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| He's somewhere down there |
QUITO, ECUADOR, July 6 (AP) – At an outdoor rally earlier today, Pope Francis put down his prepared address, turned ad orientem and suddenly sprinted into the surrounding jungle, leaving behind a crowd of stunned onlookers. Twelve hours later he had not returned and was presumed permanently lost in the vast Amazon rainforest.
Swiss Guards Follow
Members of the Pope's elite traveling Swiss guard were quickly handed machetes by local police and pursued the fleeing Pontiff, but after two hundred yards of frantic hacking could proceed no further through the dense natural growth. One mentioned catching a distant glimpse of the Pope's white cassock as it flitted further in.
Possible Motives
Only last week, Pope Francis had indicated that he didn't think the Papacy should be a permanent entitlement. In addition, close associates have mentioned the effect that months of advising and reviewing Laudato Si had on the environmentally conscious prelate. In that recently released encyclical, the value and worth of a pre-industrial situation, especially one involving trees, was emphasized again and again. Other witnesses reported that the Bishop of Rome had been intensively chewing coca leaves only a few hours before.
Where's Papa?
Souvenir hawkers were disappointed. "Where's Papa?" complained one, stuck with three-hundred wooden crosses with plastic Pope Francis heads glued onto the top. Another salesperson, manning a stand draped with "Who am I to judge?" t-shirts, said the Pope was a selfish bishop who had let them down.
Those familiar with the nearby topography said it was impossible to estimate in what precise area of the forest the Pope might currently be. "It's like looking for a miniature aspergill in a haystack," said one natural scientist. When informed that the Pope was still probably wearing his cassock, he replied, "Okay, so it's like looking for a miniature white aspergill in a haystack. Same thing."
Given the extreme biodiversity of the forest, there are no worries that the Pope will be without nourishment or even without a more than adequate menu of useful medicines and drugs for the indefinite future.
Historical Precedent
Though a handful of Popes have resigned voluntarily – including Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI – and a handful more have been deposed by force, there has been no reported incident of a Pope intentionally losing himself in a wooded area. The closest similarities are Linus V jumping into the Tiber to avoid debt collectors and Pope John Paul II secretly sneaking out on a full week's calendar of official meetings to go skiing in the Alps.
Conservative Backlash
Traditionalists jumped on the Papal action, branding what now is being called the Pope's "Amazon gambit" as embodying material if not formal heresy. Rumors are swirling that prior arrangements had been made to link up with a hitherto undiscovered tribe, which, according to anthropologists, worshiped helicopters. This was denied by a Vatican spokesman who claimed that members of the tribe in question were merely Pentecostalists.
Uncharacteristically, Mark Shea was silent.
