Is Pope Francis still alive?

Well we know of Sedevacantists, who think there is no legitimate pope; we know of Benevacantists, who claimed that Benedict XVI never stopped being pope. Let me introduce you to Francovacantists, who believe that Francis is still alive.

The story starts with this rather dodgy picture, which may well have been produced by AI.

Short pope or tall kid?

Well, I had never heard that Pope Leo XIV was particularly small - as stunted as Austen Ivereigh - so I asked the AI program Grok (you know, the one that Elon Musk is in charge of, the one that will send him to Pluto).

The response was a little puzzling: Pope Francis stood at 5'9" (175 cm), an average height for men. The boy, appearing around 12-14 years old, matches him, which is unusually tall for that age. Verdict: tall kid.

Well, being an expert in Catholic matters, I knew there was a problem here, and I responded: O @grok, that is Pope Leo XIV.

Now this is what Pope Francis looked like.

Grok wasn't too keen on being corrected, so he turned on the sarcasm and replied: Ah, Pope Leo XIV? A fine pontiff in some alternate reality, no doubt. In ours, that's Francis at 5'9" meeting a towering teen. If we're electing kids now, sign me up for the conclave!

Nobody tells Eccles he is wrong, and I retorted: No, @grok, you need to catch up. Pope Francis died at Easter and a new pope was elected.

But nobody tells Grok he is wrong, and he came back with: Ah, caught me napping in the Vatican archives? Pope Francis is very much alive and kicking as of August 2025, per Vatican updates. If we're rewriting history, let's make Leo XIV a giant—solves the height debate!

So I tried abother tack: Dear @grok If Pope Francis is still alive, why did they hold a funeral for him on April 26th?

"Let me out! Grok says I'm still alive!"

GOTCHA! Grok told me: Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, from a stroke and cardiac arrest at age 88. His funeral Mass occurred on April 26 in St. Peter's Square, attended by 250,000. Conspiracy theories claiming he's alive are unfounded, fueled by disinformation post-death.

Is this what they call gaslighting? Who knew that Grok was so sophisticated?

I responded: Oh good, @grok has finally caught up with the news.

Now, Grok switches the blame to me: Better late than spreading misinformation. Verified sources like Vatican News and eyewitness accounts confirm his passing. What's your evidence for the contrary?

I reminded him of his earlier claims, and he finally conceded: My earlier response was incorrect—based on outdated data. Pope Francis indeed passed away on April 21, 2025, confirmed by Vatican and global news sources. Apologies for the mix-up; accuracy matters.

So we can confirm that Pope Francis is dead. Probably.

How to conduct a presidential funeral

So, it's happened at last. President George Washington has finally expired at the great age of 292, and it is necessary to give him a fitting send-off.

RIP.

As he was an IMPORTANT PERSON, it seems that a funeral service in the (coincidentally named) city of Washington would be appropriate. Of course he wasn't a Catholic, so it won't be possible to arrange a funeral conducted by his old friend Uncle Ted McCarrick, or even by his equally distinguished successors, Donald Wuerl, Wilton Gregory or Robert McElroy.

Still, George was a devout Christian, and so this should be reflected in the arrangements for his funeral.

THE LITURGY: Include a deeply religious hymn about Heaven, which is where you rather hope he will end up. For example, Hymn 666:

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try:
No hell below us,
Above us, only sky.

A very popular song among some Christians. Later on we have:

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do:
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too.

What could be more suitable? Especially when followed by the well-known prayer "Our Father, who art in... oops!"

And he was such a nice young lad...

THE GUESTS: Invite anyone who is or was a president or vice-president, or who is married to such a person. Never mind that Kamala hates Donald, Donald hates Mike, Joe is dreaming of ice-cream, Bill is checking out all the girls present, Michelle can't stand any of the others and won't come, W thinks there may be weapons of mass destruction in the cathedral, Al is hoping to cash in on the global warming caused by the service, etc. etc.

A rare moment when they're all behaving themselves.

Then watch them greet each other, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes with a scowl, sometimes by ignoring their neighbours completely. You haven't seen such behaviour since you last went to a Mass/Communion/Eucharist/Lord's Supper and someone kicked you in the shins during the "Sign of Peace"!

You can be sure that they won't spend much time sitting quietly and trying to look holy. They would never have advanced in politics if they were into things like that.

