It is easier for a camel to enter the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The rich know this to be true. They also know that money is power in this world, and believe this to be true in the next. Nobody ever said that money can buy wisdom.

The affluent are a breed unto themselves. Money is religion. They wear designer labels the way the devout wear crosses. Let a man be judged not on the content of his character, but on the vintage of his automobile.

Drive north on Invergordon between Camelback and Lincoln Roads in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Along the left-hand side of the street are enormous shrubbery, over which can only be seen the tops of ridiculous turrets and tennis court lighting. Their neighbors to the east must make do with foreboding-looking wrought-iron gates. How they must be mocked!

But back to the shrubbery. It is not for security. Behind the shrubbery are, I'm sure, 10-foot-high fences with infrared security laser beams and many slavering dogs. No, the shrubbery is for privacy, as though passers-by might be entranced by the daily lives in the inner sanctums of the well-to-do. The rich find the common man unworthy to gaze upon their ugly million-dollar stucco faux-rustic castles on the mountain. They are aboriginal in their fear of outsiders. 'Do not look at me! You want to steal my money-soul! No flash photography!'�

Incidentally, the born rich do indeed have money-souls. Without knowing it, they trade them to the devil as routinely as you and I trade ideas. Money-souls buy elections and trophy wives. Money-souls cannot enter into Heaven. The sly devil tricked Miss Catherine Drexel into trading her money-soul for a plain old soul and she thought she'd get to go to heaven. She did not know that every money-soul leaves an irredeemable stain. In her case, the stain caused her to steal Indian children away from their mothers and beat them until they could recite Salve Regina in English and in Latin. St. Catherine Drexel is not the only saint in hell. Many are the poor fools who think that acts of philanthropy will erase the stain of corruption. Ask any dead Kennedy, and you will know the lie in that.

It is easier for a camel to enter the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. So many of the wealthiest men on Earth have given away their vast fortunes, entered into monasteries, lives lives of goodness and purity in a misguided attempt at redemption. If only they'd known the truth, they could have lived their earthly lives as God intended, and not suffered in this world as they were born to suffer in the next. Treasure. Ease. Feasts of Kings. Drink. Women. No level of debauchery would have made their fate any worse than had already been decreed. For God and the Devil have made a pact. God will create a limited number of incredibly wealthy and powerful humans who, at the end of their privileged and carefree lives, will become the personal guard of Satan. In return, Satan will not tempt with succor, with food or with cures those born suffering, poor, diseased who will die in homes and hospices or starving and alone in gutters and alleyways and will become God's Most Holy Warriors.

And man will know these holy newborn souls by the mark upon their blood, and the mark shall be called AIDS.

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