Pierced by a Sword (39 page)

While using the television screen technique in his apartment one evening, Harlan was visited by Rangor, who claimed to be one of the faceless beings of light. Rangor revealed his face on this particular night. His face was beautiful, peaceful, and strong. He gave Gello unfailingly accurate business advice for the Omega Institute. Gello felt privileged to be serving a being
so bent on helping mankind.

Many of the predictions given to Gello during his NDE came true, which fueled sales of his book. For example, he had predicted "a nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union at a place called Wormwood" in the mid 1980s. The word for Wormwood in Russian is "Chernobyl." (Wormwood is also the name of the deadly star cast to earth in the eighth chapter of the Book of Revelation–a
fact never mentioned in Gello's book.)

He moved to New York after making a fortune from his book, and began to lecture–for larger and larger fees–at colleges and before New Age groups. He appeared on Oprah and Donohue, and was an occasional guest on the Tonight Show.

Harlan Gello had a winning personality and a knack for self-promotion. Everyone liked him and his positive message: Mankind, after
a series of trials, would be transformed to a higher level of existence. Peace and Love would rule the world. Above all, Gello preached, there was no need to fear death, because all men and women were powerful spiritual beings destined to live in light forever. Traditional religions–Protestantism and Catholicism–were scaring people into outmoded conformity by preaching about hell and sin. "Jesus"
himself had told Gello that we are all Jesus, all part of the light. Gods. Everyone was destined for the light.

That's why Harlan Gello named his organization the Omega Institute. The "omega point" in New Age circles was shorthand for the final merging of all sentient spirit beings into one vast, wonderful, shared godhood of light.

Harlan had abandoned his brutal, murderous ways after the lightning.
He truly believed he was helping the people of the world.

He was nice. He cared.

He was
special.

4

Friday Afternoon
24 November
Mishawaka, Indiana

Tom Wheat, Nathan Payne, Becky Macadam, Father Chet, and Joe Jackson stood up to greet Lee Washington and Joanie Wheat in one of the meeting rooms at the newly constructed Kolbe Center. Lee had just flown in from Salt Lake City for the meeting called
by Joe. Joanie had picked him up at the airport.

After saying hello to the group, Lee took a look around the room. A new computer, not yet hooked up, sat on the floor next to its shipping box in a corner. The chairs around the cheap utility table in the center of the room were all different styles. Joe had picked up most of the furniture at the Goodwill near his apartment on Eddy Road. The Kolbe
Center had been open for only a few days. Commercial carpeting had not yet been installed on the concrete floors. Wires, boxes, computers, and compact discs were scattered everywhere. Shipping operations were being carried out in a hodgepodge manner in a huge central room that could be seen through a large window in one of the meeting room walls. Some of the workers were sitting on the floor while
packing materials. Others worked on computers, entering the day's requests using cardboard boxes for tables and chairs.

Joe watched Lee take his look around. The disarray bothered Joe. He knew that temporary disorder was part of the much-needed expansion. He was a stickler for neatness and consistency. Before Karl Slinger started financing the greater portion of the Kolbe Foundation's operating
expenses, Joe had built the foundation into the largest producer of Catholic recordings in the world by imbuing it with a philosophy of what he liked to call "charitable efficiency." Every worker was required to spend weeks in training. Everyone soaked up Joe's philosophy. The Kolbe Foundation was run like a disciplined football team. He had no intention of wasting a dime now that Slinger's money
was available. He planned to have the Kolbe Center humming within a few weeks. If Slinger's money ran out or his generosity came to an end, Joe wanted to be able to continue the work of the Kolbe Foundation.

At Joe's invitation, leaders of Catholic lay apostolates from around the country had been coming to benchmark the Kolbe Foundation for years. Most were surprised to find that Joe had a detailed,
printed "philosophy course" which drew on the examples of such diverse models as Chuck Noll (former head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers), United Parcel Service, Southwest Airlines, Mother Teresa, Saatchi & Saatchi, Land's End, baseball great Ted Williams, and State Farm Insurance.

