The Day Chris Hansen Told the Pope to Have a Seat

Two months after Pope Benedict discovered the internet, he found himself getting caught in a familiar catfish entrapment operation while surfing chatrooms for the deaf. This resulted in what would become my favorite episode of “To Catch a Predator.” The one where Chris Hansen tells the Pope to have a seat. For a brief moment the Pope considers making a dash for it…
but what’s the use? He’s too old to care and he’s tired of running.

Hansen: Do me a favor and just go have a seat. What are you doing here?

Pope: I don’t know.

Hansen: You don’t know. Now…in your chat here you essentially say that you’re a Pope.

Pope: Yeah. I’m a Pope.

Hansen: Don’t you think that might impress an alter boy? What was your plan here today?

Pope: I seriously don’t know.

Hansen: Well it looks like you do based upon this chat. What made you think it was okay at 85 years old to walk into a home and use your authority as the Pope to get a 13 year old alter boy to play “confessional” with you? You know that he’s deaf, right?

Pope: Well, I wasn’t so sure he was deaf to be honest with you. But I wasn’t here to…listen, I’m here for a friend. That wasn’t me in the chat log you’re holding.

Hansen: So you’re not HitlerYouthPope1927?

Pope: Ugh. I wasn’t going to do anything. I came to check on a situation we’ve been dealing with at the Vatican.

Hansen: A Vatlileaks situation.

Pope: Yeah. What we’re dealing with here is bigger than one old man visiting one young boy. Listen, I’m not going to yank your chain. This is well beyond an isolated incident. This is a systematic problem within my organization and I’m trying to deal with it my own way. Wait…are you a police officer?

Hansen: No, I’m not a police officer. We’ll get to who I am after you explain yourself a bit. I see you brought a bag. Do you have condoms in that bag? Why am I asking that…of course you don’t.

Pope: Alright….listen.  I’m the leader of the most powerful and politically influential religion in the world. You see this pimp ass cane? See the righteous, jewel-bedazzled hat that I’m wearing? That means I’m the infallible shit. However, years ago when I was archbishop in Munich, I helped out a few serial pedophiles. Rather than refer them for prosecution I simply transferred them to other parishes. I was all like, “WWJD?”…judge not or whatever whatever. Well, as you might expect they went on to molest more boys. A lot more. Which really sucks because I did the dude a solid thinking he’d get his act together.

Hansen: Do you know how many times I hear that same story?

Pope: Do you know how many times I hear that same story? No, I know. I’m sure. But I was in charge of dealing with thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican and things just got out of control. Thankfully the Church was able to suppress the news on a lot of these cases, and it also helps that clergy priests don’t get included on sex offender lists. But now I’m stuck dealing with a whole new batch of problems and it’s the same shit! We’ve got 200 deaf boys trying to embarrass the church by ratting out a priest named Father Murphy. I should have defrocked him when I had the chance.

Hansen: Shoulda woulda coulda. But that doesn’t make it right for you to…

Pope: I know. It looks bad that I’m here and my story is all over the place but I’m just nervous right now. I’m here to confront the boy and talk some sense into him. Be a mentor, ya’ know?

Hansen: A mentor. I understand that Catholicism has a great consolidation of power and control, but here’s the problem…not everyone plays your reindeer games.

Pope: I know, I know. A lot of people are leaving the church. It’s like a mass exodus. That’s a whole other stress I’ve gotta deal with now. People don’t seem so keen on the constant guilt trips anymore, especially not when they come from such a hypocritical source. It’s got me rethinking this whole “clerical celibacy” thing. I mean…we don’t even allow masturbation and we just pulled that rule out of thin air basically. Turns out that “no sex ever” thing might make the human brain go haywire. Maybe we should go back to the way things originally were and let priests get married and have sex and, ya know…live their lives in a natural and healthy manner.

Hansen: Hey, maybe you’ll even let gay people do the same thing someday. But I’m not here to help you update your practices so that you can pretend to still be relevant. You don’t believe in evolution anyway. I just want you to know that my name is Christ Hansen. You see these cameras? We are doing a story on spiritual predators. If you have anything else to say please do, otherwise you are free to leave at any time.

Pope: Oh wow. Love your show. OK…well…just understand something. If you put this on television you will find yourself in a world of shit. I’ve already proclaimed that any criticism against me is an act of terrorism. Those are kinda the measures we need to take unfortunately.

Hansen: You’re free to leave.

Pope: Bless you.

When Pope Benedict XVI exited the house he was not arrested.
He was not tackled onto the ground by overzealous cops.
He did not run.
He sauntered over to the helicopter and flew off into the sunset.
No…not into it. Over it.
Just to make sure he could live out the rest of his days the way he always enjoyed them…
Out of reach
and above the law.

(c) 2013, Sage Francis

Many thanks to Redball for putting together the gif. Perverted monk photo by Anthony St. James.