Chapter 3: Day of Reckoning

The RHONJ-fueled epiphany had given the bumbling cleric a clarity of vision. Vladimir had the facts, but, as the brainless figurehead, it was up to him to articulate the points on behalf of the other clerics that how to implement the reforms was a question of semantics, not right or wrong. After what seemed like a Super Bowl with nine scoreless overtimes, he would take the decisive step to break the tie.

There was only one way to end this defensive struggle, and it was to confront the problem head on: He would present the facts to the Dark Pope directly. In preparation he prayed that there wouldn’t be any hard questions. To reach for the brass ring was risky, but like a Groupon for liposuction, inherently worth it.

Alas, word came in that the Dark Pope had been taken ill and was said to be bedridden, feebly clutching his name-brand smartphone as he lay incapacitated. The bumbler feared yet another scoreless overtime, but, in a twist of fate, the Dark Pope’s obsession with his vision of the implementation of the reforms compelled him to propose a teleconference so that he might continue to debate the issue on said name-brand smartphone. And it was done.

On the day of the teleconference, the cardinals assembled and the bumbler presented the facts, unadorned, for six quarter-hours. And then, the evidence presented, they rested. And, as they awaited comment, all that could be heard was the labored breathing of the ill pontiff, and it seemed to go on for eons.

Finally, the Dark Pope broke his silence and launched into a litany of objections to semantic differences between Vladimir’s immaculate conception and His Holiness’s: corporations in years past had used different wording than they were proposing for the Church to “illuminate the issue”. But, other than the bumbler, the cardinals were intellectually prepared and responded to this all out blitz with choruses of “because…” for which the Dark Pope had no answer – no amount of fear-induced groupthink could derail their momentum. They were divinely inspired to speak truth to power.

The confluence of events was fortuitous: The Dark Pope was weakened by illness and his powers didn’t translate through the ether – he was crippled by his virtual presence even as he gripped his name-brand smartphone ever tighter. But like his doppelgänger Teresa Giudice, the Dark Pope would not give up without a fight.

“While you were talking,” the Dark Pope rasped, “I did a little research on the Internet. Haven’t other reputable organizations used torture and humiliation to prevent corruption? Come now - persuasion without extraordinary rendition is like trying to see in the dark without a lamp!” and the cardinals nodded their assent despite the fact that the doings of the Spanish Inquisition was irrelevant. It was this kind of hollow jeremiad highlighted by Monsignor Memoria – descents into hyperbole and outright assholicism – that had led to all of these scoreless overtimes. However, their nodding was strategic: Out of expedience they would concede points in garbage time, but not cede victory.

The Dark Pope assumed that their silence indicated tacit agreement with his cleverly argued points, and he continued: “And isn’t it a fact that we still have problems with chauffeurs pilfering the wafers and the wine from the Popemobile?”  

As the Dark Pope railed on and on about these minor transgressions, the bumbler wondered if what he’d been rhetorically asked in his youth was indeed true – did the pope really defecate in the woods? Alas, he lacked the ability to concentrate amidst the blizzard of negligible side issues and was soon pursuing other vexing questions in his inner monologue, like “How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?” but kept it to himself for even he knew these were dangerous musings in the presence of the Dark One for fear of being labeled cack-handed. And while he considered these questions, the cardinals continued to throw the Dark Pope bones about the cleverness of his observations until he finally relented.

***

Some time passed and the implementation of the reforms began. The Dark Pope internalized the decision as if he’d decreed it himself. And like converts everywhere, his devotion to this position transformed into zealotry. In a celebration of “his cause”, he called a gathering where he might pontificate at great length on the subject to underlings who would find it important to listen.

The Dark Pope selected a sweltering chamber within the Vatican of a size such that the cardinals were packed in with standing room only. He kept them waiting as he freshened up in his chambers and blew-dried his hair, teasing it into an elegant grey pompadour. When he finally deigned it time, he waltzed in in his perfectly pressed black robe and strode to the front of the room, name-brand smartphone clutched lovingly to his breast.

The Dark Pope was aptly named: Wherever he went, he cast a shadow in all directions, regardless of the location of the lights. The room had been well illuminated prior to his arrival, but as soon as he took the podium, the room grew dim. And even if over time they’d become used to his high-horsedness, the cardinals could not shake The Fear of being hazed like rookies in training camp in the presence of the Dark Pope.

As the sweating cardinals waited with trepidation, all that could be heard was the mechanical breathing of the Dark Pope as he cast a menacing gaze over them. And then he faux-cheerily began: “Let us commence. As you all know, I’ve kicked off an initiative to cleanse the church of the corruption. I’m excited about what the future holds. Why, I just recently developed a plan that Vladimir is to implement, specifying all the minute details so that he would do it correctly, and then returning again and again to grill him on the minute details. It will return the church to even more exalted heights. We should all feel good about bringing glory to God!”

The Dark Pope had long considered himself infallible (re infallible, in accordance with the First Vatican Council of 1870, the pope is infallible only when he makes an ex cathedra statement, i.e. a statement concerning “a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”) and he approached this meeting from this perspective. It was said out of earshot of the Dark Pope that only one infallible statement (regarding the Assumption of Mary) had been made since the First Vatican Council of 1870. Pope John XXIII was quoted as saying, “I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible,” but the Dark Pope surely would have dismissed this as “applying to other popes” – did no one recall his mission-critical proclamations that he quizzed the cardinals on at regular intervals?

