Is the Pope Catholic?
by John Cantwell Kiley
Category: Fiction

It is as though Jesus said, "Keep doing it, until you get it right." Doing what? "Being pope." And 264 human beings have tried their hand at it. Jesus hand-picked Simon, a Jewish fisherman, to be the first pope, renaming him Peter. Surely he was the most unlikely candidate for such an election: rash, full of doubts and fears, bragging, a weak reed, if there ever was one. Under Jesus' skillful guidance, Peter became a good pope but not a perfect one, and the long list of successor popes proved to be good, bad or indifferent. The centuries went by and the perfect pope failed to appear, as papal history illustrates. This was regrettable, but not fatal. Until now. With the coming of the Third Millennium a merely good pope is not good enough. Nothing short of a perfect pope will be able turn the tide now threatening to drown every hope for an earthly measure of human happiness or even for bare survival. This is a tremendus burden on Cardinal Isaac. Will he be able to be the perfect pope? Will he be good enough? If not, he will be the last Pope. This is his story.