Peter and Paul: Francesco and Gio

You may have noticed that my blogs are often inspired by some of my books. It seems that the muse sitting on my shoulder dictated to me the foretaste of the future. Once or twice we looked behind our backs (Yeshûa and Peter and Paul), but more often than not my Present takes place in the future. This is true of my fiction and fact.

Evidently, since my passion is Human Potential, and since time is an illusory byproduct of movement and distance, my futuristic Present rules supreme. We all know that only purpose of time is to make sure that all things do not happen simultaneously.

And this brings me the Francis.

There are two reasons for this. Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Francis’s real name) and I share Jesuit education. Such schooling can have twofold effect. Either it can cure the young delinquent (that’s me) from Catholic brainwashing, or it can make you a pope.

Guess which turned up to be which.

Pope Franciscus, (or my favourite: Francesco), though no longer Jorge, benefited from more than just Jesuit conditioning. On his climb to becoming ex officio Bishop of Rome, and the Sovereign of the Vatican City, he went through one other invaluable training. In Buenos Aires he worked as nightclub bouncer.

Really!

I have a strange feeling that this short stint equipped him with courage of facing up to other undesirable characters in the Vatican, and enabled him to stand up and, if necessary, kick them out from the ‘club’. Just like in the old days, in Buenos Aires. And trust me, if you read the history of the Catholic Church, that takes an enormous amount of courage. But what truly endeared me to him was the name he chose as his papal name. It was in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. This alone speaks volumes of what was to happen next.

In my novel, “Headless World—The Vatican Incident”, some of you might recognize the foretaste of what has happened in Rome a few years later, and continues to unfold even now.

Join Anne (heroine of The Avatar Syndrome); her husband—Peter; Sir Ian—the affable maestro; Gabriel—the mystical butler; and their new friend, Gio—the powerful Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, as they unravel the most sinister bid for power the world has ever seen.

To quote one of my reviewers:

"Headless World" pits the traditions and beauty of the Vatican against the cold mechanical might of the American War Machine.

Guess who won!

As with Pope Francesco, the story did not begin in the Vatican. But thanks to the machinations that began in Washington and engulfed practically the whole world, in Vatican Gio gathered new fuel that infused the world with a very different fire. Not the kind Pentagon would propel with napalm. It was fire infinitely more powerful than anything Pentagon could come up with.

See for yourself. Gio and Anne might set you on fire, too. And you’ll no longer feel headless.