100-to-1 odds. Imagine the Napoleonic War done in space.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/17-StormfromtheShadowsCD/StormfromtheShadowsCD/





The Stars At War-- title explains it all. And the books are numbered... though you might want to ignore “Insurrection.”



Stand Alone Books:



Empire from the Ashes---- What do you mean our moon has been replaced by a spaceship?



The Apocalypse Troll --- the lone survivor of a fleet from a hundred years in the future fell to earth in pursuit of a life pod that has a world-killing alien on board. They both fell through time and space... and now she has to kill it with allies in the 20th century. Assuming it doesn't kill everyone first.



The Excalibur Alternative-- humans make great mercenary soldiers... even if they are from the 16th century, abducted by aliens, and pressed into service.



In Fury Born--After 3,000 years of slumber, a Greek Fury stirs, awakened by a human whose own fury calls...

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His honor Harrington series is Horatio Hornblower meets Star Wars. I have it in recommended order of reading.



On Basilisk Station-- what do you do when you're a shiny new Captain who has to deal with a hostile crew, rioting civilians, an evil empire next door who wants your sector, and, oh, yeah, you've been left by yourself in the middle of the busiest sector in the galaxy with only one ship? Improvise.



The Honor of the Queen-- Honor Harrington is a female captain trying to save a world of semi-Mormons who think she's inferior, and has to defend them against an enemy of religious zealots who make her “allies” look tame.



The Short Victorious War --- Robert S. Pierre and his revolutionaries have created the People's Republic of Haven. Now it's time to flex their muscles.



Field of Dishonor

Flag in Exile

Honor Among Enemies

In Enemy Hands

Echoes of Honor

Ashes of Victory

War of Honor

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The Honorverse Short story collection – it will explain a few things from the books here and there



More than Honor-- I'd recommend only the first story in this one. Seriously.

Worlds of Honor--- I suggest only the Weber stories here.

Changer of Worlds-- now things get interesting.

The Service of the Sword--- Even better.



Crown of Slaves – Takes two sets of characters from Changer of Worlds and Service of the Sword and brings them together against a common enemy.



Shadow of Saganami: Honor's graduating class from officer training has there own ship... and their own problems.



At All Costs--- Honor has lost an eye and an arm leading her Majesty's Navy... much like Admiral Nelson... and this is Trafalgar.



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JOHN RINGO.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/18-EyeoftheStormCD/EyeoftheStormCD/



John Ringo, who was never a member of the Beatles, started his career with the Posleen War series, which has spun out of control into about ten books by now. The first four are self-contained, however-- a battle against cannibalistic Mongol hordes from space. He's former 82nd airborne, so the battles work.



I should note now that this list of Ringo books is more or less written in order of series that I highly recommend, and that I think you will enjoy the most, in the order than I think you will enjoy them. Promise.



Princess of Wands --- what got me hooked on Ringo. Start here. Trust me.

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Prince Roger / Empire of Man – ever read the Anabassis? The story of the ten thousand? This is the John Ringo / David Weber version.



March Upcountry

March to the Sea

March to the Stars

We Few



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Series: Into the Looking glass (Book 1) --- the book that got me interested in Ringo in the first place. Military stuff and advanced physics. Aliens are coming through portals called “looking glasses”, and they all want to take over the Earth.

Vorpal Blade

Manxome Foe

Claws that Catch (do we have a pattern?)



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The Paladin of Shadows series.... this one is odd.



Ghost --- The first book is made of a series of three vignettes. “Ghost” is the code name of former Navy SEAL Mike Harmon. When he sees a coed being kidnapped, he finds himself in the middle of a terrorist plot that takes him all the way to Syria, where he lands in the middle of a terrorist stronghold, and eighty hostages, all of whom are slated to die. The second vignette... skim it. Trust me. Vignette three finds Harmon in Eastern Europe, and a plot to nuke Paris finds him.

Kildar—Harmon, still moving through Eastern Europe, finds himself trapped in the middle of a valley during a snowstorm. But the Valley is in the middle of a pathway for Chechen terrorists killing everyone in their way. Now, Ghost has to train the locals to stop the invaders, or else everyone is going to die.

Other books in the series: Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue.

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Von Neuman's War – Robots have been sent out into space to colonize worlds for another species as they expand throughout space. Nothing personal, no problems.... until they come to colonize Earth.

_________________________

The Posleen War: Ringo's first series, which makes Gone with the Wind look like a bad television episode. There are alien cannibalistic mongol hordes who will soon have Earth on the list, and the technology to stop them are in the possession of aliens who can't defend themselves (like the French).



The original trilogy (book three interrupted by 9-11).....



A Hymn Before Battle.

Gust Front

When the Devil Dances

Hell's Faire

.........



Same time period, different parts of the war.



Watch on the Rhine—the war in Germany.

Yellow Eyes –the war in South America.

.........



After the initial war, the battle isn't over



Cally's War

Sister Time.

Honor of the Clan

Eye of the Storm

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The Last Centurion. I'm still not sure what to make of this one. To start with, Ringo WANTS to piss off everyone with SOMETHING in this book—he didn't piss me off, but I'm odd. It's a one-shot, and written in blog format, with all that the genre entails. It was written in early 2008, before Swine Flu, the rise of Obama, and the first 100 pages, you will NOT know what's going on... okay maybe you will, but it took me a few pages to get into that one. It's written in blog format, and if he pisses you off because of something he wrote, then he meant to.

A Public Service Announcement: How to Spot a Suicide Bomber

I live in New York City, so a certain amount of paranoia is reasonable. How much is too much? Great question. However, given that the New York City skyline has a relatively recent hole in it, I don't think it's too much to consider that someone, sooner or later, might want to consider rendering more damage to the city.



Over the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that most people—even those with limited knowledge of weapons, tactics, explosives, or anything harmful—can plan a better terrorist attack than some of the “masterminds” currently operating out in the world.



For example, one of the most likely scenarios in any major urban environment is suicide bombing. Load some people with bombs onto the A and the 6 trains in rush hour, or in the midst of time square—then you can start seeing examples of terror.



Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all sorts of signs for the simple reason that they are, by definition, all first timers. Israeli counterintelligence wrote the defensive playbook, using pragmatic observation and psychological insight, and came up with a 12-point checklist, 11 for women—you'll see why. If you want to see the list being applied, I recommend Lee Child's novel “Gone Tomorrow.”



Now, the twelve signs that you might be looking at a suicide bomber.....



1. Inappropriate clothing: bulking clothing helps hide the explosive vest. If someone is wearing a heavy coat in spring or summer, that could be a hint. If you're living in the sections of the planet where you have never seen real snow, that's less of a hint, and more like a neon sign.



2. A robotic walk: Bombers walk like a robot for a very simple reason: they're carrying approximately 40 pounds of additional weight. Also, many suicide bombers tend to be high before they go towards their target—raw opium is standard, usually tucked between the gum and the cheek. So, either take the added weight or being high, or both, a suicide bomber walks funny



3-6. Variations on a theme: irritability, sweating, tics, nervous behavior. These people are in the last moments of their lives: scared of the pain, drugged out of their mind. Motivation doesn't matter, nor does sincerity of one's beliefs—they are about to die, they see it coming, and they haven't exactly had to do this before. The stress becomes visible.



7. Breathing. Breaths come low, and controlled. It's more or less a matter of the bomber trying to control their breath so they don't hyperventilate.



8. Staring. No one is 100% sure why, but suicide bombers stare straight ahead, fixed on a target. Perhaps it's tunnel vision, perhaps it's blocking out everything but the thought of being about to meet ones maker. Every image of bombers before they blow up shows them with the exact same stare.



9. Mumbled prayers. To date, everyone who blows themselves up in a suicide bombing has done so for religious reasons. Surviving eyewitnesses have all seen continuous, formulaic incantations on visibly moving lips, usually before all hell breaks loose.



10. A large bag. Fresh dynamite is a stable explosive that needs to be set off by specially prepared blasting caps. These caps are wired with cord to an electricity supply and a switch. A nine-volt battery will do, or a large square battery—these are too heavy for a pocket, usually, therefore, a bag.



11. The most recent point: You can't see the person's hands. If the person's hands are in the bag consistently, it could be resting on a button. In the earlier days of suicide bombings, a good bearhug would pin the bomber's arms to their sides, preventing them from reaching the button. The bombers learned, leading to....hands in the bag.



12. Male bombers only: Recently shaved beards. Usually, this is done so the bomber can blend in better. However, it has an obvious flaw: when they shave off their beards, they're leaving an obvious tan line where the beard used to be, the lower half of the face is paler, since it had not been exposed to a great deal of sunlight in a while.







What do you do when you see someone who might be a suicide bomber? That's for another blog post. However: I wouldn't recommend taking the nearest large object and smacking them over the head with it—for one thing, if they have their finger on the trigger, that might set it off early. The best thing I can suggest (without writing a new article) is to move away, slowly—put distance, and preferably a building, between you and the suspect, call emergency services and report a suspicious-looking person.

A note on religion, characters, and who do you trust.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine read through the first fifty pages of A Pius Man. She was struck by something odd. The first priest who made an appearance was rather shifty looking. Her note was “is he supposed to look that menacing?”



Answer: Yes.



It occurred to me that I should address something: there might some people who think that, because I'm Catholic, means that A Pius Man is going to have an easy answer: Pope Pius XII was a saint and an action hero who could do no wrong.



This goes double for those who believe that, just because I go do church every Sunday, I must be super Catholic. (I have a disturbing vision of me in a cape that's Lenten purple. I then desire to acid wash my brain) Believe it or not, I have had people tell me this, to my face, even though it's more or less a minimum requirement.



If you fall into any of the above categories, then, good, that means you'll be surprised for most of the book.



Yes, I'm Catholic, but that doesn't mean brainwashed zombie. We'll take practically anybody. And we do: from the Kennedy clan to the founder of National Review, to the regular hosts of Crossfire. Even at the beginning, there were wise men an shepherds—for God comes to those who read many books, and those who read no books, but not those who read just one book (stolen from Bishop Fulton Sheen). For me to make every priest, Pope, Bishop, and everyone associated with the Roman Catholic church, a saint, would pretty much require a full frontal lobotomy, or total ignorance of the history of the Catholic Church. There's a reason most of the Popes have not been canonized (made a saint, not fired out of a cannon, though I can think of some priests who would benefit from the latter).



As Fr. Andrew M. Greeley, novelist, Catholic priest, and raging political Liberal, has noted, there are some good men who became Popes who made for bad leaders, and some not so nice people who became pope, but were at least able to lead a pack of vampires to a blood bank. One Pope who ended up in Dante's Hell had been a monk; a good and saintly person who all but ran screaming from the office. Several Popes had to be warlords, if only to quell the riotous local population, if not to halt advancing armies. Popes are like the rest of the members of the Catholic faith: they get all sorts.



So, when I started A Pius Man, it was after having done my homework on Pope Pius XII. Any conclusions I drew would be what I found in the history. I would burn him in effigy if I found anything amiss, and make him look good if he did good.



As for everyone else in the clergy—I've met stupid priests, good priests, gay priests, bad preachers, and I've read about the really bad ones. While I object to making Catholic priests a collection of punching bags, I'm not going to fall off the horse on the other side and make them all perfect. Trying to imagine them as perfect cardboard cutouts would actually make some of them even more boring than they are now.



It may have been John P. Marquand's character Mr. Moto who was the first obviously misleading character. The character was Japanese during a time when Imperial Japan was running roughshod over China, and spends much of the time lurking in the background. He kills at least one person with seeming little to no provocation. In the movies, they cast him as Peter Lorre, well known for playing assorted murderers and monsters of varying sorts. He was dark and sinister looking.... and he was also the hero.



However, now that I've noted that, I should probably go into something else: who the hell is the good guy here?



A Pius Man has been described more than once as a spy thriller. International intrigue will abound, and telling the good guys from the bad guys may require a score card.



Who do you trust in A Pius Man? I know I asked the question before, but seriously, think about it.





Fr. Francis Williams, SJ: a priest who not only seems to know what lurks in the hearts of men, but spends his time lurking in the background, has combat skills, and did we mention that he had connections with two known terrorists, murdered before Chapter 1? Oh, and he's also changing orders: he thinks that Opus Dei looks good.





Sean AP Ryan, mercenary: his idea of a good time generally involves shootout in public landmarks, explosives, and automatic weapons. It's well known that he's been brought to Rome to teach priests self defense tactics—even though he has a body count in the low hundreds.



Hashim Abasi, Egyptian cop: he's in Rome to coordinate security on the Pope's visit to Cairo, but his father blew himself up while working on an explosive vest, his country is on the brink of being taken over by radical extremists... and, oh, yes, it looks like he stoned his wife in an honor killing.



Scott “Mossad” Murphy and Manana Shushurin.... okay, these two look like two spies who are in Rome on a fact finding mission. One is a Catholic from Israel, and the other a member of German Intelligence. But why does Scott slowly have his resources shut down one by one, and why is she a German with a Russian last name? And why she she carrying such a large gun?



Commander Giovanni Figlia. He is the head of Papal security. To get to the Pope, you have to go through him. Then why does he steal a murder scene from the Rome Police? The victim is researching Pius XII, and the killer (and second victim) is a terrorist who spends a lot of time around the Pope's right hand man. For Figlia, how far does he think he has to go to protect the Pope?



Secret Service Agent Wilhelmina Goldberg: she's there to audit the Pope's security. She's from out of town, she was in the car with Giovanni Figlia when a body landed on it. She only just arrived in town. So, obviously, she had to have nothing to do with any murders, plots, or conspiracies. How much more obvious could it be? But did I mention that Mossad reserves the right to call upon the support of any Jew in the world at any time?



Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail: In Dublin, a priest is murdered before he can leave for Rome. He was going to testify at the canonization proceedings of Pope Pius XII, and now he has a swastika carved into his forehead and a knife sticking out of his chest. She's going to Rome to see if someone wanted to stop him from talking. She obviously has NOTHING to do with this.... even if she does have a past with mercenary Sean Ryan, and has helped him kill over a dozen people.



How did I end up with a book design in such a way that you can't really trust anyone? Just lucky I guess.

On The Pope and the current "Scandal"

Some Common Sense on the Catholic Church in the News.





Recently, there have been some accusations of a coverup by Pope Benedict, back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith.



The New York Times has posted a little story. As Maureen Dowd has accused, "Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler' when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys."



Fr. Murphy, hereby known as "Scumbag Priest A", served from 1950-1974 as a priest at a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. There had been accusations of abuse, but no evidence--DNA had not existed before the late 80s. Without more than “he said/he said” to go on, he was later forced into "temporary sick leave." Superiors couldn't convict him, but they could isolate him.



Fast forward 22 years. In 1996, The Archbishop of Milwaukee now has victims asking him to take action. A letter is sent to Cardinal Ratzinger. There was no reply, and no one can tell if the letter ever made it to him. Ratzinger's deputy approved charges against Scumbag Priest A, waving its own internal statute of limitations on pressing cases against priests, despite the fact that the limitations in the state of Wisconsin had well since passed



In June, 1998, Scumbag Priest A wrote to Ratzinger, citing the fact that he had suffered strokes and asking to live out his days as a priest. Ratzinger's deputy suggested letting Scumbag Priest A accept banishment, a step short of full defrocking, if he admitted guilt and expressed remorse. The Wisconsin bishop who had taken the case refused.



In August 1998, two weeks before Scumbag Priest A's impending death, the archbishop of Milwaukee reported to Rome that he had suspended the trial and would try to get letters of apology from Scumbag Priest A. The suspension order was never conveyed to the priest that headed the trial panel. He says he would have fought such a command and that Scumbag Priest A died while charges were still pending.



The theory: somewhere, in there, is a coverup, and that Ratzinger is at that heart of it all.



Now, given that I live in the United States in America, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Unless you're a Catholic priest. You're accused, therefore, you're cooked.



In this case, I don't refer to the pederast. I assume that Scumbag Priest A is guilty, hang him high, skin him alive, in public, and I can devise some creative things with a spoon if I put my mind to it.



I'm referring to Cardinal Ratzinger.



According to most media portrayals, the head of the Church's Office for the Doctrine of the Faith is the leader of a large Internal Affairs Office, and will immediately deal with any problems personally. It is more likely to compare the position to the Office of Professional Responsibility in Washington DC. I send the head guy a letter, it will intercept five different secretaries, and be referred to someone lower down the food chain.



However, a letter was sent, the accusations made, obviously, the church did not act fast enough to defrock him...



If you agreed with that “obviously” portion, I would like you to consider....



One: defrocking a priest in the Catholic Church is not quite as hard as firing a member of the teacher's union in New York City, but darn, is it close.



So, I ask what is the cover up here? Is it supposed to be that the Catholic Church should take old, half dead pederasts and give them the treatment I suggested above? What am I missing? What were they they going to do? Unless it's murder, crimes crimes committed 22 years ago sound like they've surpassed their statute of limitations. Defrocking him faster is practically impossible—the bureaucracy is such that there are appeals, paperwork, more appeals. At the end of the day, he would have been dead before anything got done. So, what am I missing? He was never convicted by the Church, could never be convicted in a court of law, even if he had confessed, so, what the hell?



Now, the Church has enemies, and it has friends, and who knows which ones are worse.



One Fr. Amorth, for example, an 85 year old priest and Vatican exorcist, says that the whole “scandal” is the work of the Devil...and, no, you're not in a Flip Wilson routine, he said that. He also believes there are demons possessing people in the Vatican, and there are tens of thousands of possession cases each year. Does anyone else suspect that it's time for him to retire?



On the other hand.....if you believe in the existence of the Devil as portrayed in general Judeo-Christian mythos, one would suspect that he would be enjoying this.



Some have blamed homosexuality... now, first of all, last time I checked, there is no connection between that and pederast tendencies in general. So, it's stupid.



On the other hand.... since most victims have been 80% male, I'm assuming that this means the abusers were simply homosexual pederasts, as opposed to the straight pederasts who go after girls. Unless someone has a better handle on the pathologies involved. [Anyone with a degree in psychological forensics, this means you.]



Some have blamed the media... Okay, I can see that. Certainly for blowing it up into something as big as it has become. Consider: they released this story JUST BEFORE EASTER. Let's do a Rabbi pederast story before Passover, tell me that's not anti-Semitic.



If you are not one of those people who believe that media can have an agenda, then I ask you to at least understand my skepticism—Joseph Ratzinger barely had his Papal name picked out before the word “Nazi” was used a dozen times by the world press. Within 24 hours of becoming Benedict, he had been labeled “The Panzer Pope,” and suddenly, everyone was aware that he had been a Hitler Youth—if you received the Tablet newsletter, you learned that he had been drafted out of the seminary at 14 years old, and went AWOL, ASAP. But the sound of reporters screaming “Nazi” sounded like an echo chamber.



So, forgive me if I think that the media disliked Pope Benedict for...ever, really.



And if you think I'm paranoid, well, even paranoids have real enemies.



Another part of the story says that Cardinal Ratzinger wrote down instructions in 2001 that orders the clergy to not turn over pederasts to the civil authorities...Uh huh, because the first part of a conspiracy is to write everything down. Call me a cynic, but the man has two PhDs, he's that stupid? Oh, wait, he's German, it must be a Nazi gene kicking in.... gimme a break....



Some have interpreted the document as prompting “secrecy as the norm”.... unless you know how to translate things into English. Standard operating procedure is to keep things quite for the preliminaries of an investigation; you don't want to out the victims, or the accused (back to presumption of innocence). That's the most secrecy as hinted at.



So....The Catholic Church has been accused of hiding secrets for fifty years. Secrets that have been covered up and hidden to protect the one holding the Seat of Peter. A Pius Man delves into how some secrets have been kept for longer, and not by the people you think.



A Pius Man is a story of those who protect the Church of Rome from its enemies, by any means necessary. From political pressure, to forces within the church tearing from the inside out, it examines the political relations between the Vatican, America, Europe, and the world.



A Pius Man also understands the Vatican as a large marble office building, with bureaucrats and bureaucracies, infighting and office politics on a GLOBAL scale. Not only does it require managing Cardinals and clergy from around the world, but also dealing with foreign governments. Even worse, like military organizations, trying to change traditions is like trying to change a tire with ones bare hands.



For example, a Bishop in Arizona has accused Cardinal Ratzinger of not acting in a timely fashion to defrock a priest who had been convicted—in the church's eyes—of being a pederast [in the early 90's]. This Bishop complained about the delays, the appeals, and the bureaucracy involved in the process. Not only has this concept been universalized to label the church secretive and deceptive, but that the entire process is deliberately designed to hide infractions by the clergy. It has no understanding of how the Church acts or thinks—like a great, big, slow bureaucracy. Like Washington DC, or Albany.



Not to mention that, if we continue looking at it from a bureaucratic point of view: in 1990, the superiors took the situation away from the Bishop. In 2010, he gets a little payback and his 15 minutes of fame. How nice for him.



In any event, this lack of understanding is easily seen by the portrayal in the media. They will say how many priests have been accused of abusing children in America, (4,392, 1950-2005, according to John Jay), but not how many of been convicted (just over 100). Even if you took the accusations as perfectly true, and 100% true, those accused don't even add up to 10% of the American priesthood. But, they do seem happy to say that celibacy causes this—which is odd, since most pederasts are married. Hmm...



I will use here Mgr Charles Scicluna, prosecutor of the tribunal of the former Holy Office. Mgr Scicluna, who is Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has the task of investigating the most serious crimes. These include "sexual abuse by priests of young people under the age of 18."



You want to say coverup? This disciplinary office, from 2001-10, had around 3,000 cases of diocesan and Religious priests sent to them, which refer to crimes committed over the previous 50 years. A global priesthood of over four hundred thousand, and there were only three thousand cases worldwide—less than a 1% corruption record isn't bad for a group that doesn't have its own police force. If you want to cite theoretical cases that haven't been reported, quadrupedal the problem to twelve thousand... that's still 3% of sixty years of clergy.



Does that matter? Three thousand is a lot of bad apples, and a lot of victims.



It apparently matters to some people. For example, I have seen accusations, mostly sneers, and mostly on Facebook, that “everyone” combats pederasty better than the Catholic church. Really? Lets do some math.



The US Catholic Bishops say that, between 1950 and 2002, 10,662 children have been abused. Let's assume that EVERY case of abuse is accurate, and MULTIPLY IT by four to make up for what isn't reported. Averages out to 821/year. According to a 2004 Dept of Education report, 290,000 students were abused by their own teachers. Average: 32,000 per year....10% of everyone who goes through the public school system will be sexually assaulted. What I would like to know is why that isn't a major story that I see every, single, night at my 6 o'clock news, like the story about the Pope. Where is the headline “The Great Teacher Sex Abuse Scandal”?



Every case is vile, and every abuser should be water boarded—only because waterboarding doesn't kill them. But with disparities like that, saying that the priests of the Catholic Church are the worst child abusers ever isn't incorrect or inaccurate—it's a lie.



With A Pius Man, it examines all of the above, trying to examine it from every point of view. It takes reporter John Allen's view of the Vatican as the most efficient office building in the world—things may take the pace of an average work day in Italy, but the end result is efficient. It has Andrew M. Greeley's view of the Church as a political entity, and Ralph McInerny's view that the Church is at a political war with the modern, secular world. The only difference is, A Pius Man makes the political war more literal, expressed in terms of bullets as well as words.



The case of Pius XII has had a similar problem. Most reports in the general media say that “Pope Pius XII did nothing in World War II.” A Pius Man asks—did nothing, in comparison to whom? Come back with me now to the thrilling days of yesteryear... with President FD Roosevelt refused entry for boatloads of refugee Jews coming from Europe... when the head of Irgun stated that he would have had a million Jews go to Palestine rather than two million go to anywhere else. What constitutes silence in an age where no one speaks out? And what can be expected from a comparatively unarmed state surrounded by armies in the middle of a World War?







Anyway, if you have an opinion or a complaint to lodge, do so below. No comments will be deleted as long as they are not offensive or harsher language than PG-13. I will not even delete stupid comments. “Offensive” comments are when I get 20 emails saying that you have violated the terms of Facebook, the laws of the FCC, or are endlessly spamming insults. I've been called paranoid and homophobic, so think up something new. Enjoy.















References:



Details on Scumbag Priest A: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/03/31/2010-03-31_fairness_for_the_pope.html



For the More politically conservative: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/5/01552.shtml



For the overall: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/opinion/main1933687.shtml



And it's not a “Catholic” Problem. http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2010/03/catholic-sex-abuse-scandal-and-cover-up.html



Who was convicted of what, when and how: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/14451

Writing A Pius Man, Part 5: A Love Story?

Part 5: Love Among the Spooks

In my usual description of A Pius Man, things slip through the cracks. It's a thriller. It's a war story. It's apologetics with bullets. It's a political techno thriller. There's a shootout down the Spanish Steps. We shot up the Vatican, blew up a hotel, blew up an airport, waged war against mercenaries, the Swiss Guard, killer priests, a dozen nations, have some fun with the UN, the World Court, and everything short of killer robots.



Oh, yeah, I have a love story in there too.



Don't look at me like that. I wasn't going to fill every page with shootouts, chase scenes, and explosions. None of my characters remotely resemble Bruce Willis. They all have hair, for one. Also, each character is a fully three dimensional, red blooded person, not some sort of bloodless, passionless plot device—none of them look like Tom Hanks.



As strange as it might seem, I am a romantic at heart. That said, if someone hands me something that even has a mild tinge of a romance novel, it better have a fantastic, original plot, or I will smack that someone with the novel. And possibly make them eat it.



I am uncomfortable and suspicious of any book that has a hero and heroine fall in love inside of one book. It has to be done well, or take place over a good period of time. That said, there are circumstances I can believe. It's common knowledge that high stress situations can lead to intense emotional bonding. In Stockholm syndrome, it happens over the course of hours, if not days. And that takes place between terrorists and their hostages. It shouldn't be too unreasonable that it should happen between two allies.

I had one character I had designed previously—Scott “Mossad” Murphy, first member of the Goyim brigade of Israeli Intelligence. I wanted his attention dragged to Rome from a tip by a German intelligence officer.

Designing this German was easy—I wanted the exact opposite of Murphy. Scott Murphy, the perfect spy, was short-ish, pale, with almost no distinguishing features. Slap on some makeup, he's whatever he wants to be. Therefore, physically she had to be beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous.... which made them a perfect fit. All eyes could be on her while he slipped into the background.



But how do I create a woman who was believably beautiful without turning her into something out of a fantasy novel? Simple—I use the physical features of someone real. I used the features of someone I knew. And what do you know, the previous year in college, I had someone who matched that description perfectly. Her name was Manana Kull.

Enter Manana “Mani” Shushurin of German intelligence... she was raised in East Germany, hence the last name.

Murphy could blend in and disappear. However, when I made him, he had a disdain for weapons. He was spy—he was not Jason Bourne, he was not James Bond, though he could pass for George Smiley. He didn't do weapons. If he needed a weapon, he didn't do his job.





Therefore, Shushurin had to be the expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat.



I would bear no idiots in my books, so they were both smart, capable professionals, with complimentary skill sets and equal intelligence.



And somewhere along the line, two people who existed in a very lonely profession wound up falling in love in the middle of my thriller. Obviously, they weren't busy enough getting shot at. They were too good at keeping their heads down.



Ironically, this was part of the story I hadn't planned.



Joseph Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, author of a slew of comic books, tv shows, and novels, once wrote about characters in his work. Sometimes, they take one path when you tell them to take another. And sometimes you have to drive back along the path and take the route you wanted to take originally, with them pouting in the back seat.



Timothy Zahn, the only Star Wars novelist I will acknowledge anymore, mentions a similar phenomenon. He cites one instance of his character, Talon Karde, kidnapped and held hostage, and being led to a sinister temple of doom—as Zahn tells it “Karde had his men slowly surrounding them, and I had to pull them back because he had to go into the temple for the story to progress.”



Yes, for those of you who are wondering, writing fiction has been described as a form of schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder—usually by the authors themselves. Then again, when you generate an entire character biography in your head, have to decide what is perfectly in character for them to do at any given moment, make their reactions consistent... having another person in your head is the easiest way to put it.



Thankfully, I managed to tie the romance subplot into the overall story fairly easily. It even became critical to the book. How can two people falling in love save the world?



Well, you'll have to read the book to find that out.



Hey, it worked for Terry Goodkind.

Writing A Pius Man, part 4: Selling yourself.

A Pius Man was done. The time had come. Sell the book to... anyone, really.



For those of you who have never researched how a book goes from the pen of the author to the hands of the reader, a quick sketch of the process.



Agents represent the author. 

Their mission: sell your book to a publisher for the highest possible value. Agents make between 10%-15% of the money the author gets. Which isn't bad work if you're the agent for Stephen King. Having 10% of however many millions of books sold adds up to real money. However, 10% of a ten thousand dollar advance isn't much, and ten thousand isn't a common opening bid for an advance on a book.



Advances are made by the publisher, and tend to be broken up into three parts: signing with the publisher, the arrival of the first draft; prompt delivery of the final draft. The publisher is the one that buys the book from you. That's where the money comes from, that's how the book is distributed.



Editors work for the publisher, and goes over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb. They are generally the people who are the feelers for the book. The agents have to cultivate contacts, pitch the book to editors, convincing them to at least look at it.



Simple, right? The author pitches to an agent. The agent pitches the book to an editor in a publishing company. The editor pitches the book to the company s/he works for. The publisher sells the book to you, the audience. The agent doesn't make money until the author does. The publisher doesn't make money until the books fly off the shelves.



But wait, there's more.







Agents act as a filtering mechanism for editors. If an author comes with his own agent, he has passed the first line of defense. There has to be something marketable about the book, otherwise, a good agent wouldn't be bothered with it. An agent would certainly not touch a first time author's book with a ten foot pole unless it was pretty darn good. Consider it this way—the agent only gets approximately 10% of what the author does, and an unknown author (barring a celebrity) has no selling value by themselves. The book had better be good.



And the editors need the filter. Editors have agents pitching manuscripts at them constantly. There are some stories about editors having a seven course meal for lunch, and with each new course came a new agent, and each agent has multiple books to pitch.



And then, editors have to sort through all of the suggested manuscripts pitched in order to select those that would actually be read. Then an editor has to read all of them. Usually, these are samples of fifty pages and a synopsis, but that's still a lot when you consider their already busy life.



And these editors, after sorting through what projects they think will sell, then have to pitch it up the chain of command.



Welcome to publishing. For any first time author, there are two levels of filtering between you and the top of the food chain.



In my case, after two and a half years of discovering that academic politics and I were not compatible, I started to query agent, publishers, editors, and everyone short of personal secretaries. I would be published by hook or by crook. After three months of querying, I had hooked one.



Enter “Josh.” My first agent. He liked the birth name of the Pope—Joshua Kutjok—and liked the premise. However, the ending to “book one” was a little flat. In the original novel, I wrapped up the henchmen, and let the main villain get away without a confrontation at the end. The only change I made was a one page epilogue after wrapping up the support network.



Josh had a good idea. I had gotten lazy after marking down where the books would separate. I had slapped on something that barely even looked like an end—and did everything but have a “To Be Continued” in great big letters at the end.



So, time to play around.



It was surprisingly easy to rewrite. In a matter of days, I had it all worked out, and succeeded in blowing up parts of Leonardo Da Vinci airport.



Fast forward a year. Stuff happens. Josh is too busy to represent me. No harm, no duck. Time to find another agent. And back to the drawing board on A Pius Man. When in doubt, edit further.



I came to the conclusion that I still had too many people. In the first book, I had Giovanni Figlia, the Secret Service Agent, the Egyptian cop, the Interpol Agent, the crazy mercenary, the sinister priest, the Pope, and two spies. Nine characters already—I already had the opening cast of the Lord of the Rings, and book two had even more to come. Granted, some of them would be dead in short order, but still, character clutter—but I still needed to take out people IN ADDITION to those I had already shot, stabbed, and blown up.



After looking through book two (tentatively titled A Pius Legacy), I looked for the person who had the fewest amount of lines. Who could disappear from the book with no problem at all? I found one character who had been mentioned a whopping half a dozen times. Suddenly, upon a review of A Pius Man, this character had a shiny new target on their back.



Rewriting done, it was time to hit the queries again. I went to www.everyonewhoisanyone.com and... I stopped just short of spamming. When there was a fully detailed website for the agents listed, I looked them over, tailored my query letter to their specific tastes, and sent it off. I literally sent out over a hundred query letters in a dense cluster. If there was contact information without any details or specifics, that agent got a standard boilerplate query—the type no one would recommend sending. But I was going to get their attention.



The week before my birthday, 2009, I get a call. An agent wanted my book. He didn't even send me an email, he just called my house directly. We talked for an hour about my book, marketing, tactics of selling it; he understood what I wanted to do with it, and the two sequels, and liked it all.



Within eight months of Josh's busy schedule messing around with my life, I was signed with another agent.



And the then entire publishing industry was slapped with Mjolnir.



Some people—many of them on the New York Times board of editors—blames the publishing industry itself. They never adapted to new technologies. Kindle sideswiped them and they didn't keep up. Random House “expanded like crazy, despite the rising prices of books—both paperbacks and hardcovers,” and supposedly axed ten thousand people in one month of 2008. According to authors at Dragoncon last year, the Star Trek novels have gone through three editors in one year, and the entire department has been downsized; the Star Trek novels contract renewal date is coming up, and as of September, renewal hasn't even been discussed yet.



And, guess what, fiction has been hit especially hard.



Oh, lucky me.

How A Pius Man came to be: Part 3. Writing

Part three: The Creative process—AKA: Writing the darn thing.

During a winter break, I had gone through great pains to finish my thesis. It had been more or less a cultural analysis of Irish Rebel songs, which, like my books, had a lot of property damage, and fighting, with merry and bouncy tunes and boy, were these people having way too much fun.







That made up three credits of a semester where I had only two other classes, and no social life. The paper was mostly finished before the semester had even begun. I was even more finished when I pounded out two term papers before the first month was out.



What part of “no social life” do you not understand?



I started writing A Pius Man in February, 2004. I was finished with it by April. There were a lot of nights where I was up until three in the morning. The story wouldn't get out of my head or leave me alone. For the first time in my life, instead of making it up when I went along, I did an outline. I drew sketches and diagrams.



The sad part is, I kept footnoting the darned thing.



And it all came naturally to me. Two spies would follow the lead of a dead terrorist looking in the Vatican archives, and discover yet another dead researcher from the archives—a crime investigated by Giovanni Figlia. They would have to find Giovanni Figlia and his entourage from the Secret Service and the Egyptian police. And with modern technology, it was easy for the spies to know what the primary investigators were doing. “Sinister looking priest #1” would have to keep up as well, to make certain that nothing inconvenient would be discovered. The Interpol cop from Ireland would have to fly in and confirm that all this was, yes, linked together to Pope Pius XII.



And, thanks to maps on the internet, I can make the bus terminal arriving from the airport be one point on a straight line from the Vatican to the Spanish steps.



Should any of my other books see the light of day, you'll note that I have a pattern of property damage at public places. A gunfight in a science fiction convention; a battle at the Cloisters; a shootout at a Fireworks factory in Long Island; the Muir woods in San Francisco; a hostage situation at a Barnes and Noble bookstore; a chase with MacGyver moments in CostCo. Been there, done that, blown it up.



And for some reason, I couldn't get one image out of my head—an armored SUV going down the Spanish steps.



After that, the characters had to connect the dots, do the research, find a personal connection to the situation, and most of all—what is worth killing over for a secret over sixty years old? No offense to anyone on any side of the “debate,” but if someone proved that Pope Pius XII was a Nazi, or that he was a hero, who would kill for that?



End result: the book was eight hundred pages long. Two hundred thousand words, when the average novel was only one hundred thousand. And I had brought in EVERY, SINGLE, CHARACTER I had ever written, over a dozen books, excluding the science fiction ones. Because what had started with a simple and straightforward murder turned into an all out war, and I needed every person I could conceive of to support what protagonists I had standing. A very small army of light against a large army of darkness, and I didn't even have Sam Raimi.



