The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [47]
Castle agreed. Bartholomew would need intensive care for several days. He had the priest admitted to the burn unit and ordered monitoring of his circulatory system and heart. Castle was concerned Father Bartholomew’s obvious trauma would cause hemodynamic instability, with the possibility that the priest’s blood circulation might simply collapse. He also ordered twenty-four-hour monitoring for cardiac arrhythmia. For when Bartholomew could be transferred out of the burn unit to intensive care, Castle requested a private room, or a room in which the second bed would not be occupied. Castle wanted to maintain privacy for the priest and he was worried that a second patient or that patient’s family would begin asking too many questions.
This time, the psychiatrist planned to keep the priest hospitalized for whatever time it took to figure out what was going on. If these injuries were psychosomatic, then Bartholomew’s subconscious might continue inflicting serious injury on his body. Could this mental illness be stopped before Bartholomew’s subconscious inflicted a fatal injury on the priest? Castle was not sure. The wounds he was seeing were so similar to the wounds of Christ’s passion and death—the scourging at the pillar in addition to the stigmata on the wrists—that the prognosis could not be good.
Christ died on the cross. Would Bartholomew die imitating Christ’s crucifixion? Castle tried to remember what he could of the wounds of Christ’s passion and death that Bartholomew had not yet suffered—the crown of thorns, the nail through his feet, the spear in his side. Were these next? Castle didn’t consider Bartholomew consciously suicidal, but subconsciously—that was a different matter.
Stopping by the burn unit, Castle consulted with the physicians and nurses on duty, making sure they understood his instructions.
Satisfied that he had done everything he could, Castle decided he would return to see the priest early in the morning.
As he stepped out of the hospital at First Avenue and Sixteenth Street onto Stuyvesant Square, he was surprised to see a crowd of some 250 people quietly holding lit candles. They had gathered in a silent vigil that Castle presumed was for Father Bartholomew.
He wondered how these people knew Father Bartholomew was here, but he did not have to wonder about that for long.
Catching sight of the doctor leaving the hospital’s front entrance, Channel 5 reporter Fernando Ferrar stepped forward from the crowd with his film crew in tow. Seeing Ferrar rush at him with a microphone, followed by a mobile camera crew complete with bright lights, Castle had the answer to his question. Ferrar either had been monitoring police calls, or somebody at the television station had been tipped off.
The media circus was in full swing, even at this late hour on a Sunday night in New York City.
“Dr. Castle!” Ferrar shouted. “Can we ask you a few questions?”
Castle stopped long enough for Ferrar to shove the microphone in front of him. The lights from the TV crew illuminated the street around Castle in front of the hospital.
“Not right now,” the doctor objected. “I’m not ready for a press conference.”
“You are Father Bartholomew’s doctor, right?” Ferrar pressed on. “Can you tell us what happened? We are hearing from ER that he had scourge marks all over his body. Is this a miracle? Father Bartholomew already has the stigmata in his wrists, so now has he been scourged at the pillar? Is Father Bartholomew becoming Jesus Christ?”
“Father Bartholomew has been admitted to the hospital,” Castle affirmed. “That’s all I have to say right now.”
“Who is Father Bartholomew? Is he the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?”
“I’m a doctor,” Castle protested, “not a priest.”
“But you’re also a psychiatrist,” Ferrar said, playing to the television audience.