After What Happened To The Egyptians Just Be Glad All He Did Was Lay You Off

Frequent readers of this blog have probably begun to question their priorities of late...erm...we mean probably recall the occasional post on our adventures in the church catholic. Yes we were conscripted into Peter's Posse at an early age, yet in spite of the years of theological calisthenics at Sunday mass, and in spite of eventually gaining enough proficiency with Latin to call an entire CYO inter-church basketball game in god's own tongue (Ille propagines...Ipse Turpis!! Vinco Catulis!! Vinco Catulis!!) eventually the whole body and blood of Christ thing really began to creep us out. Add to that the fact that we spent most of every fall selling 29 cent plastic statues of the Virgin Mary (made in Taiwan) for five bucks until we met our nun assigned quota and were deemed once again worthy of salvation, and the seeds of our discontent were sown. The final insult came in sixth grade though when our very first dog, Tuffy died and we sought solace in mother church. Morn not, we were told. Dogs don't have souls, so no harm no foul. So, thinks us, not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without god knowing about it, but apparently he just records the information so he can send a clean up crew. That's the point at which we walked.

We tell you this bilingual tale of  woe to establish our bona fides for commenting on the fact the the erstwhile pope red shoes has popped up like a Kardashian whenever a camera flash goes off  and he's got a reason for his withdrawal from toiling in the vineyards of the blessed: god told him.

Former Pope Benedict has said he resigned after "God told me to" during what he called a "mystical experience", a Catholic news agency reported.

Now, we've commented before on the rather slippery doctrine of papal infallibility so we can almost accept the whole, I thought I knew what I was doing, but it turns out not so much theory that you have going there, but at the risk of incurring a haunting by the ghost of our sixth grade catechism teacher Sister place your hand flat on the desk Arnulfa we have to ask how you explain that the big G put you in that job in the first place. We mean, if anybody in this picture is infallible it has to be him.

And what's this "mystical experience" thing? You were sitting in your apartment one day and suddenly the TV starts talking to you? And it's not even on. And what did the big guy say anyway? "Bene, I know I said you had this gig for life, but times change, you know and I feel we just need to move in a different direction. Now, let's talk severance."

According to Italian media, Benedict's decision to step down was influenced by the various scandals that blighted his eight-year papacy, including the arrest of his personal butler for leaking private documents alleging corruption in the Vatican.

Yeah. Well, there is that.