the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt nine)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

Finally, last but not least, the catholic apostolic church of rome had many reasons to feel pleased with itself. Convinced from the start that the abolition of death could only be the work of the devil and that to help god fight the demon’s works there is nothing more powerful than perseverance in prayer, they had set aside the virtue of modesty which, with no small effort and sacrifice, they usually cultivated, to congratulate themselves unreservedly on the success of the national campaign of prayer whose objective, remember, had been to ask the lord god to bring about the return of death as quickly as possible so as to save poor humanity from the worst horrors, end of quote. The prayers had taken nearly eight months to reach heaven, but when you think that it takes six months to reach the planet mars, then heaven, as you can imagine, must be much farther off, three thousand million light-years from earth, in round numbers. A black cloud, therefore, hung over the church’s legitimate satisfaction. The theologians argued and failed to reach agreement on the reasons that had led god to order death’s sudden return, without at least allowing time for the last rites to be given to the sixty-two thousand dying, who, deprived of the grace of the last sacrament, had expired in less time than it takes to say so. Worrying thoughts as to whether god had authority over death or if, on the contrary, death was above god in the hierarchy quietly gnawed away at the hearts and minds of that holy institution, where the bold affirmation that god and death were two sides of the same coin had come to be considered not so much heresy as an abominable sacrilege. At least that was what was really going on beneath the surface, whereas to others it seemed that the church’s main preoccupation was their participation in the queen mother’s funeral. Now that the sixty-two thousand ordinary dead were safely in their final resting place and no longer holding up the traffic in the city, it was time to bear the venerable lady, suitably enclosed in her lead coffin, to the royal pantheon. As the newspapers all agreed, it was the end of an era.