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Religion Debunked

My name is Father Dmitri. I have been an accountant for the Catholic Church in New York City for the past fifteen years.

On that recent fateful morning I had run into a boy named Angel Martinez outside of my rectory, and we struck up a conversation.

Angel said that he was late for school, and I recalled that he was also late for church, by several months or more. Angel dressed generically for the boys in the neighborhood, baggy pants, loosely layered clothing. He also wore a little silver crucifix poked through his earlobe, which I remembered from previous encounters with him.

“All you do is recite stuff out of the book,” he said.

“Well, that book, my friend, is the literal word of God,” said I.

“Uh huh. Well.” He took a moment. “How come the Jews got their own book? And then the Muslims they gots their own book? And the Hindus, everybody gots their own books, and if they’re all the literal word of God, then how come you don’t throw them all together into some kind of like anthology or somethin’? Huh?“

“That’s an interesting line of theological questioning,” I said actually impressed with the boy. He stood straight and confident.

“I commend you for that. That’s great Angel. You go off, and you read those books, and then come back and let me know what you find. And I think you’ll look at our Book with a little more respect and awe. It will do nothing but inspire you and bring you closer to God. Seek God for your entire life.”

“Well I don’t really want to go to church,” he said. “I mean this place look like middle ages and shit, like when they had torture chambers. Hot iron and rats biting your skin. Drowning witches, so they’ll confess. I mean they still got confession. I mean did Jesus tell everybody ‘confess your sins before you can do anything else, so we get all the dirt on you?’ I mean, please! Don’t think so. They all confessing to men like you, not God. I can confess to God any time I want to, and I don’t need you there to listen and take notes.”

“Ahhh. Yes, I see your point on the foibles of man, the weakness of even those in God’s service. I see what you mean. But you can be sure that we don’t take any notes. We’re not the government, Angel.”

On that day I had coincidentally scheduled a meeting with Archbishop O’Flannery of New York Diocese. He was going to see me personally to discuss a new program of afternoon basketball that the schools were really hot on, and they needed money to implement.

It so happened that the entire world turned upside down that day. Not literally, but theologically. The front page of the Times said it best. In its 144 point bold headline: Religion Debunked. The top story read, ‘The world’s top scientists have come together to discredit religion and ritual worship as destructive and unhealthy, divisive rather than life-affirming.”

It cited historical excesses and wars, motivations to violence that religion had allegedly implanted in men.

I was quite taken aback. I nearly questioned my own faith when confronted with such overwhelming opposition. But there it was, Daily News, Post, USA Today, all on and on about this group of scientists, who claimed themselves to be agnostic, and how they had “proven” neuro-biologically that religion had a narcotic effect on the human mind. They claimed that it distorted what they defined as “reality,” in such a way that events, even trivial events throughout the day, would be commonly misinterpreted as springing from some divine causation. Misinterpreted. Misinterpreted.

I was riding in a cab on my way to Archbishop O’Flannery, and I blurted out, “MIS-interpreted?”

The taxi driver turned back. “Yes, father? You want to go Saint Patrick’s cathedral? Yes? I understand.”

“What is your name, sir?” I asked my driver.

The man told me that he was “Abu.” He had a mustache and dark brown skin. He offered that he had immigrated from the Middle East.

“What do you think of the word ‘religion?’” I asked him.

“Religion? It is what we do. A tradition. Tradition in the service of Allah. That is religion.”

“Tradition? Tradition connotes cultural practice, doesn’t it? Not a divine intervention or dictate, a mandate?”

“Well the roots of religion are in Allah, of course. All religion comes from Allah.”

“Then how is it that our religions, yours and mine, would be so vastly different. Many differences?”

“I don’t know how different we are, Father.”

“Well for instance, uh, are you not allowed to eat pork, a pig?”

“This is true.”

“But I can. I eat ham on Easter Sunday, a cooked ham, pig. And it’s quite the most religious day of the year. It’s certainly a significant cultural difference given our, our opposing, our opposing norms, conventions on the matter.”

“I am not qualified to comment on that question, Father. Sir.”

“Thank you. Thank you for considering my questions. I appreciate it, Abu.”

“No problem. We are there. It’s seventeen fifty, sir Father.”

I paid him, and I left him a tip.

The cathedral soared, looking quite intimidating at that moment. It was not beautiful. It was strong, foundational, and overpowering. I felt insignificant as a single man, even one who is a priest, in such a striking traditional structure, one that transcends the ages.

I wanted to address these questions to Archbishop O’Flannery, and I feared that my tongue might falter and slip, and cause me great embarrassment before the Archbishop, if I stumbled with these fundamental bedrock principles of our church.