From 2004-2007, there were several variations on the story. The first had an additional character. One had a character introduced from the very beginning who was used to bring in most of the history; he didn't disappear, but he was shifted. One version took out about 50% of the story and made it around five hundred pages.



Then there was the easy version. Split it up into three books. One character gets deleted, one gets transferred into book two, several sequences get shifted so that the character moments aren't all in one place or another, and ta da, instant trilogy.



Two major plot points in the story became a matter of what intelligence agencies call “blowback.” When someone fires a gun, gunpowder residue gets on the shooter's clothing, even though the gun is pointed away from the shooter.



In the world of intelligence, blowback means that an operation has come back to bite you on the ass: either an assassination went wrong and the target wants to return the favor; some dictator dislikes you blowing up his favorite weapons research facility and would like to bury you, that sort of thing.



If I used the blowback as the basis for completely different books, then dang, book one is only over a hundred thousand words. Excellent. Fill in details and character in books two and three, not to mention “previously, in A Pius Man” moments that I can use to pad the book.... or keep the audience up to speed. Either way....



And then, after all this was done, it was time for the hardest part of all. I had to sell it.



After all, it was only one book, being marketed to a publishing industry that was swamped with hundreds of manuscripts per day, manned by people who had to slog through this slush of paper.



How hard could it be?




Don't ask.

How A Pius Man Came to be: Part 2

Part 2: Now what?

So, you're going to right a history novel that's both thrilling and accurate, without resorting to something over the top fantastical in the meantime?



The answer there is: that's nice, wake me when you're done.



Oh, darn, wait—I want to write it!



Now what?



Before I begin the process of this book's creation, I should make something clear. I've wanted to write for a living since I was sixteen. By the time I had started A Pius Man, I had written almost a dozen other novels; a science fiction quartet that started as fan fiction and turned into a space opera; a thriller trilogy about a Secret Service Agent and the CIA assassin who kept running into each other; a murder mystery set in a Catholic high school summer camp; another mystery set at a science fiction convention; a hostage novel; I won't discuss the short stories. None of them had been published, but I had other things to do—high school, two bachelor's in three years, a master's in one, I was generally busy.



My point: writing wasn't an issue. I had more or less taught myself keyboarding by the time I had gotten the concept of the book, and had developed a mental habit of innovation out of the weirdest little things, as well as the ability to write for thirty hours straight.



But now, a new project. Working on a thriller encapsulating everything I had learned about Pope Pius XII. So, when in doubt, the title had to be a bad pun. Title: A Pius Man.



Then the questions started.



Well, where do I set the novel? Another world hopping journey, digging in the muck and mire, or perhaps solving puzzles laid out from World War II?



Been there, done that, and we've probably all seen that movie. If only for Ian McKellen's acting.



So, if I'm not going to bounce around the planet, where am I going to put this?



A few years prior, I had wanted to make a murder mystery set in the Vatican. I had never gotten past page one, but I wanted to have the scene open with a dead priest and a knife in his back.



So, when dealing with the Roman Catholic church, go to Rome. Check.



We need a conspiracy—what fiction with the Catholic church in it doesn't have some kind of deep dark conspiracy around it? Not counting The Exorcist.... few. Who's behind it? Well, the standard options are the government, the Church, or intelligence agencies.... I came up with a fun combination of all three.



Next step: who was I going to use in this mischegas of a plot? I didn't want an automatic hero. I didn't want a protagonist to leap out of a telephone booth or a police box. It wasn't happening. I needed vague characters. Someone whose loyalty the audience would question along the way. It wasn't going to be a paranoid thriller, but there are segments where it would be close.



One character was someone I had already invented—Commander Giovanni Figlia of the Vatican Office of Vigilance. His job is to protect the Pope. But if the Pope is guilty of a crime, or of conspiracy to commit murder, then what can he do? And just how do you arrest a pontiff anyway? He was already in Rome, a bit player I had invented for the background of a few other novels. It was time to give him a personality. A back story. Anything at all, really.



That's one...but what could possibly get him involved in a conspiracy going back decades?



Oh, that's easy. Kill an academic. Someone going through the Vatican archives. The “secret” archives, even though that's a bad translation error. Kill someone looking into Pope Pius XII.



Now, are we going to kill this guy in the Vatican? Really? Because I can't imagine how else we're going to involve Figlia...



Oooooh, wait, a bomb can fling a body a good distance, right? I can work with that.



Next, we need a fish out of water. Someone for whom the audience can relate to when she goes “Huh?” Especially when the audience is trying to figure out what sort of rabbit hole they fell into. My Alice had to be as out of place in the world of European Catholicism as possible... and who would be more out of place than an American Jew? Yes, my Alice is a Wilhelmina “Villie” Goldberg. Immediately, I had a vision of a short Italian acquaintance come to mind. She'd do for a physical model—about 4'11”. She'd have to be part of a security service, and making her American would make her a Secret Service agent.



Though if I stuck with that physical model, she would be a little short for a Secret Service agent who played human shield. However, foreign governments talk to the Secret Service about improving security, and all you need is a brain for that. So, when in doubt, get her from the NSA—which provided technical support for the protagonists.



How are we going to get her involved? Have her be there when we drop a body on Figlia... or his general area, at least. Check.





Somehow, having all this going on without another interested party being involved seemed unlikely. Someone from Mossad—if the Israelis wouldn't be interested in this subject, who would? Mossad involvement was easy to arrange—I created a character in one of my notebooks, someone who had arrived in Israel as part of a small emigration from the United States. A Gentile in Mossad... we have to call this section the Goyim brigade.



And what would attract anyone in Mossad to Rome? That's easy enough—there had been an earlier victim who had been researching the archives, and he was connected to terrorism. A dead terrorist with no confirmed killer—looks a bit suspicious. And a second dead body connected to Pius XII, seriously suspicious.



Mossad gets most of its intelligence from Germany, and the Germans would be involved anyway, given the subject matter—they are sort of touchy about the 1930s and 40s. So, throw in someone from German Intelligence. Two spies, check.



A neutral party would be good. Some character who has NO horse in this particular race; who has no investment in Pius XII being guilty, innocent, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Jews are out, Christians are out.... and if the Pope was going to declare a propaganda war on the Middle East (see below), he would probably tour it. Which means there would be a security specialist to coordinate with the Swiss Guards. He'd be connected to Figlia, for the coordination, and Goldberg, because she'd be improving security. But it would be too easy to have him be visibly neutral and good. We're suspecting everyone else, why not him? Hmm... oh, yeah, it seems that he stoned his wife to death. That'll work.



Check one investigative team: Papal Security, the Secret Service, and someone from, oh, make it Egypt.



And there's a wild card that has to be tossed in. Just to make everyone wonder what the hell goes on at the Vatican.... well, the man who shot Pope John Paul II was first jumped by a nun. Given how many clergy are in Vatican City, it would be more likely for one of them to first get to an assailant than some of the Swiss Guard. And if that should ever happen again, I would sure as hell want to bring in a security expert to train them....



Enter security specialist Sean A.P. Ryan. Already, he's earned comparisons to the comic book character Deadpool, the mercenary who will, occasionally, do the right thing, if only as a last resort. Not to mention being bat guano crazy. Wild card, check.



