RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Sources today confirmed that Pope Francis’s recent bout of risky behavior—including plans to travel through Brazil without the protection of his “pope-mobile”—can be explained by the pontiff’s intense desire to enter heaven “as soon as humanly possible.” The trip to Brazil—during which the pope has already been repeatedly mobbed—is scheduled to last seven days, which may be plenty of time for Francis to shed his mortal coils.
Concerned, some of his closest compatriots have been telling anyone who will listen that the pope may be depressed and is seeking a quick exit from the physical world. “Sure, he strikes a happy, peaceful demeanor in public,” said Cardinal Karlic of Argentina, from which the pope originates. “But only someone who wants to die would expose themselves to the Brazilian hordes. Did you know they recently drew and quartered a soccer referee, and then put his head on a stake? If death is what you’re looking for, Brazil’s the place to find it.”
Others believe that the pope is simply impatient, and wants to reap his otherworldly rewards as soon as possible.
“As pope, he’s already closer to heaven than any other living human being,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias, of Mumbai, said. “He can literally smell it—and, according to him, it smells like bacon chipotle cheeseburgers, just as Jesus promised it would.”
“Who wouldn’t want to speed up their arrival to a place like that?” Gracias said.
The pope has a long history of skirting traditional security measures in order to get closer to regular Catholics, a tendency that earned him the nickname “slum pope” in his native Argentina.
But the pope has been exposed to an unusual amount of danger on his current trip. A riot occurred outside the Presidential Palace while the pope was meeting with President Dilma Rousseff. And on Sunday, a homemade pipe bomb was found in a shrine that the pope is scheduled to visit later this week—which, according to Cardinal Gracias, is “exactly the kind of thing Francis needs.”
“It’s just too bad they found it before he arrived,” Gracias added.
Domenico Giani, head of the Swiss Guard, said that he disagreed with many of the Pope’s orders—and has lobbied for stronger security measures—but that he was unable to sway the Holy See. “I mean, how long can you argue with a man who’s infallible?” Giani said. “Sooner or later you just admit defeat.”
