Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Overheard in the Office...

RX: "Rumble in the Sistine Chapel! A hundred and fifteen cardinals enter, one pope leaves!"

Me: "They could put that on pay-per-view! It'd spice up the Catholic church's image; kinda bring it into the 21st Century."
Although, now that I think about it, that'd kinda take it back to the Fifteenth Century and the Borgias...

22 comments:

Aesop said...

Personally, I was hoping for some March Madness, and a double elimination tournament, to get down to the Final Four.

Maybe break the ties with a dunking contest.

Critter said...

The Borgias and de Medici had a certain sartorial style.

Joanna said...

I'd watch that movie.

Anonymous said...

If you can get a nun who looks and dresses like Tina Turner, you'd have a winner.

Break a deal, spin the wheel.

Gerry

NAVIGATOR said...

VIEW THE CLIP OF ORSEN WELLES COO-COO
CLOCK SPEECH FROM "THE THIRD MAN"

John said...

get the newest bodyfarm novel -- pretty good glimps into the era, including a great info-plot on Ren painting and frescoes plus a fine guided tour of food and architecture. I warrant you'll have an interesting read about the folks who wore the red shoes.

Anonymous said...

"Personally, I was hoping for some March Madness, and a double elimination tournament, to get down to the Final Four."

It does actually work that way... there just aren't scoreboards and cheerleaders.

I was just reading how the catholic Austrian Emperor circa 1900 or so veto'ed the leading candidate. I had no idea the secular authourities had that kind of power.

I guess only the King of Spain could pull that sort of thing off now, there being a distinct lack of Catholic Kings and emperors now...

Joel said...

I have never imagined that that particular conclave would be a pleasant thing to watch. Talk about sausage-making...

Stuart the Viking said...

They definitely need cheerleaders. They would get a LOT more air time if they had cheerleaders.

Sorry, the very idea of a cross between a Nun's habit and those tiny strips of cloth that serve as high school cheerleader outfits these days kicked over my giggle box.

s

Anonymous said...

I just envisioned the Pope as Bruce Lee, kicking Cardinal a** and leaving, just like a whole karate class!
While wearing the 'post-hole digger' hat, of course!

:-)

gfa

Bubblehead Les. said...

Wonder if the new Pope will get the Nobel Peace Prize after only 3 days in the Office....

Anonymous said...

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!

Joe Allen said...

The 21st Century way would be a reality show with the final papal selection made by live call-in vote on the season finale.

Each episode, the candidates not eliminated would be given one of a progression of ever larger hats.

Maybe Don Novello could host it...

Brad K. said...

Ask Robbie Coltrane about what electing a pope looks like -- from the British comedy, "The Pope Must Diet" (That last word was changed to suit American sensibilities, and they added a single "Matthew, Mark! Luke and John! Move that fat, until it's gone!" sequence.)

But, just think of the Reality TV possibilities! Take a bunch of ex-pastors and priests, tell them they are no cardinals and have to elect a "pope", and wall them in until they decide! (Winner gets a pair of red shoes, and an appearance on a revised "Gong! show").

Or, or, maybe send the Pawn Kings to evaluate the furnishings at the Vatican!

Or, maybe, . . Naw, MSNBC is already running a poop sheet on the 20 "cedes".

(I liked the crucifix flip-phone from "The Pope Must Diet" movie.)

T said...

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/03/07/sweet-sistine-update-sacred-semifinals/

~Katherine~ said...

Actually, that sort of happened once. Except that the folks outside of the conclave got really fed up with the conclave taking too long, and decided to take matters into their own hands.

Back in the mid-thirteenth century, the cardinals got a bit full of themselves and spent several years choosing the next Pope. Methinks they were acting rather like a bunch of professors at a conference with no end date and an unlimited expense account: eat fantastic food (well, by 13th century standards, anyway), drink massive amounts of alcohol (hey, the water would kill you!) and generally fraternize/argue over whether the next Pope would be French or Italian. After 33 months of this nonsense, the locals put their collective foot down, tore the roof off of the building in which the cardinals were meeting, and informed them that they'd be eating naught but bread and water until a Pope was elected, thankyouverymuch.

'Course, it still took them another year or so to elect Gregory X, which makes me think that not all the food-n-booze supply lines were cut off entirely...

perlhaqr said...

I have access to a Thunderdome we'd be happy to rent them and run for the right amount of money. I'm just sayin'.

Jeffrey Quick said...

The Church has enough on its hands without subcontracting management of the Conclave to the WWF.

Aesop said...

But think of the money in syndication rights for the reruns, man!

RabidAlien said...

Now, I'm not Catholic, so forgive me if I get this wrong..but if the smoke's black, it means they haven't made a decision (why bother with smoke? Just don't burn anything and we'll know yer still deliberating). If the smoke's white, it means they've made a decision. If the smoke is blueish, it means they're taking a break and someone needs to bring munchies, STAT!

(actually...that came from a Catholic friend of mine...so take it as the humor its intended to be!)

Ed said...

If it's bluish smoke then they are smoking ribs.

Aesop said...

They burn the ballots after every round.

Seems some of the cardinals back in the day could have given voter fraud lessons to Mayor Daley.

And if the smoke is red, it's a hot LZ, and they need extract ASAP.