Pope Benedict and Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio announced today in Rome the end of the longest practical joke in the history of the Vatican. The pair revealed that Pope Benedict never really resigned and that Cardinal Bergoglio never really became Pope.
Pope Benedict: I am sorry for any of the faithful who have been scandalized by this, but we always assumed that everyone would catch on to this so much sooner.
Cardinal Bergoglio: Si, it was agreed that I would do the most absurd things and that quickly we would be exposed.
Pope Benedict: Yes. God even seemed to cooperate when that lightning strike was made when I “resigned”.
Cardinal Bergoglio: I thought my “encyclicals” would give it away. Who could possibly take the tripe that was in them seriously? I laughed my way through them.
Pope Benedict: We agreed that the Cardinal would contradict basic Church teaching right and left and people would catch on swiftly. Instead, most of you took him seriously.
Cardinal Bergoglio: I still can’t believe that the Pachamama sacrilege was defended by so many people who should have known better.
Pope Benedict: I was tenpted to bring the farce to a halt much sooner, but I kept waiting for the Faithful to get the joke, and no one did.
Cardinal Bergoglio: That is why I did all those airplane interviews and the ones with Eugenio Scalfari, filled with as many ridiculous things as I could think of.
Pope Benedict: This all started as a wager about whether people would swallow any absurdity for a time if it was dressed up in apparent papal authority.
Cardinal Bergoglio: I confess that you won and the kegs of Argentinian beer are on their way.
Pope Benedict: I will drink them as an act of penance. Well, when we made the wager you did not have the first hand knowledge of the capacity among the clergy to being yes men, although I confess that even I underestimated this.
Cardinal Bergoglio: Indeed. I think I could have come out in favor of cannibalism and I would have had many defenders among the bishops and the Catholic media.
Pope Benedict: Sadly that is true. Well I am back in charge now, and the joke is over. I guess it was a bad joke, perhaps even a cruel one, and I am sorry for it.
Cardinal Bergoglio: Si, me too.
That was almost frightening with it’s exposure of how far we’ve shifted in these last few years and with its mass acquiescence.