The revelations contained within the journal continued to echo in his mind. A clandestine cache of deceit and corruption, a myriad of secrets begging to be untangled. He had no choice but to let them linger in the shadows of the Secret Archives until tomorrow.
Chapter 25
March 7, 2000
Tuesday, 6:59 p.m.
“Roberto,” Mario croaked as he passed through the unlocked front door to Roberto’s residence, his breath ragged from his brisk walk. A fear, alien and chilling, had taken root in his heart, a sensation he had never experienced before, especially in the sanctuary of the Catholic Church. The revelations gleaned from Pacelli’s journal had shattered that peace.
“In my office,” came Roberto’s response down the hallway.
With a sense of urgency, Mario navigated through Roberto’s home, beelining for the office. As he appeared in the office doorway, Roberto could immediately sense his friend’s emotional disarray—Mario looked like a man haunted, his eyes wide with fear.
“Whoa! What’s the matter, bro?” Roberto rose from his desk to meet Mario at the doorway.
“You won’t believe what I found out today,” Mario managed to say as he moved to sit on the room’s leather couch, his heart pounding like a drum.
“Do you need a glass of water or something?”
“No, no, just sit down.”
“Bro, what’s happening?”
“That journal I mentioned”—Mario’s gaze bore into Roberto—”it’s Pacelli’s journal. It details how he puppeteered Hitler into becoming the Führer of the Nazi Party.”
“Wait, what?”
“The journal, Pope Pius XII’s journal. He was secretly behind Hitler’s rise to power.”
Mario’s unblinking stare was making Roberto increasingly uncomfortable. He had never seen his best friend in such a state. Yet it was hard to believe what he was hearing. He reached over, placing his hand on Mario’s shoulder.
“What exactly did you read in that journal?”
“I poured over it for . . . I can’t even tell you how long. It was filled with entries detailing Pacelli’s orders from the Black Nobility. From his own grandfather. They orchestrated some grand scheme involving both Hitler and Mussolini.”
Roberto sat there, his hand still resting on Mario’s shoulder, his mind reeling as he tried to piece together the conspiracy unfolding before him. His concern for Mario, his lifelong friend, superseded his usual suspicious tendencies. Mario was, and would always be, his top priority. He would move heaven and earth to ensure his friend’s safety.
“Hitler had a meeting with Pacelli in Munich in 1919. Pacelli handed Hitler a bag— no, a cache of money to fuel Hitler’s revolution. That was the genesis of the Nazi Party.”
“Let’s search this.” Roberto rose from the couch, his silhouette cast against the room’s dim light as he moved towards his computer. “You good with that?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mario agreed, trailing after Roberto to the desk.
With a sense of urgency, Roberto dragged a chair beside him for Mario to sit in. He was concerned his friend, still reeling from the shocking revelations, might collapse or something.
His fingers swiftly danced over the keyboard with practiced ease and soft clicking filled the room. His eyes focused, his mind racing as he typed into his favorite search engine:
Pacelli and the Nazis
A torrent of over a thousand search results flooded the screen, each one a potential key to the mystery. Roberto’s hand hovered over the mouse before selecting the first entry.
Reichskonkordat: a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. Signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who would later ascend to the title of Pope Pius XII. The treaty promised to safeguard the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany.
Mario’s patience was wearing thin. “We already read this before.”
“What was the name of that shadowy group? Black something?”
“Black Nobility.”
As Roberto typed in the name, a deluge of hits cascaded onto the screen.
“It looks like the Black Nobility’s shadowy past seems to have had a profound influence on the Vatican. The Pacelli family was deeply intertwined with the Vatican’s strategic operations.” Roberto skipped through the information on the screen. “The patriarch, Marcantonio, remained loyal to Pope Pius IX during his exile from the Vatican. Francesco served as the Vatican’s legal counsel. And it appears your Eugenio character ascended the ranks with an eerie smoothness—all masterminded by the Black Nobility, based on what you’ve told me. It was a grand scheme, meticulously planned from the beginning.”
“That matches what’s written in the journal. Eugenio’s grandfather told him the Black Nobility predestined him to be the future pope.”
Roberto swiveled around to face his friend, his voice laced with a chilling undertone. “What the hell have you stumbled upon?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s giving me the heebie jeebies. Roberto, this is not the Catholic Church I’ve known and loved my whole life.”
Roberto held his tongue, choosing to remain a silent pillar of support. Now was not the time to voice his own opinions about the Catholic Church. His best friend’s world was crumbling, his faith being tested in the most brutal of ways. Roberto’s primary concern was to shield Mario from the harsh reality that the institution he’d devoted his life to was not the sanctuary he believed it to be.
“I think you should stay here tonight. The guest bed is all made up.” He paused for a moment, his mind briefly wandering to the room that had previously hosted some of his blond guests. “With fresh, clean sheets.”
Mario sat in silence, his mind replaying his history with the Church. The orphanage. His time as an altar boy. The seminary. His ordination as a priest. He had always felt secure within the walls of the Catholic Church. That sense of safety was rapidly evaporating.
Looking over at Roberto, he said, “Thank you. I’ll take you up on that.”
Chapter 26
March 8, 2000
Wednesday, 6:29 a.m.
“Roberto?”
Roberto’s eyes flicked up from the glow of the monitor, catching sight of Mario’s silhouette framed in the office doorway. His voice was gravelly and thick with early morning haze as he said, “Dude. You won’t believe what I’ve unearthed about the Pacelli family.”
Mario’s eyebrows furrowed, his gaze drifting to the clock on the wall. “Have you been up all night?” His footsteps clacked on the hardwood floor as he crossed the room to join Roberto, piqued by his friend’s enthusiasm.
“Check this out.”
Mario leaned in, his body casting a shadow over Roberto as he steadied himself on his friend’s shoulder, his eyes scanning the information displayed on the screen. Roberto remained silent, allowing Mario time to absorb the shocking revelations.
“I remember reading in the journal about Eugenio’s deep admiration and respect for his grandfather,” Mario murmured, his eyes never leaving the screen.
Roberto nodded in agreement, his finger tracing the lines of text on the screen as if to underline their significance. “Marcantonio, the patriarch, wielded immense influence over the whole family. He masterfully paved their way within the Vatican’s intricate power structure, enabling several Pacellis to ascend to positions of considerable importance.”
Roberto’s finger paused, pointing at a particular piece of information. “Did you see this? Marcantonio earned a doctorate in canon law. Then Eugenio did his thesis focusing on concordats and the functions of canon law. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” His voice was laced with a hint of sarcasm. “Canon law is the laws that govern the Catholic Church as decreed by the pope himself. They’re essentially laws that legalize the Vatican to behave like a dictatorship, Mario.”