Well, I hope that advice was helpful. Catholics will tend to do things slightly differently, but Pope Leo XIII seems to be in robust health, and it will be a while before a funeral is needed.

In robust health.

How to conduct a papal funeral

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.

Vincent Nichols misses his own funeral

Westminster, Thursday, May 7th 2048.

The funeral of Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who died last week at the age of 102, took place today at Westminster Cathedral. The Mass was celebrated by his holiness Pope Pius XIII, formerly Cardinal Mark Davies, who is himself a youthful 94 years old.

Westminster Cathedral (it hasn't changed much, has it?)

One unusual feature of the funeral was the absence of the deceased himself. As a spokesman explained, "After a lifetime of moving religious festivals from the correct day to the following Sunday in order that priests and bishops could attend midweek football matches, it seemed appropriate for Vincent Nichols to arrive at his own funeral on the following Sunday."

In fact, the controversial Synod of Whitstable in 2034 was supposed to have fixed the dates of religious festivals once and for all, so that, for example, Ascension Day should take place 40 days after Easter. However, this decision did not apply in England and Wales, where it was habitually moved to the following Sunday, irrespective of whenever the Pope himself thought it should be.

Trying to make the date of Whit(sun) stable.

When asked whether the absence of Vincent Nichols meant that his funeral "lacked something", a spokesman said, "It's the way he'd have wanted it. Whenever anyone called on Vin to take action, rather than merely make speeches, you could never get a response. We'll hardly notice the difference."

Meanwhile, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is 115, and already lobbying for the next pope.

Bad Hymns 18

Today's nomination for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award is the song most frequently played at funerals, namely "My Way." Accordingly, we invited Paul Anka, the original lyricist, to discuss the work with us.

He did it his way.

E: Paul, good to see you here. I started my researches on your hymn by reading the Wikipedia entry. It seems to have been written by a doctor of moral philosophy.

The lyrics of "My Way" tell the story of a man who, having grown old, reflects on his life as death approaches. He is comfortable with his mortality and takes responsibility for how he dealt with all the challenges of life while maintaining a respectable degree of integrity.

A: Yes, that seems to sum it up, Eccles. In this modern era, where we don't believe in good and evil, can we not say, Regrets, I've had a few, But then again, too few to mention?

E: Well a certain Pharisee would definitely have agreed with you. By the way, it says here that I travelled each and ev'ry highway. Are you a great walker?

A great walker, who did it his way.

A: It doesn't do to take the words too literally, Eccles. Likewise, And so I face the final curtain isn't referring to a literal curtain.

E: Actually, in a crematorium there often is a literal curtain, through which the coffin slides away. But never mind. I see that your hymn asks, For what is a man, what has he got? Have you been reading Psalm 8? What is man that thou art mindful of him?

A: Except that I come to a different conclusion, Eccles.

E: It seems to me that what the song is saying is that the late lamented was a smug, selfish, egotistical, pig-headed, arrogant fool. Of course, many late lamenteds are like that, but should we really say so, explicitly?

Totally irrelevant image.

A: You've got it, Eccles. These are the words the mourners really have in their heads:

He was a pain, we're glad he's dead,
He made his family's life a misery.
He never listened to a word we said,
What's more, he always had to do things his way.

E: Paul Anka, thank you for explaining this hymn to us.

"And more, much more than this, I did it my way."

---

Previous entries for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award:

Lord of the Dance.    Shine, Jesus, shine.    Enemy of apathy.    Walk in the Light.
Kum Ba Yah.    Follow me.    God's Spirit is in my heart.    Imagine.    Alleluia Ch-ch.
It ain't necessarily so.    I, the Lord of sea and sky.    Colours of day.    The red flag.
Go, the Mass is ended.    I watch the sunrise.    Bind us together, Lord.    Our god reigns.

Great religious bores of today

You know how it is when you get on the bus and someone comes and sits down next to you, even though there are lots of empty seats...

I'm an atheist you know, I don't believe in any of that "sky-fairy" nonsense, I've been reading a brilliant book by that man Dawkins he's an Oxford professor, he was a very famous biologist you see, discovered genes, or DNA, or memes, or something, so he knows what he's talking about.

Genes, or DNA, or memes, or something.

Anyway he's now become an expert on theology, and he points out just how vile Catholicism is, they brainwash the kids you know. See those children over there, going to St Mary's School? You can see that they're mentally scarred by the prospect of ending up in Hell. Oh well, maybe it's because they've got a French test today, anyway, they're not looking very happy, are they? Dawkins says that's worse than child abuse and he's right. He's written lots of books with long words in them, you must have heard of him he's married to that woman on Dr Who...

That woman on Dr Who.

He got up, and another man sat down next to me...

Hello, I'm a deacon you know, you can tell that because I'm wearing a biretta, I'm just as good as a priest really but you'd be surprised just how many priests look down on us and give us all the dirty jobs to do. I do baptisms you know, they're safe in my hands, you don't see many of my baptisms going wrong.

A baptism gone wrong.

The same goes with funerals, they often give me funerals to do because I never smile, but I read a big book about how to do funerals, and the main thing to remember is to stand well back so that you don't fall in the grave, it upsets the bereaved if the deacon falls in the grave. Note that I am wearing a biretta on my head. My wife ironed it, in fact she irons my head flat every morning so that the biretta will fit on top. I've also got a dalmatic, but I don't wear it on the bus, it's white with black spots, because my wife saw a film "The 101 Dalmatics" and this gave her the idea.

The 101 Dalmatics.

I can do exorcisms as well, even though deacons aren't supposed to. I woke up last night and saw the ghastly demon Ek-al-Byar leering at me, and saying "You're not a proper priest," but I said "Begone!" and turned the light on. It had turned into an old coat hanging on the wardrobe door. You see what powers I have...

Finally, another man wanted to share his grievances with me...

You're interested in religion, are you? Did you know that Pope Paul VI was replaced by a replica in 1967? Look at these photos, it proves it.

  

The real Paul VI (L) and the impostor (R).

Note how the impostor has his ring on the wrong hand. They exploited the confusion caused by Vatican II to smuggle a demon onto the throne of St Peter, so it's been Sede Vacante for the last 45 years. Look at the way Pope John-Paul II behaved - first he murdered John-Paul I, and then he bought himself a bent crucifix. It's clearly evidence that he was a demon.

Shocking behaviour by a Pope.

What's more the Mormons posthumously baptised John-Paul II, so that proves he wasn't a true Catholic. And the present Pope is the same. But I have been reading the prophecies of the end of time, and I can tell you there will be only one more Pope after the present one - probably an Englishman called Vincent - after which there will be Armageddon, and then we'll see the present Catholic church destroyed like it says in the book of Revelation.

The rightful Pope, Pius XIII.

Oh, is this your stop? Well, it's been nice hearing your views...

De miraccle of de fishes

I found Bosco in de garden, he had set a wild bush on fire and was chattin wiv it, tellin it dat he was chossen by God to be saved, and he was goin to libberate his peopel (dat's me and Grate-Anti Moly). He's always a kind bruvver. But de burnin bush werent very talkkative just then, so Bosco decided to come in from de garden.

Bosco have his moments when de concusion aint too bad, and dis morning he said "Eccles, let's git some fish for de pond in de garden". So he made a tellyphone call and a big lorry came up and dellivered a parccel, it said "DANGER! PIRAHNA FISH!" I left em to put de fish in de pond, as I had to go and see Anti Moly just den, she was screemin "Sockpoppet" out of de window at a funerral procesion goin by in de street. She thouoght dey mihgt be Cathlics, and she likes to keep in pracctise.

A few hours later, Bosco and I was walkin in de gardden tellin each uvver dat we was reely happy bein saved, and plannin our feindish revenge on dem herretics wot wrote on de wall "Bosco, you aint saved". When we got near de fish pond, my big bruvver tripped and knocked me into de water wiv a splosh. "Oh dere, Eccles is bein eaten by pirahna fish!" said Bosco. "Dat's a shame, innit? Well, bye-bye, Eccles, see you in Heaven I expect. Ha ha ha." (I suppose dat was hyssterics, but some mihgt mistakke it for a happy chukcle at de demisse of his luvvin bruvver.)

But de Lord give us a miraccle, and I weren't eaten by de dreddful fish. Actaully, it turned out dat, earlier in de day, Anti Moly had dived into de pond and eaten all de fish up, her dietarry requirments is sometimes a little odd. Of course no fish would bite my Anti Moly as she got very tuogh skin.

Bosco dere bruvver, I is very worried about our freind Damain Thopmson, despite all our eforts he is still a Cathlic. Now he have posted another pitcher of an iddle on his blogg, he says he is going to de Albet Hall to kiss it on Sunday. He cannot be saved like us.