At a press conference in Rome this morning, Pope Benedict XVI has officially confessed that persistent rumours that he and most of his predecessors are Antichrist are in fact true. This shock revelation vindicates centuries of campaigning by evangelical groups in the US and Northern Ireland.
It has emerged that for at least five hundred years successive popes have all been working behind the veil of holiness to further the purposes of Satan on Earth. When this began is uncertain, though historians agree that it must have been before the time of Alexander II Borgia, whose pathological feasting, gambling and whoring are now seen as classic examples of displacement activity by a man who could not come to terms with his dual role.
Protestants from Cromwell to Ian Paisley have consistently asserted that the Bishop of Rome was the human personification of Satan, but now the present incumbent has finally put his hands up and declared ‘Yup, fair cop, you’ve got me banged to rights.’
Benedict apologised ‘whole-heartedly’ to Catholics across the world for having pretended to be the Vicar of Christ when in fact he consorted nightly with the hell-born spawn of Beelzebub. However, he insisted he had not known the truth until shortly after his election as Pope in April 2005. ‘I was stunned when the Keeper of the Keys told me this in a private briefing – it certainly isn’t what I came into the priesthood to do. I thought I was one of the good guys’ said the German-born pontiff and former Hitler Youth member. ‘But there’s no way to resign from the post and, well, I assumed if it was OK for the great John Paul II, it must be OK for a humble tiller in the fields of the Lord like me.’
In his early days, Benedict said, he was amused to see even non-Catholic MEPs rise up in anger when the Reverend Ian Paisley denounced him as Antichrist in Strasbourg. ‘I stood there thinking, if only you knew,’ he said. ‘But really I was a complete fraud and I’m glad that it’s all out in the open at last. Life-long celibacy is bad enough, but kissing the anuses of demons every night … eeeww…’