The Vatican Is Testing Spiritual Countermeasures on Its Own Soldiers

On October 18, the New York Post reported that a priest in Guayaquil, Ecuador, had died after a crucifix fell during a livestreamed Mass, shortly after a sermon about mortality and how people spend their time. The Associated Press identified him as Patricio Sánchez of Perpetuo Socorro Church and placed the incident on Saturday evening.

At a training chapel outside Rome, the Vatican’s Directorate of Applied Deliverance ordered its men to take three steps back.

The chaplain asked them to come forward. Captain Bellori asked him to wait until the protective screen was in place.

Twelve guards had been assembled to test the latest spiritual countermeasures. The two chaplains supervising the exercise sat behind the screen. The men were arranged in front of it.

A corporal asked whether the men would also receive a screen.

“Your protection is spiritual,” Bellori said.

The exercise belonged to Operation Bad Carpenter, preparations for the rumored Antichrist offspring of Bad Bunny and Sabrina Carpenter. The expected date of arrival was entered as “without warning.” The pregnancy itself remained unconfirmed.

Colin, the end-times broadcaster behind Pope in a Lambo? That’s not the only sign of the end times., arrived with the celebrity screenshot and the newspaper clipping. He laid them side by side.

Tess called to ask what connected them.

“I’m inside the facility,” he whispered.

Friendly forces

The first requirement was that a countermeasure recognize which side it was on.

The wooden crucifix had been placed at the front of the chapel. Beside it stood a board with two columns: FRIEND and FOE. Everything available for the test was in the first column.

Corporal Felix was asked to approach it. He wore his uniform, carried a signed statement from his parish and had been to confession before breakfast.

“Does it know?” he asked.

The chaplain assured him that God knew.

Felix looked at the equipment.

“I meant that.”

Felix was shown a square marked on the floor.

“Is that where I’m protected?”

“That’s where we find out,” Bellori said.

The chaplain added another blessing. Felix asked whether it could reach him where he was.

One guard suggested testing the equipment on a mannequin first. The chaplain said the mannequin was not a Christian. A second chaplain, anxious not to delay the exercise, baptized it.

The quartermaster then refused to sign it out as equipment.

It was put in the second row with the other men.

Bellori asked Colin whether any of the men might nevertheless qualify for the second column.

Colin selected the one who had suggested the mannequin.

“He’s been looking for a way out since he arrived.”

The guard said he had also found one, should anyone need it.

A controlled blessing

Holy water created a different experimental problem.

The medical team wanted an ordinary-water comparison. Two identical containers were placed on a table, and one was blessed. Before the test began, the senior chaplain blessed the entire room.

The doctor asked whether that included the second container.

The chaplain said it would be unwise to limit the scope of divine grace.

The doctor asked for another room.

The next sample was prepared outside. A passing priest blessed the recruits on his way to lunch. Nobody could establish whether the water was covered. They put it aside and opened a new bottle.

By the afternoon, the directorate was having difficulty obtaining anything ordinary within walking distance of the chapel.

A junior clerk was dispatched to a service station. He was told not to mention the purpose of the purchase and not to accept anyone’s good wishes.

He returned with water and a receipt. The cashier had told him to have a blessed day.

They retained the receipt.

Colin asked whether the water shortage might itself be a sign.

The quartermaster handed him an empty bottle and pointed toward the shops.

Colin had not expected fieldwork.

Exposure training

For the exposure exercise, a technician opened a playlist labeled PROSPECTIVE PARENTS.

The guards were told to stand at attention while a chorus played. The chaplain watched their faces. Bellori watched their feet.

Felix’s heel moved.

The captain stopped the recording.

“Did you feel anything enter you?” the chaplain asked.

“The chorus,” Felix said.

The doctor asked how that differed from the captain tapping his pen. Bellori put down the pen.

The track was played again. The men were told not to enjoy it. This required several attempts. By the fifth, one chaplain knew when the chorus would start and raised his hand a moment before it did.

He was promoted to early warning.

Colin requested a backward playback. When the technician obliged, he leaned closer. Nothing intelligible emerged. He requested a translation.

Meanwhile, the chaplain was humming the forward version.

Ear protection was issued before the next round. Felix put his on while Bellori was still explaining how to resist the influence.

Revised positions

By the final exercise, the men had begun changing the chapel without permission.

The crucifix was lower. The chairs were farther away. Sandbags had appeared where the front row used to be. Felix had borrowed a helmet from the maintenance cupboard and concealed it beneath a ceremonial cover.

Bellori asked whether the arrangements demonstrated the right spirit.

“They demonstrate where we’ll be standing,” Felix said.

The chaplain preferred an arrangement that looked more confident. He moved a chair forward with his foot. None of the guards sat in it.

Colin watched from behind the screen. The captain asked whether he would like to join the men for the closing blessing.

“I’m documenting it,” he said.

The captain asked if the camera could do that by itself.

Colin checked the battery.

At the debrief, Bellori asked for an assessment of enemy losses.

The doctor looked down the attendance sheet.

“We haven’t had one here.”

“Then we’ve kept him out.”

The exercise was approved for a second day. The mannequin remained on duty while the others went to dinner.

At dawn, the men returned to the chapel. The chaplain raised his hand.

“Let us pray.”

The men went behind the sandbags.

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Editor’s note: The reported death in Ecuador is real. The Vatican directorate, soldiers, experiments, dialogue and connection to Bad Carpenter are invented satire; the report provides no evidence of a Vatican test or deliberate attack. The celebrity-child and Antichrist premise continues our earlier fiction, not a confirmed relationship, pregnancy or birth.

Illustration created with AI.