“Five minutes till air!” the Monsignor’s voice rasped over the intercom. “Make it good, reverend gentlemen! Morning shows all over the world are giving us fifteen minutes—but not a second longer! And Reverend Sun’s coming right behind us, live from the U.N.!”
Father Vidicon and Brother Anson were on their knees, hands clasped. Father Vidicon intoned, “Saint Clare, patron of television…”
“…pray for us,” finished Brother Anson.
“Saint Genesius, patron of showmen…”
“One minute!” snapped the Monsignor. “Roll and record!”
“…pray for us,” murmured Brother Anson.
“Rolling and recording,” responded the recording engineer.
“Saint Jude, patron of lost causes…”
“…pray for us,” Brother Anson finished fervently.
“Slate it!” Then, “Bars and tone!”
They could hear the thousand-cycle test tone in the background, whining. Then it began beeping at one-second intervals.
“Ready mike and cue, ready up on one!”
“Five!” called the assistant director. “Four! Three!”
“Black! Clip tone!” the Monsignor cried. “Mike him! Cue him! Up on One!”
Television screens all over the world lit up with the grave but faintly-smiling image of the Pope. “Dearly beloved in Christ…”
The picture flickered.
Father Vidicon darted a glance at the converter. Its tally light was dead. Beside it, the light glowed atop the back-up converter.
“Quick! The big one died!” Father Vidicon yanked open the top of the long gray box and wrenched out the burned-out resistor.
“There are a few points of theology on which we can’t agree with Reverend Sun,” His Holiness was saying. “Foremost among these is his concept of the Trinity. We just can’t agree that Reverend Sun is himself the third Person, the ‘younger son’ of God…”
Brother Anson slapped the spare resistor into Father Vidicon’s palm.
“…nor is the sharing of a marijuana cigarette a valid form of worship, in the Church’s eyes,” the Pope went on. “But the Council does agree that…”
The screen went dark.
Father Vidicon shoved the spare into its clips and threw the routing switch.
The screen glowed again. “…have always been implicit in Catholic doctrine,” His Holiness was saying, “but the time has come to state their implications. First among these is the notion of ‘levels of reality.’ Everything that exists is real; but God is the Source of reality, as He is the Source of everything. And the metaphor of ‘the breath of God’ for the human soul means that…”
“Yes, it’s gone.” Father Vidicon yanked the burned-out resistor out of the back-up. “The manufacturers must think they can foist off all their defectives on the Church.” Brother Anson took the lump of char and gave him a new resistor. “That’s our last spare, Father Vidicon.”
Father Vidicon shoved it into its clips. “What’re the odds against three of these blowing in a space of ten minutes?”
“Gunderson’s Corollary,” Brother Anson agreed.
Father Vidicon slapped, down the cover. “We’re up against perversity, Brother Anson.”
The tally blinked out on the main converter as the little red light on the back-up glowed into life.
“We’re out of spares,” Brother Anson groaned.
“Maybe it’s just a connection!” Father Vidicon yanked open the cover. “Only four minutes left!”
“Is it the resistor, Father?”
“You mean this piece of slag?”
“…the oneness, the unity of the cosmos, has always been recognized by Holy Mother Church,” the Pope was saying. “Christ’s parable about the ‘lilies of the field’ serves as an outstanding example. All that exists is within God. In fact, the architecture of the medieval churches…”
A picture of the Cathedral of Notre Dame appeared on the screen. The camera zoomed in for a close-up of the decorative carving…
… and the screen went blank.
“It died, Father Vidicon,” Brother Anson moaned.
“Well, you fight fire with fire.” Father Vidicon yanked out the dead resistor. “And this is perversity…” He seized the lead from the transmitter in his left hand, and the lead to the ground station in his right.
Around the world, screens glowed back into life.
“…and as there is unity in all of Creation,” the Pope went on, “so there is unity in all the major religions. The same cosmic truths can be found in all; and the points on which we agree are more important than the ones on which we disagree—saving, of course, the Godhood of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. But as long as a Catholic remembers that he is a Catholic, there can certainly be no fault in his learning from other faiths, if he uses this as a path toward greater understanding of his own.” He clasped his hands and smiled gently. “May God bless you all.”
And his picture faded from the screen.
“We’re off!” shouted Monsignor. “That was masterful!”
In the transmitter room, Brother Anson chanted the Dies Irae, tears in his eyes.
The Pope moved out of the television studio, carefully composed over the exhaustion that always resulted from a television appearance. The Monsignor dashed out of the control room to drop to his knees and wring the Pope’s hand. “Congratulations, Your Holiness! It was magnificent!”
“Thank you, Monsignor,” the Pope murmured, “but let’s judge it by the results, shall we?”
“Your Holiness!” Another Monsignor came running up. “Madrid just called! The people are piling into the confessionals—even the men!”
“Your Holiness!” cried a cardinal. “It’s Prague! The faithful are flocking to the cathedral! The commissars are livid!”
“Your Holiness—New York City! The people are streaming into the churches!”
“Your Holiness—Reverend Sun just cancelled his U.N. speech!”
“Your Holiness! People are kneeling in front of churches all over Italy, calling for the priests!”
“It’s the Italian government, Your Holiness! They send their highest regards, and assurances of continued friendship!”
“Your Holiness,” Brother Anson choked out, “Father Vidicon is dead.”
They canonized him eventually, of course—there was no question that he’d died for the Faith. But the miracles started right away.
In Paris, a computer programmer with a very tricky program knew it was almost guaranteed to glitch. But he prayed to Father Vidicon to put in a good word for him with the Lord, and the program ran without a hitch.
Art Rolineux, directing coverage of the SuperBowl, had eleven of his twelve cameras die on him, and the twelfth started blooming. He sent up a quick prayer to Father Vidicon, and five cameras came back on line.
Ground Control was tracking a newly-launched satellite when it suddenly disappeared from their screens. “Father Vidicon, protect us from Murphy!” a controller cried out, and the blip reappeared on the screens.
Miracles? Hard to prove—it always could’ve been coincidence. It always can, with electronic equipment. But as the years flowed by, engineers and computer programmers and technicians all over the world began counting the prayers, and the numbers of projects and programs saved—and word got around, as it always does. So, the day after the Pope declared him to be a saint, the signs went up on the back walls of every computer room and control booth in the world:
“St. Vidicon of Cathode, pray for us!”
“Thus Saint Vidicon died, in an act of self-sacrifice that turned perversity back upon itself.” Father Al turned his head slowly, looking directly into the eyes of each person in his little congregation, one by one. “So, my brothers and sisters, when you are tempted to commit an act of perversity, pray to St. Vidicon to intercede with Almighty God, and grant you the grace to turn that perversity back upon itself, as St. Vidicon did. If you are a masochist, and are tempted to find someone to whip you, be even more perverse—deny yourself the pleasure you long for! If you are tempted to steal, find a way of defrauding the bank’s computer into giving you money from your own account! If you’re tempted to try to ruin an enemy, pay him a compliment instead—he’ll go crazy wondering what you’re plotting against him!”