And what good is a mystery without a murdered witness? After all, they have Vatican trials for saints. Witnesses appear. One of the better known priests that I knew of was an Irish priest named Fr. Caroll-Abbing; he arranged much of the aide in Rome for fugitives and refugees. Caroll-Abbing was a real figure, but also quite dead when I started writing. However, I'm sure he must have had an aide. Caroll-Abbing was an Irish priest, assume an Irish aide.... and I had another character all ready and sketched out: Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail. And I had given her a previous professional dislike of Sean Ryan. We get to have some more fun that way.



And her arrival will certainly confirm that the events were all about Pope Pius XII—a dead academic may be accident, a murdered terrorist coincidence, but a murdered witness is enemy action.



I had my primary lineup. Two spies; a proper team of Papal Security et al; and two people from out of town. A three-tiered story. Works for me. In several books, Tom Clancy did at least three storylines for a hundred pages before he brought them together in a train wreck. I won't dawdle quite that long.



No, time to insert some paranoia. In any good thriller, you need to be under the impression that you can get it in the neck at any time from any direction. Kind of like a fast season of 24. We're in a thriller with the Catholic church, we must have at least one sinister looking priest, and a highly suspicious looking pope, someone so invested in the reputation of Pius XII, he'd do practically anything to see it's protected.



Hence Pope Pius XIII, who wants to make the World War II pontiff a saint, make him a figure to rally around....for...? Hmm. Rally around for what?



Enter another graduate course I took—problems in Contemporary African history. I had done a paper on the war in the Sudan, a war going on and off since the early 1980s. This Pope would have grown up with his country ignored, left to be bombed to hell, and—Darfur? Really? Thirty years of bloody warfare, civilians killed, churches bombed, and the world media focuses on one town? I suspect he would be a little put out by that, especially if he had lived in a town no one never heard of before or after it was wiped from the map.



How could I possibly make the Pope look sinister? I know—make him somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. He's using Pope Pius XII as a banner, using one side of the “debate” (mentioned in Part 1 of this article), Pius XII as hero and saint.



But, while making the Pope as sinister figure is nice—he's not going to run around Rome in a white robe trying to be inconspicuous. Especially since he's over two meters tall, and doesn't exactly blend in around Italy. (One acquaintance of mine returned from Rome and said “There are black people in Italy. Oh. My. God.” She was so shocked and appalled... she also wonders why I don't talk to her anymore.) He needs something every good Evil Overlord requires—a lackey. We need another priest.



Already have one. In a previous novel I drafted, I created a priest wandering around in the background—a priest with combat training from his time in special forces. He has martial training, kicks ass, and he has silver hair, and pale skin—no one would ever take him for an albino. Of course not. Suspicious looking lackey, check.



A three-layered plot with a wandering priest tying them all together.



Works for me.



Conspiracy, check.



Characters, check.



Now it has to be written.... Oh, shoot me now...

How A Pius Man Came to be: An essay in five parts

How “A Pius Man” came to be: Part 1

I read a book once....



Anyone who knows me is aware that this isn't new.



However, it was written by an author who I had just gotten into. I was a history major, it was a history book written by someone who taught philosophy and wrote novels on occasion. It was on Pope Pius XII and his history during the holocaust—essentially: what did he do, what did he know, and when did he know it.



The interesting thing is that it was less of a researched book and more like a composite collection of primary documents. The major source was from a book written in the 1960s from an Israeli Diplomat to the Vatican, who had also fought in World War II with the British. The second collection of sources were from contemporary newspapers. Most specifically, the New York Times.



Okay. Interesting book.



Two months later, I started a graduate course called the History of Total War. The term paper was supposed to be about the events of a major conflict.... Hmm, let's work on Pius XII. I read one book, time to work on another.



And it was insane.



The primary material all pointed to one, glaring and obvious conclusion. Everything written from the 1940s-1960s pointed in one direction. Testimony from Jews in the camps, in Rome, in positions of power within the global community, the newspapers, the books by journalists, the books by diplomats in Rome, even statements and documents from the Nazi hierarchy pointed one way and one way only.



Then we hit the 1960s, and everything from the previous twenty years was chucked down the memory hole so fast, you would have thought Rod Serling had put it as a twist to a Twilight Zone episode.



Since then, we've had a “debate.” One side believes that Pope Pius XII either: did nothing about the Holocaust; said nothing about the Holocaust; or was actively responsible for the Holocaust. On the other side, you have folks who think Pius XII was a saint, spoke out against the Holocaust, acted against it, was a grand spymaster. In the middle—and there are few in the middle—refer to him as “cautious and prudent.”



Along the way, I came across authors who were not historians. I've come across people who had used proven forgeries from criminals convicted for the forgeries used as “evidence” in this debate. I've even come across historians who had done jail time for publishing their lies. And I've come across some deliberate liars: for example, one idiot said that “X person should have done Y thing”... but cited articles where it was STATED that X did Y, making the author either brain dead or a liar.



One of the most interesting things about this is why I refer to it as a “debate,” in quotes. One side of this conflict doesn't acknowledge the other. One side will take the opposition's statements and theories, vivisect them with a scalpel, the end result looking like shredded wheat, and the second side acts as though there are no alternate theories, interpretations or evidence.



And some of these people are hilarious. Both sides have biases. Cynthia Ozick, for example, is an eighty year old Jew who thought that nuns would kidnap and convert her when she was young, and her opinion hasn't changed much. St. Margherita Marcchione is a Catholic nun. John Cornwell hates his father, his seminary, his country, jumped over the wall of the priesthood in Britain (for which he has my sympathy), and more or less hates Church theology, the entire hierarchy, and possibly every Catholic. James Carroll wants the Catholic church to become the Unitarians. Though there is one lawyer from Missouri with a degree in history—I'm not sure where his bias comes in.



Anyway, by the time I was finished reading both sides, I thought it was fairly clear who was right. Hell, I had enough primary documents to work on that alone. I left motivations alone, because I wasn't going to break out my Ouija board and try to have a séance with a dead pope to ask him what he was feeling or thinking at the time. These are the actual events; to the best of our knowledge, this is what happened, and this is how the people reacted to it AT THE TIME.



For example, Mit Brennender Sorge, a papal encyclical condemning Fascism, released by Pope Pius XI, was unequivocally pointed at the Nazis. How do we know this? Well, check the title. Most encyclicals are written in Latin. This was written in German, not Italian, not Spanish. No one was going to mess with the translation when it hit Germany's borders. It had to be smuggled into the country after it had been banned from the press. When the Hitler Youth beat up parishioners coming out of church, attacked priests, went after Catholic groups, and banned the encyclical all together, one can possibly conclude that the Nazis took it personally.



The average reader is probably looking at the above paragraph and thinking “this guy needed a masters degree for that sort of thing? Duh.” The average reader would be right. No, I wasn't going for high intellectual value. Much of the paper was a plain, simple, narrative telling of events, and many of the conclusions were as “duh” worthy as the above paragraph.



Anyway....



I won't tell you the name of the book that started this whole mess. But after I finished the paper, it was good night and good luck. End of Fall semester.



Then came some of the other books. Novels where the history was so bad, it was painful to read. “What sort of idiot thinks Churchill was a Catholic?”



Or “An entire convent of nuns commit mass murder, and can keep their mouths shut with that secret for sixty years? What?”



