"To the popemobile...!"

A belated April Fools'...

In response to security concerns arising from recent al Qaeda threats to the person of the Holy Father, and equally to the alarming news that the number of Moslems worldwide has just exceeded (for the first time) the number of Catholics, researchers at the Vatican’s high-tech Apostolic Institute for Experimental Laboratories—a Jesuit congregation founded in 1692—have announced plans to “update and entirely re-imagine” the rather homely, bullet-proof “Popemobile” in use since the 1980s. Archbishop Arlecchino de Favole, S.J., secretary of the Congregation told the Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano this Sunday.

“While the current design will deflect most modern munitions, including armor-piercing bullets, it leaves the Holy Father vulnerable to shoulder-fired missiles, grenades, and biological attacks,” said the 78-year-old physicist, a veteran of Charles De Gaulle’s successful quest for an independent French nuclear deterrent.

“And that is simply unacceptable.”

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