Silva: “Took eight months to write but a lifetime to gather. I’ve talked to journalists, priests, Vatican sources. Our world’s existing deep hatred is a passionate subject of mine. I’ve carried it in my head for years.”

“The Order” unlocks the papacy’s hidden rooms, underground, secrets. So how does anyone unearth all that?
“I’ve studied the popes, read about Vatican adventures, Church history. I have shelves of information on enclaves, politics, relationships. I’ve been there. I know about the Sistine Chapel. I’ve done Vatican scenes in my other novels. I know of the dormitory where cardinals stay, their garden, pharmacy, supermarket. I know about the Apostolic Palace.

“I do one book a year. Six hours a day working. Then it gets to eight hours. As the deadline nears, 12 hours and up all night. I survive on pieces of toasted challah.”

His live-in editor — his wife, TV correspondent Jamie Gangel — explained how this brand-new book included passages about the pandemic.

“It was February when Danny handed in the manuscript. But before the coronavirus took over, he’d read about it happening in China.”

I’ve sent “The Order” to His Eminence Cardinal Dolan. He’ll probably knock me off his next St. Patrick’s Day luncheon.

It’s movie madness

All summer blockbusters got pulled. Disney’s “Mulan,” supposed to launch end of August, and Paramount’s “A Quiet Place II,” starring Emily Blunt, supposed to open Labor Day weekend, won’t. It got moved to 2021, “Mulan” stays undated, and it’s the first summer since the mid-’70s without a blockbuster.

Paul Lynde of “Hollywood Squares” and “Bewitched” is getting biopic’d. He’ll be played by comedian Billy Eichner, who also developed the project … The film Spike Lee directed of David Byrne’s Broadway show “American Utopia” opens September in the Toronto Film Festival, but that event’s now so scaled back it could end up in Montana.

Dem’s the brakes

Rep. Jerry Nadler — of whom you may have heard and from whom you’ll forever hear since he pees on all Republicans. The man’s still urinating on Abraham Lincoln, who left us a century and a half ago.

Yesterday Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and NY congressman, was en route to DC. A VIP hearing.

All his hearings are VIP. He’d never listen to an un-VIP — unless he himself was speaking. This was to be Attorney General William Barr testifying.

So on Interstate 95, an hour from Washington, a little car accident. Nothing major. Just enough to delay Nadler’s behind from reaching the capital.

The man’s sitting. On the road. One hour. Until help arrived. His bones — and the remainder of him — being so important that they actually had to delay the entire hearing.

A trade-off?

Anyone aware that with this genius idea of removing our police — many homeowners, eager to protect themselves and not trusting the streets, have since bought their own guns?

Everyone’s stuck home watching TV. Phone someone to tell something, they say, “Hurry up. You have to fit it in during a commercial.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.