PAPAL BULL - TOOBWORLD & THE POPE'S RESIGNATION

From Sky HD News:

Pope Benedict XVI is to resign on February 28 due to worsening health.
He will be the first head of the Catholic Church to resign in almost 600 years. The Vatican said his departure would leave the post temporarily vacant.

He will step down after almost eight years in the post, having been elected in April 2005.

The final post on his Twitter page, sent on Sunday, said: "We must trust in the mighty power of God's mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new."

O'BSERVATIONS:
I think it was his recent attempts to "tweet" in Latin that led to this decision.

I just posted this to Facebook: "First Pope to resign in nearly 600 years? Hrmmm..... A retired Pope...... I see sitcom potential in this!"

Actually, if there was ever a TV show about a retired Pope, they'd have to make him a fictional character in another TV dimension. Popes in the main Toobworld are like U.S. Presidents and English monarchs in Earth Prime-Time - they MUST reflect the reality of Earth Prime.

So such a Pope could be found in the TV dimension of the 'Human Target' reboot, which had a fictional Queen of England.

I don't think my usual knee-jerk choice of 'The West Wing' would work - they used the real Queen of England despite having a different American President. So I'm assuming their Pope would have been John Paul II as it was in the Trueniverse.

The perfect choice for an already established fictional Pontiff to be featured in a show about Life after the Papacy would be Pope Sylvester V from 'Seven Days'. With each seven day trip back in Time, Lt. Frank Parker changed the timeline he was in. The series started out in Earth Prime-Time, but was removed from it to a new TV dimension along the way.

But that dimension may have already existed long before Parker started futzing around with Time. For there to be a Pope Sylvester V, there had to be a Sylvester IV, and he was an Anti-Pope during the Middle Ages. Could it be that the Holy Roman Catholic Church of Toobworld acknowledged his Papacy?

Another comment I posted to Facebook: "I wonder if there's a way to weave 'Doctor Who' into the behind the scenes explanation into the Pope's resignation?"

Perhaps a benevolent alien intelligence, related to the Great Intelligence, now shares the mind of Benedict XVI - released from some ancient Vatican artifact, perhaps, and then accidentally absorbed by the Pontiff. Both of them decide that it would be best to resign rather than have it ever learned the Church was led by a Shepherd Not Of This Earth. And to keep the alien from being discovered by its enemies from another world. Eventually when the real Benedict XVI dies, in Toobworld reality the Doctor takes them both to a new world to live since the alien infusion has basically made the ex-Pope immortal.

Works for me!

BCnU!