Abracadabra etc.

He’s God’s representative on earth and has awesome powers…. I don’t think he has thunderbolt skills yet… but he probably doesn’t have to collect too many more gold coins or whatever to get them.

This is where he lives…

If you click on it you go through to a k-for cool panorama thing.
Which goes with his outfit - you kindof get the vibe he’s going for style-wise.

Not really my thing to be honest… a bit… camp? Nah. A bit ever-so-slightly-bat-shit-insane. It’s like he’s said “ok, we’ll see if they still think I’m infallible after I do this…” and has gone off and done various things to take the piss, and so far he’s got away with it.

So far, he’s dressed up like a cross between Gandalf-the-white and Dame Edna Everidge, he drives around in a batmobile and just for a laugh, persuaded his mates to dress up like this

All the popes down through the ages have done this - they “test people’s faith” by indulging in unconstrained crackpottery etc… to see how much they can get away with, and over the centuries the layers of insanity have built up like layers on a very gaudy pearl.

A particularly good one though was

The Cadaver Synod.

Back in the 9th century there was this pope called… Stephen (and there’s nothing wrong with that), who felt a bit tangential one day so decided that it might be a laugh to dig up the body of the previous pope (Formosa) and sue it.

So he did - on charges of violating canonical law, impersonating a bishop and perjury… they dug him up, dressed him up in his pope’s outfit, sitting there quietly decomposing while Vatican lawyers strutted about, gesticulating and posturing… and eventually found him guilty (quelle surprise), and who knows, maybe he was. Maybe he was.

But what to mete out as a punishment was a bit of a noodle-scratcher. Bit of a conundrum. They couldn’t fine him because he was… well, dead, and Stephen had all his stuff.. Couldn’t imprison or execute him because he was like… well, dead basically… so they did what any reasonable person would do - the chopped a couple of his fingers off and threw him in the river.

Apparently he washed up somewhere (as you do) and started performing miracles (as you do) so the public, fickle bastards that they are, changed sides and Stephen was thrown in prison… and a bit later someone strangled him - which is what generally happens to me when I’m being irritating.

So there you go. It is possible to go too far, even if you’re the Pope.