The Fallen Angel

of Arab leadership to achieve a just and viable solution to the refugee crisis. “Those who would perpetuate human suffering in the service of politics,” he said solemnly, “must be condemned as strongly as those who would inflict it in the first place.”
    With that, the pope blessed the crowd with a sweeping sign of the cross and climbed into an armored limousine for the short drive to Jerusalem. Entering the Jewish Quarter through the Dung Gate, he inserted a plea for peace between the stones of the Western Wall before making his way on foot through the streets of the Muslim Quarter to the Chain Gate, one of the eastern entrances to the Haram al-Sharif. A sign posted by the chief rabbinate of Israel warned that, in its opinion, Jews were forbidden to set foot on the Mount due to its sacredness.
    “I never realized,” said the pope.
    “It’s complicated, Holiness,” said Gabriel. “But in Israel, most things are.”
    “Are you sure you want to come with me?”
    “I’ve been here before.”
    The pope smiled. “I shudder to think what would have happened to poor little Isaac if it wasn’t for you.”
    “It was God who spared the boy. The Archangel Gabriel was only his messenger.”
    “I hope he sees fit to spare me, too.”
    “He will as long as you listen to me,” said Gabriel. “Things can go wrong here in a hurry. If I see something I don’t like—”
    “We leave,” said the pope, cutting him off.
    “Quickly,” said Gabriel.
    Though the Waqf controlled the Noble Sanctuary itself, it did not control the entrances, which meant the Israeli government had been able to enforce the Vatican’s request that the Haram be closed for the pope’s brief visit. As a result, the delegation of Islamic dignitaries waiting on the steps leading to the Dome of the Rock numbered just forty. They included the Grand Mufti, the members of the Waqf’s Supreme Council, and several dozen armed security guards, many of whom had links to Palestinian and Islamic militant groups. Within minutes of the pope’s arrival, the mufti invited him to pray inside the Dome of the Rock, despite the fact the Waqf had assured the Vatican that no such invitation would be forthcoming. The pope diplomatically declined and then spent several minutes marveling at the building’s glorious mosaics and windows. Gabriel quietly pointed out the Arabic-language inscriptions that openly mocked Christian belief and invited all Christians to convert to Islam, which Muslims considered the final and decisive revelation of the word of God.
    “Do you read Arabic?” the mufti asked.
    “Nein ,” Gabriel replied in German.
    The tour complete, the pope and the mufti adjourned to the garden for tea. Alone with the most powerful religious figure in the world, the keeper of Islam’s third-holiest shrine used the opportunity to expound upon his oft-stated theory that the Holocaust had never happened and that the Jews were secretly plotting to destroy the Dome of the Rock with the help of fundamentalist Christians from America. The pope listened in stoic silence, but in his public remarks afterward, he called the conversation “most enlightening.” Then, after delivering his planned apology for the murderous excesses of the Crusades, he pointed out that the Israelis were the first conquerors in the history of Jerusalem to leave the status quo of the Holy Mountain unchanged. As a result, he declared, Islam had a special duty to not only care for the mosques that stood on the surface of the Noble Sanctuary, but to protect the sacred ruins that lay beneath it as well.
    “All in all,” the pope said, climbing into his limousine on Lions’ Gate Street, “I think that went quite well.”
    “I’m not sure the mufti would agree,” said Gabriel, smiling.
    “He’s lucky I didn’t lose my temper. You should have heard the things he said to me.”
    “We hear it every day, Holiness.”
    “But I don’t,” the pope replied. “I can only imagine that God made me sit through that drivel for a reason.”
    Looking down at a copy of the Holy Father’s itinerary, Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder whether it was true.
    The next stop was Yad Vashem.
     
     
    Donati had set aside one hour for the visit, but ninety minutes elapsed before the pope finished his private tour of the newly designed Holocaust history exhibit. From there, he went to the Hall of Names, the somber repository of information about the dead, and then walked along the Avenue of the