The Burden of Being Pope Sixtus IV

You want to see bad-ass. Flash back to the good old days when no one could keep up with this pope.

“Was this in the 1800s” asks Joe T.

“Do we have to listen to this?” McNulty groans.

L-I P: Where’s the Sardine when we need him?

My nephews, Rafaello (Rafe) and Guiliano (Jule), enter my bedroom one morning. They are Cardinals, a bit young for the job, but they know how to keep the boss happy. Only, on this particular day, I can tell they want something.

“Nice pajamas, padrino,” says the slick, cool one, Rafe.

I am wearing my purple silk undies.

“Are you wearing them now?” asks Frank.

“Were it not for the rhetorical powers of my grandiloquent predecessor, Urban II” I tell my nephews “I would not be wearing these fine morning clothes.”

“Wudda ya mean?” asks Jule.

Can you believe this guy will become Pope Julius II?

“He’s talking about the war against the Turkish mob,” says Rafe.

“We controlled the Jerusalem rackets for nearly a century,” I reply.

“Come on, Rafe, we gotta get dis pony saddled,” the always eloquent Jule says.

I give him a dirty look and walk to a window. The morning sky is streaked, like my undies, a deep purple, a quarter hour before sunrise. A flock of sparrows swoop toward the Papal orange grove. Such purple silk cloth around my private parts not only stops rashes but – I think this truly demonic of the Arab heathen – stimulates my member without a single dirty thought entering my head.

“I’ll never get that image out of my head,” Joe T.

“Someday, this might not be a luxury. I cannot tell you whether it will be a good or bad progress for OUR THING, the Catholic Church. But it isn’t for a discussion of the silk trade that you’ve come here this morning. Isn’t that right, Cardinal Riario?”

“True, your eminence,” says Rafe.  “We need your blessing for the Medici hit.”

This is a very bad plan. A very evil plan. I hope posterity sees how I tried to hinder it, by damning it with faint blessings.

God-Fearing Public: We can’t believe you approve of murdering the Medici brothers.

What do you want? I’m trying to stop the plan.

G-F P: Not in so many words?

“The Medici brothers are. . . .” Rafe continues.

“I’m more worried about that other project. And we seem to be short some funds.”

“Padrino’s coffers overflow.,” Jule chimes in.

“I do not mean that the Papacy itself is running short of funds. The cost of the new chapel, however, has been dear. Work has been suspended.”

“Have you checked the indulgence treasuries? I believe much gold rings in the casket. . .” says Rafe. And Jule finishes:

“. . .and to heaven many rescued souls do spring.”

A couple of wise guys!

“Uncle, do you think I could spell out how we could expand our influence in Florence before you discuss matters of the chapel? This is somethin’ that can’t wait.”

I smack Rafe on the forehead.

“We can discuss Florence any time. We are speaking about my legacy.”

“The Medici haven’t paid monthly tribute for a year,” says Jule, the unofficial Papal Enforcer.  “We gotta strike quickly. Wipe ‘em out before dey can defy de Family again.” 

“So tell me, padrino, where’s the cash flow problem?” asks Rafe.

“Indulgences had never been better, especially after we marketed the new splinters from the true cross. With the additional foreskins from John the Baptist. . .which reminds me of a joke I made up. I thought the boys would like it.”

“Can’t wait,” says Rafe.

“Do you know what John the Baptist and I have in common?”

They ignore me and go on and on how no one holds out on them.

“You want the chapel completed, uncle?”

YES.

“We’re stretched to da limit with indulgence things,” says Jule

I had an idea for indulgences and hoped to see it implemented.

“Is there any manner that we have NOT obtained monies from indulgences?”

“I believe we got covered all possibilities,” says Jule. “We even given ‘em to people for future sins dey commit. Even to those unborn. Nothin’ but junkie indulgence heaven out there. We provide a service. Da people wanna ‘void Poigatory.”

“What’s the next logical step, boys?”

Silence.

G-B P: What is it?

L-I P: You can’t hold back on us. We have to know.

Maybe in a later column.

“The Sardine always pulls that crap.”

[Go forth, Sixtus,] the punner from Down Under chimes in.