We Should Get Simon Cowell to Help Choose a New Pope

Well the pope has resigned.  An occurence not without precedent but sufficiently rare to make most interested people say "what the fuck"?  Apparently he feels he's getting a little too old for the job or something like that.  Come on Benedict, you're only eighty five.  Your best minutes are ahead of you.  Seriously he should review the age and physical well being of some of his predecessors, I hope I'm doing that well at his age.

I suppose one can't really blame an eighty five year old for wanting to cut down on his workload (although I can just imagine the Queen and Prince Phillip sniffing and muttering "lightweight" under their breath) but it really is a little unfair on the rest of us.  Watching the pope disintegrate into physical and mental jelly used to be one of the fun parts of Vatican watching.  By stepping down while still robust and in possession of most of his marbles Benedict (or Joseph as I suppose we must get used to calling him) really has let us all down a little.  It must be even worse for Catholics, or even Christians generally.

I think Benedict's major problem was that he could never get out of his predecessors shadow.  Let's face it John Paul II had a great papacy.  He bestrode the world like a colossus for a while and when his collapse came it was spectacular.  To have even a hope of matching that decline Benedict would have had to physically disintegrate in public leaving a trail of body parts behind him on his way to the grave.  Perhaps wisely he decided not to run a race he couldn't win.

Benedict said in his statement that he sometimes felt God was asleep during his papacy and therein perhaps lies another problem.  God helps those who help themselves and he is entitled to expect a bit of help keeping the Catholic church in order from the guy who is the head of it.  God wasn't asleep Benedict, he was delegating and guess who he was delegating to?

However there is still a way for Benedict to redeem himself and make his mark on both the church and the world and in actual fact he has laid the groundwork nicely.  I'm talking of course about a schism.  We haven't had a good papal schism for a few centuries now and I think we're well overdue.  Four or five months into his retirement Benedict can declare his dissatisfaction with the way the new pope is running things and announce that he is reluctantly reassuming the burdens of the papacy.

Think of the advantages that would accrue from having two contenders for the papal throne!  There would be anathemas, denunciations and excommunications flying in all directions.  The college of cardinals would take sides and papal politics would descend to a level of treachery and intrigue it hasn't seen since last Tuesday.  Before you know it religion would be interesting again.  There would be t-shirts you could wear supporting your favourite pontifical candidate and of course the next logical step would be a reality tv show.  Something like a cross between The Apprentice and Vatican Idol.

A schism would provide all sorts of benefits.  Islamic fundamentalism would fade into obscurity once we proved we could have a holy war without outside assistance.  A serious split in the church may even lead to the rejuvenation of Christianity like the Reformation before it.  If nothing else it will get those child sex allegations off the front pages for a few weeks.