“Not today,” I said to no one in particular.

But today I would be called upon to answer. This would not be pleasant. These news articles would surely stun everyone in and around the church, as I felt stunned by them.

I imagined that I might keep the discussion in the arena of the basketball funding, which was mostly to pay for personnel and security. Not so much for the balls or uniforms or the sneakers or anything like that. It was to keep the lights on and the courts safe. It was also to give us some time away from our other duties to actually show up and supervise the youth. That’s what it was really. It was not a great monetary sum, but it was enough to make or break a number of these schools, which ran on shoestrings.

I was adept with the numbers, and I squeezed the most education that I possibly could from the church’s dollars. That was my primary function as one of the church’s comptrollers. I played with money. I invested it. I invested in mutual funds as well as in government bonds, etcetera. Whatever dividends we received were quickly gobbled up by the needy members of our sprawling organization.

Archbishop O’Flannery paced nervously back and forth before his office desk. He hung up his cellular phone, and his eyes seemed relieved, yet devastated. He smiled happily. Then he was sad. He was someone you couldn’t predict his next thought or his next gesture. Unlike my previous encounters with him, he was apparently on the inside of some unstated plan.

“Father Dmitri, we’re going to respond.”

“To the news articles? The declaration by the World Science Federation?” I said.

“Are you as appalled and disgusted by this inappropriate blasphemy, as I?”

I refrained from admitting that I was not appalled. I was not sickened. I was infinitely curious of this development. It was not the first time that science had challenged the franchise of faith. My answer however was clear enough. “Yes, your Excellency. I’m horrified by this.”

“And it is quite inappropriate?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“We are going to take care of it.”

“We are? How?”

“The Vatican. It’s done. We shall prevail.” He sat back on his cushioned, tall-back chair. That was all he revealed.

“I don’t understand. What will they say? How will they prevail? We’ll simply say yes to their no? Or no to their yes? What shall we do exactly?”

“We will prove. Proof.”

“Proof?”

“Proof.”

I shook my head, incredulous. “We’ll prove the evidence of God, of divinity?”

“Yes, yes yes. Proof. Incontrovertible evidence that religion — ours–is superior to the ‘reality’ of the science followers.”

“What I got out of the Times article,” I said, “is that they didn’t want to define reality as divorced from God, but only the observed neurological effects of, of religious philosophy. I think they had limited some of their observations to that arena.”

“Yes. I know.”

“So, I was thinking that, perhaps, an, appropriate line of response might attack their own word ‘reality.’”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure we are. Don’t you worry about that, Father. It’s — “

He hesitated and looked me in the face. “Father Dmitri, I wish to confide in you. Don’t take any of this the wrong way.”

“Yes? Excellency?”

“The Vatican’s methods may seem a little bit old fashioned. They may seem harsh.”

“I don’t understand. Will they attempt to destroy the scientists, as opponents?”

“Oh yes. Destroy. But, of course, the proof we seek is not to destroy them, but to have them destroy themselves. Their own bankrupt philosophy is suicidal. It’s that simple.” He snickered.

I felt quite disturbed that he would place the question in such a vulgar, brutal dichotomy. But, logically, we were discussing proof. God was life, and the absence of God was death.

Why did that seem strange to me?

I didn’t know, seeing how I had merely come there for the basketball program funding, not to settle ancient questions of faith and empirical evidence. I now had to contend with this open question: Why would Archbishop O’Flannery laugh at the notion of science as suicidal?

That was a dark and strange exchange, and I didn’t really comprehend, until the following morning.

I woke up, and the Daily News rested against the door of the rectory. Their new front-page article read, “Three World Federation Scientists Found Dead of Suicide.”

Two of the men, one a Nobel Prize winner, were based in Rome. One in Mumbai, India. Those men had allegedly killed themselves in the night. They had hung themselves because of their overwhelming sense of guilt. According to their suicide notes each felt as Judas Iscariot felt. They said that they had betrayed God Almighty. Those three all hanged themselves at midnight. They left whatever money, awards, prizes at their feet as they hanged inside of their own homes, stark naked. Their fluids, urine and feces, ran out onto their accolades and money, and it left quite a disgusting mess for those who found them like that. The story was shocking but seemed to have a consistent inevitability to it.

The three deceased scientists were single, unmarried men. They had not contacted each other over any of their telephones. It seemed they had independently come to this conclusion, that what they had done could not be lived with. This news was even bigger than the previous day, with larger, bolder fonts shouting up from the papers.

Television coverage was non-stop. Live interviews rang out across the spectrum. Church leaders, theologians, and the Pope himself spoke out.

