The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [130]
“Do you want to know if I came out of this with any glimmer of a belief in God?” Castle asked with a smile.
“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”
“I’m conflicted, maybe for the first time in my life, if you must know the truth,” Castle said. “There was a lot to what Professor Silver at Princeton and Dr. Bucholtz at CERN said. Modern physics is clearly advancing into scientific areas that used to be reserved for religion.”
Rothschild smiled slightly, expressing a trace of satisfaction. “I’d like to think that all those articles I’ve been sending you over the past few years on the big bang did not entirely escape your attention. The big bang has always sounded to me a lot like the moment of God creating the universe that the Bible describes in Genesis. But then, unlike you, I’m not a professed atheist. I’m Jewish and I’m comfortable with God, as long as nobody holds me to going to synagogue on a weekly basis.”
Castle appreciated his point. “You’re right, of course, in concluding that when physics begins contemplating God, I might have no choice other than to do the same. I’d like to believe there is a dimension where I might someday find Anne again. But I don’t know if those are my emotions, not my head, thinking.”
“Even for a psychiatrist as accomplished as you, telling that difference is sometimes impossible to do,” Rothschild said. “But as to the issue of religion, I’ve fought with you since we first met. You’ve always told me we make up religions to compensate for the unknown—to explain where we came from, or what happens to us when we die. Or that we make up religions to control behavior, to say you will go to Hades if you don’t do exactly what I say. I understand all that. But I’m wondering if you have caught a glimpse of what I always considered the real question.”
“What’s that?”
“The question is whether deep down there is an impulse built into us that compels us to create religions and to believe in God.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can explain it to you in Freudian terms, if you want, but tonight I want to say it simpler than that.”
“Okay, I’m open to that. Say it simply.”
“You can dismiss the religions we create as defective, but you can’t dismiss as a fact the continuing human need to create religions.”
“You could well be right,” Castle said. “I hate to admit it, but you could well be right.”
“Do you think Father Bartholomew had a mission from God, like he claimed?”
“That’s a harder question,” Castle said. “Anne believed he did and I can’t prove that he didn’t. He conveniently escaped treatment before I completed my analysis.”
Rothschild realized Castle had made a point he could not refute. “What are you going to do next?” Rothschild asked, moving on to the future.
“I’m going to take a couple of weeks off,” Castle answered. “I need some time to recover from this experience. Besides, I did my job for the Vatican the best I could and I got paid generously for it.”
“Are you going to go anywhere?”
“Yes, I’m going back to Italy,” Castle said. “I can’t get out of my mind something the pope said in our final conference, just before he agreed to allow Bartholomew to see the Shroud in person.”
“What’s that?”
“The pope said it worried him that there might just be a Leonardo da Vinci codex buried somewhere in the Vatican archives that explains exactly how Leonardo created the Shroud,” Castle said. “In one our last conferences I think I met just the right person to conduct the search for me.”
“Who’s that?”
“Dottoressa Francesca Coretti, a Vatican Library senior staff researcher. She has a doctorate in medieval art from the University of Milan. She has been specializing in researching the Shroud for years. If the Vatican archives have some long-lost Shroud codex written by Leonardo da Vinci, I have a hunch Dottoressa Coretti might just be the right person to find it.”
“She wouldn’t happen to be attractive, would she?” Rothschild asked slyly.
“As a matter of fact, she is,” Castle said with a knowing smile. “I judge her to