“So tell me then, Your Holiness, how do you see this… Regeneration … how do you see it actually playing out?”

“Very smoothly.”

“Smoothly?”

Shard had been like this. Perhaps it was always the same with these people, these full-time believers – perhaps they always expressed themselves in the vaguest possible terms.

“May I ask you, Your Holiness,” the President said quietly, “are you, personally, planning to have any input into this? I’ve heard nothing but silence from you until now and I must say I’m a touch surprised by this. I would have thought that a movement like this would be right up your alley.”

There was a trace of testiness in the response.

“Do you think I would speak to the world before I had your permission?”

“My permission!” the President laughed. “Why would someone in such a venerable position as yours be waiting for permission from someone like me – a mere mortal politician?”

He thought it was a very good question –

“Aah… but mortal politicians control the world, my son.”

“Aha,” the President chuckled. “But not in something like this.”

“You’re quite right,” the Pope admitted. “Perhaps this is a little different.”

“So, back to my question, why haven’t you said anything?”

“As I say, I needed to speak to you first.”

“Excuse me sir,” the President said with an insistent ring, “But I don’t see why. This is a spiritual movement. I am a politician. We are a secular society. I have no mandate here!”