LaLaLayla

You know the economy is bad when even God is laying people off

scrubbedexpat141

Yeah, stupid is - stupid does.

jam25mack

I heard he has been linked to the Jimmy Saville case..... now then, now then!

Millhouse

I like the fact that he resigned on a Monday. Obviously the Sunday was hard work and he thought - I can't go through that again,

I've always resigned at the end of the week rather than the beginning so you can enjoy the weekend. I guess his weekends are a bit different though.

Bahtatboy

D'you think he brunches?

scrubbedexpat141

I tried to book into Bubblehelmets this weekend - was told they were full.

Big leaving party...out-of-towners...the clues were pretty cryptic, but when they mentioned special powers it could only be one man:

Miss Anne Thrope

Ding dong the (chief) witch is dead (well, retiring)

Beakersful

Apparently God was trying to kickstart his ailing body after he made his 'shocking' announcement to the world:

Meow

Could it be the fault of the Brummies? You have to love local papers!

Miss Anne Thrope

Yeah, but wouldn't you quit after that? The sheer hopelessness of it all....

mikewot

Latest BBC headlines, Pope has pacemaker fitted for years. Wow!

Meow

Miss Anne Thrope

Where are you getting these? Keep them coming!!

Meow

Kix

The Vatican have recently been accused of institutional cover ups of child sex abuse by priests dating back as far as you care to go. One ex-benedictine monk, who was employed by the Vatican to fly round the world handling abuse cases and basically buying the silence of the victims has gone public about this activity.

Before he became pope, ratzenwhatshisface was head of the committee within the catholic church that basically operated this activity and was ultimately responsible for it. The book by this monk bloke has just come out in the USA, and it looks like it could turn out to be quite a big scandal. By resigning now it gives the chruch the opportunity to appoint someone who has not been associated with this activity and therefore will not be tainted by the fall out yet to come.

Also several of the candidates being rumoured, according to the broadsheets anyway, are African. So should the Holy See appoint the first black pope, they wriggle out of the worst of the child abuse situation, and also get a big warm liberal slap on the ring.

The Vatican is that secretive they must have something to hide. Considering they're supposed to have archives going back 2000 years you'd think that unless they had something to cover up then people other than the higher echelons of the Catholic Church might be allowed in there.

Saying that I very much doubt the Pope is really the man making all the decisions, more a figurehead to distract everyone from what's really going on behind closed doors, should we end up with a black pope you would be forgiven for thinking this confirmed the theory.