Monday, April 04, 2005

The Glory Of The Olive

When I first heard of the Pope’s passing, I immediately knew he’d been poisoned.

Now, this probably isn’t true. Nonetheless, this is what my mind tells me whenever I hear of a papal death or illness or anything like that (yeah, papal). I hear the words “Pope” and “Sick” and my brain screams “POISON!” like some cognitive reflex.

You see, when I was all young and impressionable, my Jewish devil of a mother made some offhand comment about clerical succession and the papacy and how the only way for people to move up in the holy ranks was by poisoning the Pope. Now, again, it was offhand and I assure you that she was just kidding, so please, no mail bombs to the mom, thanks. Point is, I was young enough for the statement to be imprinted as TRUE, and to this day it’s remained with me as a very small, but very real cognitive reflex: Sick Pope? Poison! Sick Pope? Poison!

You get the idea.

This is also the reason that, for years, I also believed that you weren’t physically capable of cutting yourself with knives, so long as they were submerged underwater. I was like six or so, and my folks were washing dishes and I was pestering them and I think I was worried by their washing the knives really quickly, so I asked “Can’t you cut yourself on the knives like that in the water?” and they being the big adult liars they were, responded, “No, no, of course not, be quiet” and BAM! IMPRINT! And even though it didn’t make any sense, it still became undoubtedly true, and still kinda sorta is. I’m pretty sure I will somehow die because of this.

BUT ANYWAY!

Check out this article.

It’s about the Pope’s passing and how this old manuscript from the Vatican’s holy archives has prophesized 110 popes and how there are only TWO left before the apocalypse! Apparently, the prophecies have all been "accurate" so far, with each Pope receiving a mystical nickname. Our next Pope? Why he’ll be The Glory of the Olive, of course. But to quote the article, “The meaning of the olive is unclear.”

A small heads up: the manuscript also mentions the existence of the anti-popes. Any information about such anti-popes would be greatly appreciated, as I’d really like to sleep peacefully tonight.

Via Fark.

1 comments:

miss.marni said...

this entire pope-picking process is very clearly explained in dan brown's first (terrible) book, "angels & demons"

~marni