It reminds me of a joke a friend told me once. This particular friend was a priest who worked in a VERY high Vatican office, and as Pope (and recently canonized saint) John Paul II kept on living and living and living, someone asked my friend what happened if a pope developed dementia.
"Oh," the priest friend said breezily, "one morning someone would just take him a very strong cup of coffee with his breakfast."
There were rumors, of course, that Pope John Paul I had been poisoned. Rumors always fly when anyone in the public eye dies unexpectedly, as was the case with JPI, who had been pope for barely a month. In the case of that pope, the rumors were fueled to some extent by Vatican efforts to make the pope's demise seem more edifying by embroidering the details.
Not to imply that Pope Francis is suffering from anything other than natural illness, one does note that he has made some strong anti-Mafia statements lately. And lots of reactionary Catholics find his attitudes about gays, the economy, the pedophilia scandal and internal ecclesiastical organization ... disturbing.
The title of this post is a reference to Agatha Christie's 1930 play, Black Coffee. The play was turned into a novel by Charles Osbourne and published in 1998. In the story, the victim, Sir Claud Amory, was murdered by poison in his coffee.
Isn't he supposed to be the 'last pope' by someone's prophecy ?
ReplyDeleteThere are those who so interpret the faux prophecies of (not) St. Malachy. As happens with projective tests, what such people see is not a reality outside themselves but a reflection of their own inner dynamics. Of course, Nostradamus Inc. makes billions annually despite this. As do all sorts of Christian televangelists.
ReplyDelete