The General's President Read Free Page A

did he descend into hell?"
    "Well, first of all, hell is for those who are utterly ruined, utterly cut off from God and his redemption. Actually, as the story has it now, it was to purgatory that Jesus went, for three days. Purgatory is where souls go to be purified, souls not eligible for heaven but not beyond redemption. Jesus went there to gather the souls already there."
    There was another moment of silence. The Jesuit was a little embarrassed. He always felt that way when trying to explain theological matters to a highly intelligent analytical mind that lacked the background. If you looked at these things superficially, they could sound foolish.
    "All right," Haugen said next. "Then it goes on to say, 'I believe in the communion of saints.' What's the communion of saints?"
    Father Flynn's voice was quiet, soft. "In this case, 'saints' means all undamned souls, living and dead, and all are in communion with one another. We have a solidarity with the dead and with each other, and they with us. All are one. The living support the dead and vice versa, and we all support each other. For example, the prayers of the living help the dead to rise from purgatory, and the prayers of the dead help the living."
    "Hm-m. Interesting. Okay. And it ends up, 'the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.' I suppose I know what's meant by life everlasting, but how about the resurrection of the body? It seems to me that God would only need to think it to give you a new body. Why resurrect the old one?"
    "It's not the old one he'll resurrect; not in the strict sense. When Jesus comes back, he'll create your body anew, but he'll do it with the material of your old body. It doesn't matter what's become of it. If you are saved, he'll recreate a perfect body for you from the material of the old.
    "At the final judgment, Saint Thomas tells us, the world will be recreated. And if you've been good, your body will be recreated in perfection. If you were evil, on the other hand, it will be recreated in corruption."
    He paused, then went on. "But a current notion is that you ensoul your body. Your soul creates your body and your body creates your soul. And when you die, you ensoul the universe."
    He waited then. Haugen asked no further questions. "What do you think of all this?" the priest asked finally. "It's quite a meal for one sitting."
    "I don't think of it," Haugen said. "Not now. I'm just letting it percolate. But I'll tell you again, I'm an unlikely candidate for the Church. Even the Lutheran Church." He chuckled, then sobered. "But if there ever was a good time to pray, this feels like it."
    Nothing more was said then, and Haugen's breathing quickly took the slow and measured cadence of sleep. Father Flynn lay awake for a bit though, thinking. The year AD 2000 was getting near, the year some claimed would bring the final judgment of man, complete with scourges, plagues, and Armageddon. Times were hard; unemployment was forty percent, and poverty was becoming the mode. More than two million AIDS cases had surfaced, and no one knew how many were latent. The cold war still was cold, but the potential was there for disaster, perhaps holocaust. There'd been a resurgence of religion; his own Church, the Protestant churches, all were finding their pews more and more full, while the apocalyptic sects were doubling and redoubling their membership.
    A hooting outside took his attention from his thoughts. An owl; he hadn't heard one since boys' camp twenty-five years earlier. He listened, waiting for it to repeat, until images began drifting across the screen of his consciousness, and shortly became dreams.
    ***
    Morning dawned with white frost on the grass and a pane of ice on the pail outdoors. Haugen fixed a robust breakfast, and after they'd eaten, took a small shortwave radio from the pack and verified their pickup. Then they walked back to the canoe and set off down the river again. A couple of hours later, Father Flynn could see a steel