And there was The Da Vinci Code. Yes, you know I had to get there. That anyone was getting their history from it was... interesting.



It had been a theory of my family for years that we are better informed by our fiction reading than by our news media.



Tom Clancy had airplanes running into buildings in the early 1990s.



David Hagberg sent his protagonist assassin after Osama bin Laden before anyone considered bombing him.



Dale Brown, in 1990, came up with unmanned aerial drones armed with missiles—twelve years before predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles started wiping out terrorists.



But people were getting their history from fiction? And they were getting it from a man who wanted to be a songwriter when he grew up, took one art history course, and whose major was in literature. Huh.



Did that inspire me on a rampaging crusade? Sadly, no. Didn't care. It was an odd little book, and even ignoring the “history,” I didn't find it entertaining. In fact, I prefer James Rollins as far as historical puzzles go—he gives me some grounding in why he's saying what he's saying. Simply, Dan Brown just wasn't fun for me. My problem, no one else's.



Then I read a completely different novel, also using historical events as a background to the primary action. Premise... nothing new, really. Evil Nazi Catholic church, blah blah, snore. Okay, so what? Big deal.... But, hmm, wait, I know that character's name. It's historical. I know that name too. Hmm....



Skip to the back of the book to read the author's note, which collected the works used to create that novel. I had normally assumed that this author had read one side of the argument, and wrote another evil Catholic church story based on that. But, no, I had read these books. All of them. He had done his homework, and had completely and utterly come to the wrong conclusion, directly contradicting details that both sides agreed on, then saying it was true. I could take it if he had just said “I'm writing fiction, not commenting on a historical debate.” But he took a side and lied about facts that everyone agreed on.



Dominoes fell in my brain. People not only read this crap, they believed this crap. Most readers would have almost no intellectual background to separate the wheat from the chaff (seriously, how many people have history degrees focusing on the religious and cultural activities of Europe in World War II?)



My reaction was somewhere akin to the quote of the eminent physician and research scientist, Doctor Bruce Banner. Hulk smash.



Fine. Simple. Easy. Two could play at this game. If people got their history from entertainment, I would take up the strangest project ever imagined. I would write a thriller that was (a) thrilling, (b) factually accurate about the Catholic Church in the Holocaust.



Now how the HELL was I going to do that?

Theological Memos from the Pope

Memo





From: Josh [ThePope@Vatican.va]

To: Msgr. Xavier O'Brien, SJ [XO@vatican.va]

RE: Ecumenical Explanations to Evangelicals.



In my recent meetings with high ranking American Evangelicals, I was faced with the following comments.



“I heard the Catholics don't believe that Jesus is their savior, their only way to heaven.”



“I was raised in a fundamental belief that the Bible is the only real truth, basically. That it's infallible.”



“I don't know the difference between Roman Catholics and other Catholics.”



“Sounds like a lot of idolatry to me, to be frank. Praying to saints, praying to Mary, instead of praying the the one intercessor between God and man, the Man Jesus Christ.”







I got my point across by the end of the meeting. However, that was dealing with higher ups in their faiths. We should probably have something easily and succinctly understood on hand for.... I believe the phrase you use is “mass market consumption.”



********************************







From: Msgr. Xavier O'Brien, SJ [XO@vatican.va]

To: Josh [ThePope@Vatican.va]

RE: Ecumenical Explanations to Evangelicals.





I will only remind Your Holiness that the first time reconciliation with the Protestants was made shortly after Martin Luther died. That fell apart because THEY couldn't agree on anything long enough for an actual conversation to begin.







However, if you insist....







1) I will start with the Bible as the only “real truth”.... I dislike the phrasing, since, well, isn't gravity a truth? It's really sort of there. Come to think of it, are there truths that aren't real? If they wish to say that the Bible is infallible reflection of EXACTLY what happened, then ask them things like: “What were Jesus' last words?” since there are different variations per Gospel author, which one is the “real truth.”







Anyway, if you want to confuse the heck out of any Christian who isn't a Catholic, point out any reference to Peter as the rock upon which Jesus built the Church; then point out the nice, neat unbroken line from Peter to you. Either they'll drop the subject, or spend so much time tap-dancing that they'll forget the topic.







Seriously—I have nothing better than any of the above. You could tell them to look at both the entering of Joshua into the Promised Land, killing “all” of the local pagans, and then ask where all the pagans came from that the Judges needed to deal with.







You might just wish to say that while the principles of the Bible are infallible and true, the Bible was compiled by men over a period of centuries, and the New Testament compiled over a period of decades. If you want more detail to the answer, the Old Testament was passed down in an oral tradition, and only codified by the Jewish community about a thousand years after Christ....







Something you DO NOT want to point out is that, in addition to Martin Luther being a bad translator, that he used the later, “Post Christ” Hebrew scriptures. Especially when you consider that there were readings and books that weren't used by the Jewish community because Rome was using them as a lead in to Jesus. I don't think that would go over well with some of them.







2) With Jesus Christ, the savior.... I am sorry Your Holiness, but my first reaction is “Duh. Christ-ians. People who follow Christ.” In your cast, just go into your Greek, and translate Christ as coming from “Christos,” meaning “the savior.” Short version: Yes, Christ is the savior-- it's implicit in the title. Potential problem: How many of our own laity think that “Christ” was the last name of Yeshua Bin Joseph, commonly referred to as Jesus.







Before you say anything in reference to that, consider that you are dealing with American Catholics. At least with the Europeans diss us, they generally know what they're complaining about.







3) Which segues nicely into the various “types” of Catholics. We could go into de facto versus de jure—If we were being technical, there's only the Roman variety. De facto, it's more like "Roman, American, European, etc." However, since de jure doesn't translate as well as de facto, simplify it as: “Hyphenated Catholics all follow the same creed, but they express it in different ways. The wailing and wearing black of an Italian Catholic funeral differs from the parties thrown in Irish Catholic and New Orleans Catholic funerals, but they are still the same faith. ”







4)Well, saints are just people whom we're certain are in Heaven and can be held up as role models. Not to mention that they're more relatable to most people than Jesus is. For example, I can relate to Thomas Aquinas since he, too, was an intellectual and lived inside his own head. Praying to saints is along the lines of talking to a deceased loved one—one naturally assumes they are in Heaven, and if a resident of Heaven can't have a conversation with the Lord God, then there's something off about the great hereafter. The same is true with a saint—someone who can be talked to, and we can usually assume that a saint can talk with God.







5) And Mary is just the ultimate saint. Given the time and the place, she risked community alienation, stoning, and being rejected by the husband already arranged for her in a time period where that sort of thing meant total ruin. A lone teenager risked all of this to bring a savior into the world; not to mention that she had to bear the burden of his ministry and death. Any mother who has had to bury a child will usually describe it as having been killed themselves—in the case of Mary, Our Lord, her son, was beaten before her eyes, humiliated on the long march to his place of execution, for a manner of death that was long and torturous. It may be blasphemous to say that Our Lord had it easy—for him, it ended with death. Mary had to bear with it for, at minimum, three days. We think that's worth a few statutes and a prayer.







As far as saints go... we don't think they directly perform miracles. The mechanism of action is more a matter of, if I pray to this person, and if this miraculous result comes about, it's because this person had a chat with God on the matter. However, since that would take a lot of words, we just attribute the miracle to the saint and move on.