As the Dark Pope gently twisted the proposed reforms that had been agreed to earlier to fit his semantics, he gestured with his name-brand smartphone and exhorted them to “turn water into wine,” and gave them a moment to soak in the wisdom that he had most generously bestowed. The intent was clear: Using his tremendous God-given intellectual gifts, the Dark Pope was attempting to pump up the troops with his vision, albeit through the unconventional technique of acting as if he were Knute Rockne in a modern-day Notre Dame locker room and telling them they all needed “to row together” while projecting a slave galley on the wall to enhance his point.

As the Dark Pope paused, the room fell deathly silent save the mechanical breathing of the pontiff. Suddenly, the swarthy intellectual cardinal, in a stroke of political genius, shouted  “Yes!” a la Marv Albert (but sans women’s underpants/taped-on toupee) and then, as if in anticipation of a swarm of angry dissent being launched his way, punctuated his remark by pounding his chest like an ape in an apiary. His apparent force of conviction had caused a sombrero-shaped halo to again appear above his head, temporarily driving back the Dark Pope’s shadows. And this was not entirely for show: He was intellectually aligned with the Dark Pope at a skin-deep level. And beneath the surface he was hopeful that he would be able to strip the encumbrance of all the minor implementation details levied upon Vladimir’s reforms.

Looking to capture some of the Dark Pope’s lovin’ for himself while the gettin’ was good, one of his ghostly pale and balding sycophants tossed what seemed to be a softball question to bolster the Dark Pope’s position: “Will the reforms be specified explicitly enough so that we can be sure that Vladimir will implement them correctly?”  He’d spent hours on a special project with the Dark Pope in discussion with devout nuns and assumed that through this engagement he’d formed an elevated rapport with the pontiff, but was swiftly dispatched by the Dark Pope with an acid tone of ridicule: “Haven’t I already gone over this? Is this really the first you’re hearing of it?” and several less experienced cardinals chuckled.

As the Dark Pope’s pride swelled under these accolades and trouncings, his shadow grew darker, eventually snuffing out the light from the swarthy intellectual’s halo and even the ghostly whiteness of his balding sycophant. His brilliance was unmatched and he was convinced that his semantics would win the day. He handed off the floor to the senior cleric who would spell out the details.

The senior cleric briefly took up the chant: All of the resources in the room were to be repurposed for the glory of cleansing the church, and then adjourned the meeting, and the cardinals filed out.

But despite the obvious satisfaction of the Dark Pope as his shadows even spilled out through the now-open doors into the hallway, his attempts to create enthusiasm around what had now become “his vision” had not created a groundswell of excitement. Instead, there was dissent among the cardinals in attendance. “Implement this vision? I feel as if I’ve been put on the rack – please no!” muttered one under his breath, while others ironically complained bitterly that the solution was terribly ill-defined and they wished to return to the familiar surroundings of parishes of their youths, and the bumbler imagined their surprise when they realized that the definition down to the finest detail complete with a nasty messenger awaited them shortly. Sullenly, the sweating cardinals shuffled out of the hall to ponder the trail-mix of pain and suffering that awaited.

But after the meeting had ended, during the period of mourning that many of the conscripted cardinals were indulging in following these announcements, an event that hadn’t happened in nearly six hundred years cataclysmically occurred: The pope announced his abdication and, by implication, the abdication of the other side of the Janus that was the pope, the Dark Pope too. He claimed fatigue, as he spoke to the clerics in Latin, announced his decision during an address at the “Consistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto”. He/they would be the first pope to resign since the Middle Ages (Gregory XII in 1415, to end the Great Western Schism). And many initially didn’t know what he’d said because they didn’t know Latin – understandable, since the entrance exam only required them to check a “yes” next to the Latin box on the test. But once the more well educated journalists covering the event revealed the truth, rumors immediately began to fly about some sort of “divine intervention” that would cleanse the church of the corruption once and for all and perhaps allow them to reach the Promised Land.

***

The conclave began and 1.2 billion followers eagerly awaited the decision. There was considerable hope amongst those closest to the situation that the successor would truly embrace reform, and that he would not be paralyzed by insecurities and obsessions with fine-grain detail. No obvious front-runner had been identified and it seemed a real possibility.

And finally the fumata bianca was seen: The cardinals had selected an Über-pope, and the decree would soon be handed down. The followers rejoiced in anticipation of the announcement. But when the name was read, a realization befell them: The conclave had been stacked with sympathizers of the old pope, and like a weak secondary torched by a flea-flicker, a ceremonial pontiff had been named that would carry on the same policies, through his proxy formerly known as the Dark Pope.

In a sign of the technological new world older, preceding even his old-school verbal address to the masses in St. Peter’s square, the elected pontiff tweeted his first words from his new pulpit:

@pontifex – The #lantern shall illuminate the path to glory!

And the Iceman cameth as the overtimes stretched to infinity…