Chapter 95
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Her Grace knew she committed the sin of pride. She didn’t care. She would pray for forgiveness later. It was a speech she had given before, many times and many places. “Should I start at the beginning, nearly four hundred years ago in Kyoto, when we were persecuted as heretics by the government? Perhaps I should talk of the years in hiding after the original church was burned? Should I tell the horrors of the years when we were outlawed, the generations of running and hiding?”
Her Grace’s medical monitoring machinery let out a beep. The doctor hurried to stand by her side. They waited while Her Grace took oxygen.
“Thirty years ago we were a poor church with less than five thousand members. My father, having had the misfortune to attend your Stanford’s school of business, was treasurer, and I, his assistant.” Thinking of her father again gave her pause. She could not feel anyone’s touch now. She ached for those feelings. She missed… What is wrong with me, she thought as she collected herself?
“I watched as he struggled to turn our meager tithes into money enough to spread the word. The truths we told of the abominations of drug abuse, fornication, adultery and homosexuality fell on deaf ears. The decayed morals of the day saw these sins as acceptable, some even good, and ‘natural.’ Then he sent us the sign.” Her voice rose in triumph as she paused to catch her breath and take more oxygen.
“The blessing you called an epidemic. The thing you call AIDS. We prayed for a sign that our savior would cleanse the earth. We thought he had answered our prayers, but he was simply testing our resolve. AIDS is being conquered. But, later we were blessed again, and doubly blessed. One of our truest believers found God late in life. He was a genetic engineer who will suffer in purgatory for his abomination, trying to change God’s plan for the world. He came to our church to pray and confess.”
Again she paused to catch her breath. “This scientist told the story, letting my father know of problems with his company: Poor management decisions and a production process gone wrong. My father did not see the opportunity. When I pointed it out to him, he was afraid to act. My father had fallen prey to the demon of drink, overwhelmed by the pressure of his duties. I, being the more dutiful of his daughters, not distracted by fashion or dalliances with men, had taken on most of his everyday tasks of investing. I knew this sign was true.”
Her Grace paused to have an acolyte bring her glasses so she could see the sinners more clearly. She continued, happy to be the object of their anger and hate. If these sinners looked at her in this way, then she must be right. “I placed the order through a number of brokers, being careful of the Church’s position and the need to avoid the foolish rules of your country’s stock market. Even this long ago a number of our largest benefactors were from your country. The stock went down twenty-five points, allowing me to cover the short position I had taken. God had answered our prayers.”