full state funeral at St. Peter’s Basilica, and CNN would be there to cover all of it, joined by SkyNews, Fox, and all the major networks. They’d been late getting onto the story at the beginning, but that only made this part of the coverage more full.
Back in Mississippi, Hosiah Jackson walked slowly down from the pulpit as the last hymn ended. He walked with grace and dignity to the front door, so as to greet all of the congregation members on the way out.
That took much longer than he’d expected. It seemed that every single one of them wanted to take his hand and thank him for coming—the degree of hospitality was well in excess of his most optimistic expectations. And there was no doubting their sincerity. Some insisted on talking for a few moments, until the press of the departing crowd forced them down the steps and onto the parking lot. Hosiah counted six invitations to dinner, and ten inquiries about his church, and if it needed any special work. Finally, there was just one man left, pushing seventy, with scraggly gray hair and a hooked nose that had seen its share of whiskey bottles. He looked like a man who’d topped out as assistant foreman at the sawmill.
“Hello,” Jackson said agreeably.
“Pastor,” the man replied, uneasily, as though wanting to say more.
It was a look Hosiah had seen often enough. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Pastor ... years ago ...” And his voice choked up again. “Pastor,” he began again. “Pastor, I sinned.”
“My friend, we all sin. God knows that. That’s why he sent His Son to be with us and conquer our sins.” The minister grabbed the man’s shoulder to steady him.
“I was in the Klan, Pastor, I did ... sinful things ... I ... hurt nigras just cuz I hated them, and I—”
“What’s your name?” Hosiah asked gently.
“Charlie Picket,” the man replied. And then Hosiah knew. He had a good memory for names. Charles Worthington Picket had been the Grand Kleegle of the local Klavern. He’d never been convicted of a major crime, but his name was one that came up much of the time.
“Mr. Picket, those things all happened many years ago,” he reminded the man.
“I ain’t never—I mean, I ain’t never killed nobody. Honest, Pastor, I ain’t never done that,” Picket insisted, with real desperation in his voice. “But I know’d thems that did, and I never told the cops. I never told them not to do it ... sweet Jesus, I don’t know what I was back then, Pastor. I was ... it was...”
“Mr. Picket, are you sorry for your sins?”
“Oh, yes, oh Jesus, yes, Pastor. I’ve prayed for forgiveness, but—”
“There is no ‘but,’ Mr. Picket. God has forgiven you your sins,” Jackson told him in his gentlest voice.
“Are you sure?”
A smile and a nod. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Pastor, you need help at your church, roofing and stuff, you call me, y’hear? That’s the house of God, too. Maybe I didn’t always know it, but by damn I know it now, sir.”
He’d probably never called a black man “sir” in his life, unless there’d been a gun to his head. So, the minister thought, at least one person had listened to his sermon, and learned something from it. And that wasn’t bad for a man in his line of work.
“Pastor, I gots to apologize for all the evil words and thoughts I had. Ain’t never done that, but I gots to do it now.” He seized Hosiah’s hand. “Pastor, I am sorry, sorry as a man can be for all the things I done back then, and I beg your forgiveness.”
“And the Lord Jesus said, ‘Go forth and sin no more.’ Mr. Picket, that’s all of scripture in one sentence. God came to forgive our sins. God has already forgiven you.”
Finally, their eyes met. “Thank you, Pastor. And God bless you, sir.”
“And may the Lord bless you, too.” Hosiah Jackson watched the man walk off to his pickup truck, wondering if a soul had just been saved. If so, Skip would be pleased with the black friend he’d never met.
CHAPTER 32
Coalition Collision
It was a long drive from the airport to the Vatican, every yard of it covered by cameras in the high-speed motorcade, until finally the vehicles entered the Piazza San Pietro, St. Peter’s Square. There, waiting, was a squad of Swiss Guards wearing the purple-and-gold uniforms designed by Michelangelo. Some of the Guards pulled the casket containing a Prince of the Church, martyred far