By Will Jones and Doug Ornoff
With the recent death of Pope John Paul II, the Catholic world is on fire in attempts to decide his successor.
Church Dogma teaches us that a Pope is chosen by the prayerful election of a candidate respected among his fellow cardinals for his piety, devotion, and depth of faith. What utter horseshit. This papal succession will be handled in the same way that it has been handed for centuries: through a series of cutthroat competitions and brutal trials known to Vatican insiders as "The Eliminator." This year, the competitions have been updated and promise to be some of the most brutal and entertaining in all of history.
The first round involves the centuries-old tradition of Vatican Capture-the-Flag. Aspiring cardinals are placed onto two teams for a nonstop marathon of strategy and guile. Boundaries are set as the political borders of Vatican City, and pretty much anything goes. "Our only rule, short of Commandment-breaking, is that the Sistine Chapel is off-limits," said former papal aide Raphael De Arinze. "You ever hear of that time in the Middle Ages when it took 33 months to choose a Pope? Yeah, that's because Gregory X hid the flag there. And we sure as hell aren't doing that shit again."
Then comes the ever-popular Papal Halo Tournament. Randomly selected match-ups will allow only the top cardinal from each X-Box to advance to the second round. "We're standardizing the game this time," Arinze explained. "Straight up 'Slayer' battles, first to 15 kills wins. And no rocket launchers. Cardinal Maradiaga loves those rockets, the cheap bastard."
The third round sees the cardinals in a spirited round of racquetball. "We're not sure how long the little buggers will last at this," Arinze admitted. "Most of them are older than hair, and their bones snap like Kit-Kat bars. Nevertheless, Cardinal Mendoza is still young, and he looks pretty spry out there." Mendoza, age 74, was an avid racquetball player before his priestly duties ended his athletic ambitions.
When only four cardinals remain, they move into the highly-anticipated arm wrestling competition. "We almost didn't do this event after Cardinal Tutetsi's display back in '78," said Arinze. One of the two 1978 arm wrestling matches saw Cardinal Tutetsi victorious, standing on a bar stool and throwing up the Dynasty symbol, screaming "Habeamus Papam, bitches!" He was subsequently eliminated in that year's final round of beer pong.
The final two cardinals then engage in the most spectacular of all the competitions. The final destiny of the papacy is decided by a round of Bible, Rock, Scissors. "That's not entirely confirmed," Arinze warns. "We might just do Paper, Rock, Scissors this year. Last time both of the guys just kept doing Bible over and over. For five months. Then one of them had a coronary embolism and lost by default. We want to avoid that this year."
The field of competitors includes all 117 cardinals from around the world. There has been no clear favorite determined for the tournaments, though trainers at the cardinals' gym and training facility in St. Peter's Basilica have dropped a few names. "We'd favor Cardinal Hummes of Brazil," said one anonymous trainer. "He's got some real good ideas about fighting poverty and reforming the Church's image. Plus, he really kicked ass on American Gladiators a few years back."