"When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed Him. The Son of your own God. And only when He was dead did you worship Him and start killing those who would not."

What is it with ‘The Corleone Christ’ book cover designs?’

Along the way there has been quite a lot of commentary about ‘The Corleone Christ’ cover designs. So, I’ve been thinking for a while now, ‘I want to try and unpack both of these brilliant images’ that Freda Rose created for me.

First of all it’s important to say that there are two images. If you go to the website: gjmann.co.uk you find a great landing page asking you to press, ENTER, the two images of Jesus Christ appear on screen, pixilated and morph from one to the other; they do that for a reason.

In the physical paperback they are displayed as front and reverse inside cover images. Both images create images in the style of the ancient icons; icons Christians might have worshiped in the Renaissance Vatican or in Florentine abbeys and Tuscan Cathedrals when the European Age of Discovery began.

I don’t need to tell you, these two images are of two very different kinds of Jesus Christ. One on the inside cover walked, breathed and taught with his disciples in Galilee and Jerusalem. 

The other, on the front cover, entered the hearts of Columbus, Drake, Cortes, Pizarro and Cook carrying the idea that only Christians could ‘own’ the ‘Promised Land’; ‘pagans’ and ‘heathens’ must hand over their right to own land and wealth; not to do so would result in enslavement, torture or death. These Papal, monster principles are still alive today justifying colonial theft of human rights, land and wealth; the principles enshrined in USA Case Law, Johnson v Mcintosh, 1823. The legal precedents of this ‘law’ were also deployed in Australia, New Zealand and Canada as justifications for their own land theft, warfare and enslavement against First Nation people.

The power of this legally binding ‘Buried Doctrine’, the Catholic Doctrine of Discovery, also informed a justification for well over a century of ‘Christian’ harm, brutality, domination and subjugation to hundreds of thousands of Stolen Generation children born to First Nation people living in these ex-colonial Nations.

‘The Corleone Christ’ is at heart a Crime / Conspiracy novel, planned as the first of a trilogy. In the narrative, John Green, an FBI Executive Officer is directed back to the frontline to investigate an assassination. The journey of the investigation confronts John Green and others with the brutal ‘Buried Doctrine’ laying underneath the surface of these ex-colonial Nations across the world who stole land, wealth and ultimately, children from First Nation people to break their ancestral relationships with their land.

It is important to also say that if you look closely into the ‘heavens’ of both images you’ll see a distant, Planet Earth. The representation of that part of the image stems from the amazing images the Hubble Telescope took, looking back on the Earth, dubbed, ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ by Carl Sagan, American Astronomer and Planetary Scientist. This image clearly demonstrates we humans and the whole of creation, are alone and need to take care of our planet.

I hope this blog posting will help to explain the thoughts, inspirations and research that lay behind the great images Freda Rose created.

GJ Mann