Pope Francis has done some crazy stuff since being elected to head the Catholic church in 2013. Wacky shit like respecting people of all types, forgoing the wealth and excess typical of the office, and eschewing church doctrine in favor of being a better human.
What could account for all that behavior? Is he a generally decent person who hopes to affect real and lasting change? Or does he got the wacky brain lump that makes him say the doodle?
If you were to believe some reports by the Italian media, it would be the latter. That’s because, at the onset of a gathering of bishops this week to discuss the future of the church, a paper wrote Francis had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
The Vatican immediately denied it, which set off a fury of speculation among the Italian media, all of whom are familiar with the fact that conservative leaders in the church want Francis out. Via Yahoo:
“Who wants the pope dead”, the main headline in Il Giornale newspaper said. La Repubblica and La Stampa, both respected dailies, wrote of a “shadow of a plot” on their front pages.
Most papers concluded that the story was false. But rather than dismissing it as a journalistic error, commentators and churchmen in the land that gave the world Machiavelli, the master of political cunning, looked for hidden intrigue.
La Repubblica quoted Argentine Bishop Victor Manuel Fernandez as fearing a well-planned “apocalyptic strategy” against Francis by conservatives who want to destabilize the Church and block his attempts to change it.
Leading political columnist Massimo Franco wrote in Corriere della Sera daily that the story was probably “hatched in the most murky Vatican underground and was aimed at de-legitimizing the pontiff”.
This would’t be the first time leaders tried to fuck with Francis. During his trip to America, it was essentially confirmed that the anti-Francis faction snuck Kim Davis into a meeting with the pope, then fabricated reports that the pope gave her a private audience, hoping to discredit his stance on same-sex marriage.
The Vatican sounds fun.
Oh. Francis is also fine. Well, except for the knife sticking out of his back.