The Next Pope

Big news in the Catholic church -- Pope Benedict is breaking with centuries of papal tradition and is stepping down before he dies.  Retiring before expiring.  Kind of a big whoop-de-doo in Vatican circles.  Who will be the new Pope?

In Buster's decidedly secular opinion, there can be but one choice.  I refer of course to none other than the world-renonwned Father Guido Sarducci. 

Sarducci is an Italian priest living and working in the U.S. as a gossip columnist and rock critic for L'Osservatore Romano.  He's also the creator of the popular "Find the Popes in the Pizza Contest", where the hungry faithful search for pepperoni slices in the image of famous pontiffs.

Some of Father Guido's best-known observations:

On the Last Supper:  "It was-a actually a brunch.  The check-a reveals that-a one guy only had a soft-boiled egg and-a tea, while everyone else-a stuffed themselves.  But when-a the bill was-a paid, it was-a divided equally.  The moral:  In groups, always order the most-a expensive thing."

On the Missing Commandments:  "There were-a actually more than-a ten, but Moses was-a old and-a grumpy, and-a after he broke-a the tablets he could only remember the negative ones -- 'Don't-a do this, don't-a do that.'  The truth is, most-a of them were more like-a advice.  The Twelfth Commandment, for example, was-a 'Whistle while you work.'  People think it's from-a Disney, but Disney stole it from-a God."

On former Vice President Dan Quayle:  "That-a Dan Quayle, he was-a going around the country giving C-students a bad name."

On Sainthood:  "To be made a saint in-a the Catholic church, you have to have-a four miracles.  That's-a the rules, you know.  It's always been that-a.  Four miracles, and-a to prove it.  Well, this-a Mother Seton, they could-a only prove-a three miracles, but the Pope-a, he just waived the fourth one.  Just waived it!  And do you know why?  It's-a because she was American.  It's all-a politics.  We got-a some Italian people, they got-a forty, fifty, sixty miracles to their name.  They can't-a get in just-a 'cause they say there's already too many Italian saints, and this-a woman comes along with-a three lousy miracles.  I understand that-a two of them was-a card tricks."

On Life:  " 'Vita est Lavorum'.  Life is a job."