Today we have another instalment in our long-running series "How to be a good pope",
providing useful advice to those readers (Hi, Blase! Hi, Arthur! Hi, Luis!) who
have already booked a fitting with Gammarelli ("Pope Suits For All Sizes").
The story so far: your predecessor, Pope Benjamin, took the advice of the St Gallbladder
Mafia, and resigned his office (for after Cardinal Comic Murphy-O'Blimey
put a horse's head in his bed, and
Cardinal Godless Dandruff enquired about fitting him for concrete boots, he felt it
was time to call it a day).
Of course, some argue that he had resigned the
Munus but not the
Ministerium
because he said the wrong words for resignation: these
traddy
Latin terms mean that he could still be pope. Of course you don't accept this,
especially since
the St Gallbladder chaps have given up trying to threaten him and gone
back to
money-laundering financial speculation instead. Now he is
believed to have died - but maybe his last words were invalid and he is not really dead?
What a mess.
Eccles: get on with the advice. We haven't got all day. Pietro.
"All-purpose funeral homily. Do not read this bit out. Oops!"
Well, one thing you have to do at Pope Benjamin's funeral is to preach a homily. Now,
this will be difficult, as your usual homilies consist of a stream of
insults. Not today, please! Avoid words like "rigid" and "backwardist", whatever
you thought of your predecessor - in any case, you have spent the
last ten years reversing all the changes he made. So keep
your homily totally bland, the sort that can be given for anyone who dies - you're
not very good at profound theological statements, anyway. At the end you may
end with "And so we say farewell to [fill in name here]" and everyone will be pleased.
Here comes trouble...
Later in the service, the faithful will wish to receive Communion. Some rigid troublemakers
will want to receive on the tongue while kneeling, but this will not go down well with
all the priests present. The solution is to provide a range of priests etc. of different
flavours - some rigid priests, some less traditional ones, some dressed as clowns, some holding balloons, and
of course a few extraordinary ministers (they don't have to be very extraordinary, the
usual vestments of tee-shirts, jeans and trainers will be fine). Then the congregation
can make its own choices.
Finally, one disadvantage of a papal funeral is that you cannot exclude cardinals, even the
ones you are avoiding. The last time that Cardinal Tao of China turned up you managed to
avoid him by hiding in a broom cupboard, and so he couldn't complain to you about
China's policy of rebranding members of the secret police as Catholic bishops. This
time it's not going to be so easy. Cardinal Tao has been taking lessons in the game of hide-and-seek, and
will certainly find you if you hide under the bed or in a cupboard.
Does the Vatican have a "Pope's Hole" where persecuted
popes can hide? If not, you'll have to meet him.
Now, gentlemen, I want a clean fight.
Or you could release some photoshopped pictures to make it look as though you met him?
No, people will see through that. Make it a short meeting, in a sacred place, so
that he cannot practise the ancient martial arts of
Chop Suey or
Foo Yung
on you. Your own
Papa-Slappa may be good for enough for young female pilgrims, but
will never defeat a cardinal with a black belt!
As for what you say to him... keep it short. Pretend you have an urgent appointment with
two cardinals who want to ask you a few Dubia. This may even be true, but if it is,
I can't help you.
