The Pontiff

His Holiness Pope Linus II occupies the Non-Authoritative See of St. Grape. The see has no territory, one folding table, and a consistent view that a blessing should be able to travel.

He was elected by three people, a dog who was not voting, and a sense that the mail had been under-pastored. No nuncio attended. A nuncio was invited, in the way one invites a nuncio when one does not have a nuncio’s address.

The blessing

Lots are presented in the crate, not as theater. His Holiness makes the sign he makes, says the words he says, and writes the lot number in a book that is also the packing log. He is careful with glass. He is less careful with titles.

The blessing does not create a diocese. It does not settle a Reformation. It does not move a customs code from one column to another. It is, as he puts it, “the available holiness for a box.”

Correspondence with other sees

We have sent courteous letters. We have received no courteous letters back, which His Holiness interprets as a full calendar and not as a judgment. He prays for those calendars. Then he blesses the next crate.

If you require an authoritative pope, you already know where to look, and it is not this catalog. If you require a man who will bless yeast packets without irony in his hands, you are in the right house.