"Our work is our prayer," Joe was fond of saying, "so our work must reflect the Divine Order." Another favorite
saying was, "The money we receive belongs to the Blessed Mother–we must spend it boldly to help save souls, but wisely to avoid losing souls." Lee was already familiar with Joe's philosophy after dozens of phone conversations with him over the past two months.

Slowly but surely, Joe had delegated the day-to-day planning, purchasing, and operations to Nathan. Lately, Nathan had come to rely on
Lee to do more and more work from Salt Lake City, prompting him to ask Lee to move to South Bend. Becky was already in charge of several workers in the informal advertising department. Joe spent most of his time training new workers, and making sure everyone was on track.

It was time to start the meeting. Father Chet led the group in a prayer, calling on the Holy Spirit to guide their discussion.
Then the entire group prayed the Saint Michael Prayer composed by Pope Leo XIII in the previous century:

"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl through
the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."

The brain trust took seats around the table.

Joe cleared his throat, then began, "I'm not used to running meetings. As most of you know, we don't have regular meetings at the Kolbe Foundation. I just wanted to get everyone together so we could be on the same page over the coming months, and before the weddings that follow in two weeks. I only wish Karl
Slinger, Lenny Gold, and John Lanning could be here.

"Tom, could you tell everyone what you told me earlier today."

Wheat was uncomfortable sitting after spending years lecturing on his feet. He rubbed his hand on his crew cut before taking a sip of coffee.

"Thanks, Joe. I won't speak long. I called Joe this morning because I've been on the phone with my contacts in the Marian Movement around
the country."

Wheat paused and swallowed hard.

"Since the new pope has been elected, nine of the top ten cardinals and bishops most loyal to true Catholicism in the United States have been given instructions by the Holy See to quote, unquote, 'retire early.' One of the bishops was only fifty-seven years-old and in perfect health!

"Two of these de facto forced retirements have already become public
knowledge, including Cardinal O'Donnell of Chet's diocese. O'Donnell's going to be replaced by Bishop Brookings, the one who so generously gave Father Chet to the Kolbe Foundation two months ago."

Everyone in the room looked to Father Chet, who did not smile. Chet slowly nodded his head.

"Father Chet has told me that Brookings 'tipped his hand' when he ran Father Chet out of the Newark Archdiocese,"
Tom Wheat continued, "and there have been rumblings in Rome that the vote for our new pope, the former Cardinal Casino, was somehow fixed. Cardinal O'Donnell told me two days ago that practically all the bishops he knew at the conclave had voted for Cardinal Nugumbu of Africa–a very holy man by all accounts. The secular media around the world has played down rumors of a fixed vote, if not ignored
them altogether. The media is more interested in celebrating the new pope as a progressive who is finally in touch with the average Catholic, especially regarding contraception and women priests."

"I can't give you any certain answers. My gut feeling is that the Great Schism foretold by Our Blessed Mother through Father Gobbi has begun. The new pope has said very few things publicly–practically
nothing at all. Maybe he's a pawn and the forced retirement of solid bishops is the work of others. I don't know if similar forced retirements are occurring in other parts of the world. If Casino
was
validly elected, a rumor that the vote was fixed is harmful to all Catholics.

"So I will reserve judgment on the new pope for now. Is Casino an antipope? Who knows? But we're in for months, perhaps
years of confusion. The work of the Kolbe Foundation and other Marian apostolates around the world takes on a greater urgency. No matter how bad the trials get, we must keep in mind the promise by Our Lady of Fatima of a period of unprecedented peace after it's all over."

Joe noticed that Wheat had trouble calling the new pope by his papal name, Pope John XXIV.

"But how could this be?" Becky asked.
"Isn't there a guarantee that the Church will always have a real pope?"

"Yes, there is," Wheat replied calmly, "but there is always an empty Seat of Peter when a pope dies. And there have been several antipopes in history. Or, the reigning pope is in hiding. They never did find the body of Pope Patrick. I'm not saying he's alive. It's just a hypothetical possibility. There wasn't much mention
in the American press, but the body of the seminarian in the pope's car disappeared from the morgue the night it was recovered. The whole story is beyond strange.