“Without faith in God,” said the Pontiff on a live global broadcast, “…there is really no reason to go on living.”

I thought this was appropriate, yet somehow exploitative. It was, however, fully the Holy Father’s prerogative and responsibility to comment on such divine matters. These were certainly important religious questions, vital to billions of people across the world and across faiths. Perhaps they were the most important questions of all, as faith in God was what religion boils down to in the end.

I telephoned the Archbishop. He had not approved the basketball money, which I had originally requested, both of us distracted by the daze of the larger theological frenzy happening. I explained to his assistant who I was, and she did remember me from the previous day.

When Archbishop O’Flannery clicked on his telephone, he was in a meeting already in progress. Words were spoken, the language unfamiliar. I listened carefully to a man in the background, and I then recognized the words as Italian. I did not understand their meaning.

“Shh, shhh,” was the phrase really jumped out and caught my attention. The other word that hung in the air, just before the shhh, was the name “Strykovich.”

“Yes Father?” Said Archbishop O’Flannery, “Did we not complete your business yesterday?”

“No, your Excellency. The amount was not finalized.”

“Amount?”

“For the basketball programs.”

“It’s, it’s not a good time,” he said. “How much do you need?”

“Thirty-two thousand, to start.”

“That’s a little pricey… but fine. Make it happen.”

“Thank you.”

“We shall speak again next month.”

He clicked off. That was all I had to piece the events together.

Strykovich?

Not a common name at all, and it was especially strange coming in an Italian accent. Where had I heard the name, and why did it seem so important all of a sudden?

I caught the evening’s service, and I accepted the Eucharist. Angel Martinez was present. He appeared conflicted, yet still a part of our flock.

I approached him after mass. “Angel?”

“Padre. What’s up?” he said.

“I didn’t expect you here so soon. You must be a fast reader.”

“I’m all confused. And scared.”

“Confused I can understand, given the last few days’ events. But why are you scared?”

“I’m scared to believe, and I’m scared not to believe.”

“I see.”

“So how do you win?”

“You have to truly believe,” I said. It was at that moment I recalled where I had seen the name Strykovich. He was quoted in the Times article. Doctor Alexei Strykovich PhD., was the Connecticut microbiologist who had won the Nobel Prize for culturing human stem cells in the laboratory. He was one of the World Federation of Scientists signers. His name appeared as one of the participants of their little manifesto.

Was this Dcotor Strykovich in some kind of danger? Was he suicidal? Did our people have knowledge that he might be guilt ridden as those others were?

This all happened so fast, and it was so confusing that I did not have time to digest what I had been presented.

I walked across the courtyard and to our rectory. There I searched for the previous day’s Times. The article did state Doctor Strykovich’s home city. It turned out to be Hartford. The Hartford White Pages listed several Strykovichs. None of them were the Nobel Prize winner.

I phoned Hartford directory assistance, and I explained that the matter was life and death. A man may be suicidal, and as a priest my moral duty was to help him. The operator did not believe my story. I asked for her supervisor. The supervisor also did not believe my story. His number remained unlisted.

I then phoned the university where Strykovich taught, and I asked for the microbiology department. They knew him well, and they were willing to give me his telephone number. I assured them that this was urgent, although I gave no specifics as to my purpose.

“Doctor Strykovich?” I said into my telephone.

“Yes, speaking,” said the elder gentleman’s voice.

“My name is Father Dmitri, from the New York Diocese. How are you?”

“Fine, fine. You’re a priest?”

“Yes, Doctor. I’m calling about the Times article.”

“I really don’t want to discuss it further.”

“Were you contacted by others here at our church?”

“You mean priests? No.”

“Yes, I mean the Archbishop of New York, or others here in the church.”

“No churchmen. No. Reporters, you see. The world’s press. They continue to hound me.”

“The Italian press?”

“Yes, them too.”

“You were contacted today by the Italian press?”

“Yes. I already gave my interview.”

“Did you tell them your home address?”

“My what? Address? Perhaps. I told them many things.”

“Did they ask you — “

“Father, I don’t mean to be rude. But I must get back to work. My experiment is timed, and time is critical. Good night.”

“Please — “

It was then he hung up. It was then that my faith suffered its greatest blow of my adult life. For although it was not likely, or even close to probable, I had concluded that Doctor Strykovich could be in mortal danger, threatened with imminent harm.

As the medical doctors pledged in the Hippocratic Oath to first do no harm, so too was it understood in the priesthood. We should first not harm those we seek to save. We are morally obligated to protect those we encounter, especially those we encounter during the course of our duties in service to God.

