Emails from Hell, part seven.

When we left off from part six, the group of friends in Hell had grown to include the unnamed narrator; the Apostle John; Joe the Two-Spirit Native American; the Apostle Andrew; Mickey the gay man; Moses; Karl Marx (who thought he was Groucho); and now the woman Philomena.

{beginning of email}

            John took us all over to his telescope again.

            “I don’t think I want to see this again,” I said.

            But John swerved his telescope around to see a different part of Heaven.

            “I should have known there was more than one part of Heaven,” I said.

            I looked into the ocular of the telescope. I saw a bunch of old white-haired men sitting around with beatific and empty looks on their faces. Now, I tried to figure out what group of people could consist exclusively of old white men…

            “Popes!” I said.

            “You got it,” said John. “There is a special Heaven for popes. Nothing much happens there. They just sit around and watch white smoke coming from the Vatican chimney.”

            “Are they all there?”

            “No,” said a voice from behind me. “I didn’t-a make it-a.”

            Here was a Pope I actually recognized. Pope Francis!

            “What are you doing down here?” I exclaimed.

            “I had-a a master’s degree in chemistry and-a told everybody about-a the global warming and how it would hurt-a the poor people of the world-a,” he said.

            “That can’t be the only reason,” I said.

            “No-a,” he said. “I also asked-a for forgiveness for the Church-a.”

            “You mean, from the Church.”

            “No-a, I said-a, for the Church-a.”

            “For what?”

            Francis looked at Philomena. “Did-a this guy get-a his history education in-a Oklahoma?”

            “Okay,” I said. “Let me guess. Those Catholic conquistadores killed a lot of Native Americans. So your holiness…”

            “Don’t-a call me that.”

            “So you asked the Native Americans to forgive the Church for that. And, let me think. Oh, yeah. Catholics killed a lot of Protestants. Especially in France in the late middle ages. The French Catholics killed a lot of…who were they? Huge Nuts?”

            “Huguenots,” said Andrew.

            “St.Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and all that,” I said.

            “So you do-a know.”

            “When did you ask Protestants for forgiveness?”

            “The January of-a 2016.”

            “Did the Church-a, I mean the Church, get forgiven?”

            “The fundamentalists wouldn’t hear of it-a, and they’re-a pretty much in charge-a here.”

            “And so here you are,” I said. “It must be quite a shock.”

            “It’s-a not so bad here,” said Francis. “A lot of people here-a have issues to-a work-a through, and I enjoy-a helping them-a, just-a like I did-a back on Earth-a. Say-a, Philomena, we can have a little talk-a if you like.”

            “I would be happy to,” said the history teacher.

            “So, I’m-a doing about-a the same thing-a I did on Earth. I was-a happy then, and am-a happy now. So…” He drew himself up to full height and cleared his throat. “Don’t-a cry for me Argentina…”

{end of email}