“Did you also know that he had actually come, Holy Father?” asked Father Gondo.
“Could I sit here on Peter’s chair year after year without knowing that he has come?” said the pope. “I see starting a movement of the people, which burns with love for its neighbor and hates God. I see people becoming martyrs for the new hope of a happy earth. I see how they receive new joy and new courage from the words ‘Think of the earth,’ as they once found them in the words ‘Think of heaven.’ I knew that he whom Signorelli had foretold had come.”
Father Gondo bowed silently.
“Do you understand now wherein you did wrong?”
“Holy Father, enlighten me as to my sin.”
The old pope looked up. His clear eyes looked through the veil of chance which shrouds future events and saw what was hidden behind it.
“Father Gondo,” he said, “that little child with whom you fought in Diamante, the child who was merciful and wonder-working like Christ, that poor, despised child who conquered you and whom you call Antichrist, do you not know who he is?”
“No, Holy Father.”
“And he who in Signorelli’s picture healed the sick, and softened the rich, and felled evil-doers to the earth, who transformed the earth to a paradise and tempted the people to forget heaven. Do you not know who he is?”
“No, Holy Father.”