A Laugh to Start Your Weekend -

[Zeno]

I was searching the web and stumbled across this small article that is very amusing. Check it out:
Skull of Anti-Pope (http://www.cwnews.com/browse/2000/09/13807.htm)

-Zeno, The Anti-Pope.

[Jimbo]

Zeno I particularly enjoyed the last sentence in this article.

. After he died in 1423, local legend said his body could work miracles.

Just think how popular he would have been if his live body could have worked miracles.

[HDPM]

What do you have to do to qualify as an anti-pope? Simply not liking the pope can't be enough, can it? Because I'd like to be an anti-pope, particularly if people would play games with my rotted out skull 500 years hence. I'd really like my skull in the display with the stuffed bear in Elko, but doubt they'd do that unless I was a certified anti-pope. Or maybe a casino could put it on display and let nickel slot players take their pic with my skull for luck. So Zeno, you must find the lengths to which one must go to be a certified anti-pope.

[Jimbo]

HDPM I would take up nickel slots if rubbing your skull would change my luck. Very funny post!! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[scalf]

/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif ya gotta give the bear in elko a rest...lol..but i gotta admit it's a gr8 idea...maybe you should change to casino management/marketing hd???..gl /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif /forums/images/icons/cool.gif /forums/images/icons/club.gif

[Zeno]

"So Zeno, you must find the lengths to which one must go to be a certified anti-pope. "

I wish this were simple. In the thirteen and fourteen hundreds the papacy was controlled by Italian princes and powerful Italian families and by foreign politics, French and German mainly. It was all very complicated especially when the French started to get influence and set up a papacy in Aragon. At one time, I think, there were three different popes (Rome, Aragon, Pisa) but the main break was between the pope in Rome and one in Aragon, in France. Each Pope, of course, was infallible, which resulted in a comical mix of metaphysics, bombast, and human idiocy. Wars were fought and councils called etc and it was all resolved in the later 1400’s or so.

All you really need to do is get enough discontented cardinals to vote you in as pope or cause a split in Mother Church and get elected "pope" (anti-pope) by enough renegade cardinals. It is all so democratic. You first must become a cardinal but that can be accomplished with simple bribery or backroom deals involving Swiss bank accounts, the Vatican Bank, white slavery, and illicit sex. Good Luck.

-Zeno

[HDPM]

Sweet. HDPM for Cardinal! I need massive campaign donations. I won't wear the stupid robe, beanie, etc... I would wear a crimson track suit and some las vegas style jewelery though. I also refuse to go to church. Do you have to go if you're a Cardinal. My platform is (1) Allow marriage for priests (2) Abolish the priesthood (3) Make Latin the only language for Mass (4) Abolish Mass (5) Elect me Pope immediately and divide all the Church's coffers up - 25% to me, the track suited anti-pope, 50 % to the Cardinals who voted for me, and 25 % to the people who made campaign contributions. We'll have a hell of a poker room at the Vatican. I'll keep some papal jewelery to wear at Binions in the PLO games around Series time. I'll issue a Last Bull and Testament that will tie up all the affairs of the Church and provide some salve to the believers upon a small donation to the final anti-pope. What I know of organizing religions came from Reverend Ike - "Don't send me no postcard because you can't put no money in a postcard." /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif