Were the Pope and His Boss not Getting Along?

According to the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI resigned for health reasons. However, this reporter has learned that there may be more to the story.

RIGHT: Pope Benedict XVI tenders his resignation. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Traditionally, the Pope and his Immediate Superior have shared authority, with infallibility being assigned to His Holiness while omniscience and omnipotence remained in the hands of The Almighty. Of late, however, Pope Benedict became concerned that God was beginning to delegate some of his authority to other figures while bypassing the Papal Office.

According to confidential sources who no longer personally attend to the Pope, Benedict complained that information technology was now putting omniscience increasingly within the hands of the U.S. National Security Agency and its suppliers in Israel. With the completion later this year of the NSA Utah Data Center (UDS), a $15 billion high security complex in southern Utah, every email, electronic transaction, phone conversation or electronic record of any kind will be accessible in a unified format, allowing the intelligence agencies to know almost anything they want to know and at any time about anyone in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world, as well. As suppliers of much of the information technologies on which the UDS is based, it is believed that Israel has a similar capability.

The Pope first became concerned with the passage of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permitted not only the collection of the information, but its use without a search warrant, such that the individual would not even know that she was being studied. His Holiness objected that such power in the hands of fallible humans might be misused and that errors could be made through faulty or even malicious interpretation of the information. He argued that such powers should rest only with God or at least with His only infallible subordinate. He was therefore distraught that his recommendation seemed bring no change.

Pope Benedict was even more concerned that omnipotence itself was being compromised, primarily through the use of drones. Initially, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) were used for medium altitude intelligence gathering. More recently, however, they have been miniaturized to the extent that they may be able to hover outside a window or even inside some structures. More ominously, the larger drones are capable of firing missiles that can destroy selected targets almost anywhere in the world from the comfort of a lounge chair thousands of miles away. The U.S. President now has weekly meetings to decide whose life should be ended and when. His Holiness has argued that it is better for The Almighty not to delegate that power.

The Pope is also worried that God has been asking to be addressed by his first name, Jehovah. Ordinarily, this might be considered a sign of friendliness. However, given the other developments, Benedict is wondering if this means that God is reverting to his Old Testament ways and giving license to Zionists to ethnically cleanse other peoples, thereby giving away even more of His omnipotence. He points to Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank as examples, and to the fact that the world is using information technology platforms and software that bear Israeli patents. The same is true for drone technology.

Is the Pope becoming paranoid and a conspiracy theorist? Difficult to say. However, he suspects that if things continue on the same track, his resignation is only the beginning and that before long God Himself may resign.