"Prank"

Under Church law, a pope could resign, but over the past thousand years, only two popes had done so. The last, and the only pope to voluntarily abdicate, had been Celestine V over seven hundred years ago. Most popes carried out their duties until death or failing health.

The current pope had been hospitalized for a long time. Since February, cardinals in the Vatican had been discussing with the world the possibility of the pope resigning.

Such hypothetical questions were rarely raised in public, but now that it had been brought up, it had to be discussed.

According to the latest bulletin on the pope's health, his recovery was satisfactory, but he still needed to remain hospitalized. After all, he was already eighty-four years old.

In the past, more than a hundred cardinals under the age of eighty from around the world had to gather in the Vatican within two weeks of the pope's death. Usually, after several days of deliberation, one bishop among those electors would become the new pope.

But Pope John Paul II was a clever man. He had summoned the cardinals to Rome in advance to select a successor, so someone could immediately take over when he resigned. There would be no need to rush as they had in the past.

What was it like when the boss was out of the office? St. Mark's Basilica was much the same. Still, the monks were quite disciplined, and none of their proper work was delayed.

Every day, the Vatican received roughly five hundred thousand exorcism requests from around the world, some electronic and some written in blood. Dedicated exorcist priests handled those letters.

There were only two hundred full-time, Church-certified exorcists, and more than half of them were old men over sixty. What young man would want