What would you do if, against all odds, you were elected Pope?

Ooh ooh this’ll be fun sure let’s go

• Excommunicate Joe Biden, JD Vance, and any other prominent Catholics in positions of power who have even passively supported Israel

• Remind people that charging interest is a sin and will prevent your entry into heaven. You must confess and atone, giving back all interest charged to your victims.

• It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We’re gonna be saying that a lot. If you have wealth, the only way to salvation is to give up all of your wealth. If you give it to the church the church will make sure your needs are met.

• Declare Israel an enemy of.. humanity? Christendom? Not exactly sure on what wording would be best for the pope. But either way call on all Christian nations to use military force to end the criminal Israeli occupation of the Holy Land, and all Christians to oppose Israel through boycotts, divestment, and even violent action.

• You know those groups that have been doxxing anti-genocide activists? The Catholic Church will now be doing that for Israelis, and especially IDF members. If you are IDF or former IDF and you are outside of Israel, you should be worried about seeing your face on a billboard outside the local Catholic Church with your name and address and a list of your war crimes. Catholic followers should be encouraged that should they do something violent to these Nazis, God will commend them.

• Unironically we’re doing what another user said, straight marriage is still banned but priests are now allowed to marry other men

• We’re fixing homelessness. Temporarily we can use space in existing churches as shelters, but we will also build lots of housing that is rented at or below cost. This housing will also have communal dining halls with freely provided meals.

• Birth control and abortion are cool and good

• Unmarried sex is also cool and good just use protection

• Being gay or trans is also cool and good

• Some sort of declaration on the rights of children

• Speaking individually to each of the 6 Catholic members of the U.S. Supreme Court and showing them the secret footage of the JFK assassination where you watch his soul go straight to hell after and making sure we’re on the same page. If they’re not, I am willing to stage at least one of them getting angry and making an attempt on my life so the Swiss Guard had to merc them. Probably Alito.

• Declare using generative AI and LLMs a sin

• Make all archives about collaboration with Nazis, the CIA or other similar organizations publicly available

• Excommunicate all members of the church involved in coverups of child abuse

• Speak to Luigi Mangione. Declare him a political prisoner and a hero of the world, calling for his release. If the US still goes all the way to executing him, he will be immediately canonized as a saint.

• I would say cats can go to heaven but Francis already did that one, hell yeah

• Climate change is God’s punishment for capitalism. We must follow the lead of the People’s Republic of China to fully decarbonize the world economy and prevent this destruction of God’s creation. Declare the oil industries sinful, excommunicate anyone who refuses to quit their job for an oil company.

Join the war on Christmas. Against Christmas.

allow gay marriage among the clergy but still forbid hetero marriage for the clergy.

• Just be a gnostic, really. All the chuds that wear crosses will be excommunicated as demon worshippers
• Consider pride to be the ultimate sin, which is the root of all evil. Discrimination? That’s the sin of pride as you see yourself as superior to anyone. Idiots like coal rollers? That is also the sin of pride for literally putting your comforts, and therefore your ego above pollution
• Sustainability will be my upmost concern. Yes, while the goal is to transcend this material world, it is our duty to not make the material world any more painful than it already is
• Cuba will be declared as the state that has served God the best.
• I’ll give a shout-out to transcendentalist movements and also quakers for having the Catholic Church’s respect.

I would move to china and use my papal authority to become chinese

I'm not a Christian let alone a Catholic so it sounds like a bit of a tall order for them to pick me but...

• Does the pope still have the authority to declare a state to be the Holy Roman Empire? I'd start handing out Jesus powers to random states see what happens.
• Eat all the saintly relics to absorb their power, becoming an unkillable super-pope.
• There's, like, enough alleged splinters of the true cross lying around to make at least two man sized crucifixes. I'd keep one around in case Jesus does come back and he turns out to be a bit of a wanker.
• Reform Vatican law so that the next pope is chosen via some sorta contest of skill, like a Quake tournament, a rap battle, or a hotdog eating contest.
• To catch the attention of a new generation of converts we're gonna need to build brand recognition. Two Words: Fortnite collaboration.
• Order the construction of even larger, goofier looking hat, in order to broadcast my stature as the cool pope.
• The bulletproof glass box on the popemobile is not enough, mount a gun emplacement on there instead so I can shoot back.
• Construction of some sorta nonce oubliette, thorough investigation of which priests we seal away down there.

Aside from being the maoist pope, of course.

the catholic uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

• Declare Gnosticism is no longer heresy
• Absolve my entire family for the sole purpose of excommunicating the members I don't like
• Dig up a bunch of other popes and put them on trial for failure to condemn genocide, nullify their papacy
• Make a weird new calendar system, ensuring my name is remembered forever

i have a list

• go hard on the anti-rich parts of the bible
• excommunicate everyone with more than $1 million individually
• decree that all bishops must only move diagonally
• call a crusade on utah
• make the swiss guards do a little dance
• be assassinated

Fire/arrest all the priests in the world, turn churches into community centers and museums, kick some old fascist in the balls

1. use some extraordinarily flimsy theological justification to claim that in addition to the holy trinity, the ancient gods of Rome are also aspects of God and resume worship of the pagan gods of the Roman republic and early empire
2. call for a crusade against Israel to liberate the Palestinian people in the name of Christ Jupiter
3. canonize every vaguely important communist who ever lived
4. issue a papal bull declaring that cis people will not see the light of the kingdom of heaven (this is already true but it needs to be written down)
5. tell the swiss guard that they're doing great and i love them and their pikes and jaunty outfits
6. hold a triumph. i don't know for who or why but i want a goddamn triumph
7. change my title to Callipygous Optimus Maximus, Imperatrix EstraDoll I

I'd call for the Catholic doctrine to have a ban on heterosexuality

You know what I'd do

Wdym despite all odds, I thought I had a decent shot

Hawaii Shirt Friday.

edit: Actually no, you know what? I'm bringing 1950s Tiki Culture back. Catholicism should be more tropical and fun.