#papacy

(Source)

"In the fourth vote, the ballots overwhelmingly shifted" to Cardinal Prevost, Cardinal You of South Korea said.

Cardinal Müller sat behind the American front-runner in the Sistine Chapel and noticed that he seemed calm. Cardinal Tagle, who sat next to Cardinal Prevost, noticed him taking deep breaths as votes amassed in his favor.

"I asked him, 'Do you want a candy?' and he said, 'Yes'," Cardinal Tagle said.

During one of the votes, Cardinal Tobin, as he held his ballot high and put it in the urn, turned and saw Cardinal Prevost, whom he had known for about 30 years.

"I took a look at Bob," Cardinal Tobin said, "and he had his head in his hands."

-- A fascinating inside-the-Sistine-Chapel look at the Conclave that elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, via the New York Times.

Italians two seconds after:

The Y1K bug was far more deadly than the Y2K bug but is far less known, probably because it was 1000 years prior and people lately don't even remember Y1918 bug enough to wear their damn masks.

To set the stage, in the year 999 the Holy Roman Empire was in full swing and the Papacy was not, leading to a time seriously called the "Pornocracy" which I want to stress is not a made up part of this post. The Abbasid Caliphate was also going strong and developing phenomenal architecture and medical science, which was not accepted in Europe where it might've helped because people were unfathomably racist and stupid back then. Thank goodness we now have more faith in science and racial and religious tolerance...

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Anyhow, in the year 1000 (🎵) much of the world used the "Julian" calendar instead of the more recent Gregorian calendar, likely because Pope Gregory XIII was only -500 years old, and these negative years were the least influential of his Papacy. Sadly, the Julian calendar only had three digit years, and when the sundials turned over to 1000, most of them would simply be expressed as 000, which would cause great confusion and possibly result in the birth of another Christ. Though this prospect appealed to people who wanted change and salvation, it did not appeal to then Pope Sylvester II, whose real name "Gerbert" is also not a made up part of this fact.

Pope Sylvester II, fresh from his dispute with Antipope Twiitybyrd I, was extraordinarily rich and was very concerned that with all the "don't be rich and give nothing to charity" stuff in the bible. Thank goodness we now care more for the poor and don't cut off aid to those who most need it to make our wealthiest man richer...

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He thus devised a plan to distribute his wealth to the poor and save himself from eternal damnation and yet more 1040 tax forms. When the sundials hit midnight on January 1, 1000, he would simply declare the year to be "999 2" to the chagrin of math enthusiasts everywhere.

The result was the Y1K bug, which despite all the crap above I can't think of any actual joke for so uh.