The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [27]
“I don’t hate anybody,” Castle objected. “You’re projecting onto me what you want to believe about me. That’s all.”
“No, it’s not all,” Bartholomew said very slowly and very seriously. “Believing in God is an experience, not a matter of logical proof. If the existence of God could have been proved by logic or by argumentation, the issue would have been settled by Aristotle or maybe St. Thomas Aquinas at the very latest.”
“I concede the point,” Castle argued. “But so what? That the existence of God cannot be deduced from logic is hardly a news flash.”
“I understand,” Bartholomew said, returning Dr. Castle’s direct stare. “But if you’ll permit me to predict something: before you are done with me, you will end up believing in God.”
“I doubt it,” Castle answered skeptically. “You are the one here with the Jesus haircut and the stigmata, not me. This is my office you are sitting in and we’re on Fifth Avenue in the heart of New York City, not Jerusalem two thousand years ago at the time of Christ’s crucifixion and death. I’m not looking for a religious conversion and we are simply getting off track here.”
“There’s one more thing Jesus wants you to know.” Bartholomew pushed on, undeterred.
“What’s that,” Castle responded cautiously. “I can hardly wait to hear what secret Jesus has revealed about me now.”
“Jesus understands that you blamed yourself when your wife died. He also understands that you changed careers because you felt you might have caught her illness if you had been more attentive to her needs, to her mental state.”
“That’s actually not why I decided to become a psychiatrist,” Castle said firmly, rejecting Bartholomew’s suggestion that he changed careers out of guilt. “And again, you’re veering us off course.”
“Maybe so, but you have to forgive yourself.”
“What’s your point?” Castle shot back.
“My point is that you will remain dead inside until you open your heart to God, and you won’t find what you are looking for with your success as a psychiatrist or with the millions of dollars you have earned from medicine.”
“Paul, I hope you won’t take offense, but that’s what other religious people have told me before. You may think your comments are filled with great insight, but frankly I find them sophomoric. A college student taking Psychology 101 would have to do better to get an A. Quite frankly, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Maybe not,” Bartholomew said, “but I doubt if anyone has ever told you that you have to take the first step toward your own mental health by forgiving yourself for your wife’s death. God decides when each of us lives and when each of us dies. You may think you are more brilliant than anybody else you have ever met, including me, Dr. Castle, but you are not God.”
“That may be,” Castle responded calmly. “But since I’m the doctor here and you are the patient, you’re going to have to let me do the question asking; otherwise I won’t be able to work with you as a patient. Right now you are merely wasting time.”
“As smart as you are, Dr. Castle, you are not as clever as God,” Bartholomew said, folding his hands in his lap and sitting securely back in his wheelchair. “That is all I had to say.”
“Good, I’m glad we’re finished with that,” Castle said, determined to get back control of the interview. “Again, if we are going to make any progress here, you are going to have to let me do the question asking. I am the doctor here and you are the patient. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I do,” Bartholomew said without argument.
“Okay, then,” Castle said, ready to start over again. “I’m going to accept for a minute that you died after your car accident, just exactly as you have said. Can you explain to me why exactly you returned back to life?”
“God asked me to return to life,” Bartholomew explained. “I was with my mother in Heaven and God said he had a mission for me to accomplish.”
“What was that mission?” Castle asked.
“First, let me ask you this.” Bartholomew wanted to make sure he had the right information. “Father Morelli