"So those are the scenarios for an empty Seat of Peter."

A pregnant silence filled the room as the group mulled over the implications of Wheat's words. Faithful Catholics deeply and sincerely love whoever is pope, as a person as well
as the holder of an office. After all, the pope is the living representative of Christ on earth. To even consider John XXIV as an antipope was a terrible thing.

Joe cleared his throat and spoke up, "Becky, could you outline the status of advertising campaigns?"

Becky opened a folder and began to speak in a professional tone of voice, "Our ads in the ten major secular daily newspapers and the five
secular news magazines are set to run starting next week through February. We can track the response as the ads come out when requests for 'Marian Apparitions' talks start to roll in. We've also produced a simple television ad at a local television station with Father Chet offering the free CD, but we haven't picked out the programming to run it on yet. I'm still working on it, but we want to
be on network television before the end of February. We're also setting up sixty-second spots to run on major national radio talk shows.

"Then we'll have an idea of how much we need to tool up for the shipping facilities, and so forth. Nathan is going to be working with Lee on having the computer systems and shipping lines ready before we get overwhelmed–that's going to be a lot easier now that
Lee is living here with Father Chet. We'll need a lot more workers. Then we can prepare more ambitious campaigns in the spring when we have some idea about response rates.

"The response rates from secular media ads will be much lower than the 'Free CD' ads you've been running in major Catholic publications over the last two years, but we're offering the materials to tens of millions of people
instead of hundreds of thousands. It's useless to rush to place ads if we can't ship them for months, because we'd get overwhelmed by orders. We need more information to coordinate marketing with production and we'll have it soon.

"The whole project has been overwhelming. We're not an advertising agency, but in the long run we can actually do things much faster, and at less cost, if we do them
ourselves in this first stage. We can even decide to farm out advertising to professional agencies once we have the capacity to meet requests for CDs. We'll have more control, too.

"Finally, we're buying mailing lists of Catholic households. I'm talking about millions of addresses. We're going to have a Chicago company that specializes in mass mailings send a simple, tasteful letter offering 'Marian
Apparitions' free of charge, no strings attached. I used to work with this particular Chicago mailing house. They're very professional and our first mailing goes out next month. Somewhere around 500,000 letters–"

Lee whistled softly when he heard the large number.

Becky smiled pleasantly, then continued, "Of course, we'll have to figure out the response rates just like we'll do with the television
and print ads. Then we'll gear up production accordingly.

"As you can see, reaching the whole country isn't that complicated. It's simple, really. It just takes a little planning, hard work, and lots of money." Becky took a deep breath as she finished.

"Thank you Becky," Joe said softly, smiling with closed lips. "You're doing a fine job. We'll have to figure out how to get more workers in here
and trained. There are over a thousand Knights of Immaculata in the area, and we'll continue to call them for help. We're planning to hire, what, twenty more part-time workers? I've already trained fifteen new volunteers in the last four weeks." Joe tapped a pencil on the table top as Becky nodded.

"Nathan?" Joe asked.

Nathan cleared his throat. His report was typical Nathan–short and sweet; facts
with few opinions: "SLG Industries has been doing a great job setting up the backup comsystems, thanks to Lenny Gold. Over seventy-eight percent of SLG ranches have taken up the offer to stock arms. Fortunately, Karl tightly controls the board of SLG so there's been no protest in that area.

"We're hiring a full-time computer or 'MIS' manager from a local Novell firm–also a Knight of Immaculata
who has done piece work for the Kolbe Foundation before, Hal King. We'll have over one hundred workstations up and running here before Christmas to handle requests. We don't have fifty workers ready to use them, however.

"We're set for the January ninth weekend retreat for Marian leaders. I offered plane tickets for those who couldn't afford to come, and most took me up on the offer. Incidentally,
at Lee's suggestion, we've hired a multiple fax service so we can contact all of them in less than five minutes whenever we wish.