"And in my first act as the successor to Saint Pete, the Fisherman, the proverbial Bishop of Rome.... by the way, what's a Bishop of Rome pull in a year? In my first act, I'll hereby declare that across the world, it'll be rabbit season every day of the year, or wabbit season, as Elmer would say. That'll teach Bugs a lesson or two. No more of that confusing me by yelling Duck Season! Wabbit Season! over and over again. You know, that really gets me annoyed. I'm yelling Wabbit Season, he yells, Duck Season, and I start off on Wabbit Season, and he keeps going on Duck Season, until inevitably I'm stumbling over my words and yelling, "Duck Season! Fire!!!!" ~ Pope Daffy, moments before the opening of Swiss Guard gunfire.
"You're despicable." ~ Pope Daffy, seconds after the opening of Swiss Guard gunfire
"Okay, how long can we goof off until we actually have to get around to electing a Pope? And wouldn't this conclave be so much easier if we just settled it with a few games of high stakes billiards?" ~ unnamed Cardinal, Vatican City, March 2013
After Benedict (otherwise known as Darth Palpatine) decided to call it a day, I did a blog on the turn of events, fully expecting there would be another one with the Conclave and the choosing of another Pope. And I assumed that I'd be doing a few thousand more hail marys for it. You might want to step back; you don't want to attract the lightning that'll probably be coming my way, do you?
The editorial cartoonists of the world have continued to have a field day since last we did one of these, playing around with Benedict himself, the bizarre nature of the Conclave, and the new Pope, Francis of Argentina. Strangely enough, the Pope I wrote into my manuscript turned out to be a South American too.
And so we have a new Pope. Who just happens to look like Paul Shaffer of the Letterman show. Or Woody Allen. Or Peter Sellers in Doctor Strangelove. Or Jonathan Pryce. You could set up a drinking game based on this: Who Does The Pope Look Like? Pour yourself a shot everytime a player names someone else Pope Francis looks like.
In closing, I'll leave you with some of the other also-rans for the papacy. We're lucky some of them missed getting the job. And by some, I mean most of them.