Who were those men in Archbishop O’Flannery’s office who spoke of Doctor Strykovich?

I took the keys to the church sedan, and also the cellular phone. I drove out of the city and across the Connecticut state line. The hour was late, and time was quickly approaching eleven.

“Father Leopold, I must apologize in advance for requesting this favor.” I asked my long time friend and associate to use his knowledge of the Internet.

“Father Dmitri, what you ask is very borderline.”

“This I know. But can you do it? I am en route now. I suspect that Doctor Strykovich may be suicidal, or worse.”

“What does worse mean?”

“It means that I have less than an hour to intervene. Can you find the address?”

“I don’t know.”

“We must intervene.”

“Why?”

“I believe there could be a plot to murder him.”

“What do you base this plot on?”

“Things I have overheard. That is all I can say.”

“You had better be right on this.”

“For all our sakes, I had better be wrong.”

Father Leopold was once a computer hacker. He had reformed himself and taken Jesus Christ into his heart. I had just tempted him to undo all the progress he had striven for.

He told me the address, in just minutes’ time. He even gave me directions from the freeway.

I parked on the street, and I came to the house where Doctor Strykovich was said to live. Several windows were available to peep in. It was 11:42pm.

Shadows stirred inside of the dwelling.

My body was jammed into the shrubbery outside of the living room, like some common peeping Tom.

Mysterious forms, black shadows, they dragged an unconscious man. They pulled him along a corridor, and toward his most certain death. My fears were confirmed.

I removed my outer robe, and I took a large stone in hand. Doctor Strykovich’s front door featured glass panels, four of them in a cross pattern. I stuffed my robe against the pane of glass, and I slammed the stone into the robe. It made a thudding sound, but it did not break. I hit harder. The glass shattered. The sound was not as quiet as I would have preferred.

Reaching in, I turned the dead bolt lock. Before I could enter the house, a figure jumped into sight at the end of the corridor. He was dressed in black, all black. His face was masked, and he held a silenced handgun, a slender pistol designed to assassinate.

I ran away from the pistol. My heart thumped, and my feet skidded across the lawn. Bullets whisked past me. The thuds of the suppressed shots chased me into the darkness. This assassin meant to kill me, and but for the grace of God, he surely would have. The black-clad man pursued me into the dark bushes, and into a neighbor’s backyard.

As I ran as fast as I could, to save my own life, I recalled the cellular phone inside my trouser pocket. I felt for it as I raced, and I managed to seize it in my hand. The auto-dial preset was programmed to 9–1–1, the general emergency number.

More bullet shots whisked through the bushes at my head. Leaves shredded and flew apart as I dove down to the moist dirt.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” The little voice spoke at me from the telephone.

I crawled away, along the base of the hedge in the dirt. It was to no avail.

The assassin stepped out ahead of me. The whites of his eyes, the only bit of humanity visible in him, he took aim at my face.

“Please help Doctor Strykovich,” I said into the cellular phone. I closed my eyes, in preparation for the end.

“Please, Jesus take my soul.”

When the bullet did not come, I again opened my eyes. The would-be killer looked over to the house of Strykovich, and he turned back to me. His eyes flared even wider.

The man bent down lower, thrusting the silenced barrel of the weapon into my face. He knocked the cellular phone out of my hand with his silencer. An exasperated huff. He placed the end of the barrel to my forehead, and he cocked back the hammer.

He ran off, back into the house. I watched as moments later two men, both hooded and armed, fled the house together. They slammed car doors, and they shot off at a high speed.

I climbed back to my feet, and I stumbled toward Dr. Strykovich’s home. The door remained wide open where I had broken the glass.

Inside were signs of a struggle. I descended the corridor toward the kitchen. There I found Doctor Strykovich, in a small laboratory off the main corridor. They had dropped him in a heap on the floor. He remained clothed.

I placed my fingers upon his throat to feel for a pulse. His heart still beat. They left him as he was. They had left us both alive.

The Doctor awoke soon after with jerks and struggle. I was the first person he saw, sitting across from him on the floor. He now had a second chance to lead a more spiritual life, I supposed.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I am Father Dmitri. We spoke on the telephone earlier.”

“You’re one of them!” He scrambled to slide away along the cabinets.

“No, Doctor.” I said. “I am most certainly not.”

“You’re a priest!”

“That I am.”

“What are you doing in my house?” He massaged his head and neck.

“Just restoring our faith. Both of us.”

“They were going to kill me!”

“Yes.” I nodded solemnly. “But I have convinced them not to.”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Faith.”

#

Joe Giambrone is the author of:
Transfixion
Wrecking Balls
Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire
With Demigods to release in Fall 2019

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