[UA] I don't know if it's true, but it's funny.

[Budfannan]

I had heard that the rule of all body parts required to be Pope began in the
1700's when castration of young boys, just before there voice changed, to
create castratoris (sp?), became so popular in Italy that they feared a
dramatic reduction in birth numbers for the coming generation.  The singing
voices were wanted because they sounded female but had the strength of a
male.  The church especially thought they were beautiful for its choirs.
The choir of St. Peters Basilica was the greatest employer of these men.  To
send a public relations and learning tool to the masses that it was wrong to
do the Cardinals passed a bull requiring a candidate for the Pope to have
all of his body parts.  I don't believe anywhere does it specify that the
Pope need be a man.  It was just assumed in the Catholic Church that this
was a given.  Nor does it specify that he have to his testicles.  It just
states he must have all of his body parts.  I could be wrong though, I'm
just a religious/history/RPGing fan who is of the heretical UU faith.  So
who knows for sure.

Ian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edward Parsons" <edward-parsons at ntlworld.com>
To: "The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List" <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: [UA] I don't know if it's true, but it's funny.


> Weirdly, I think this one is sorta legit. As in, Pope Joan is at least an
> authentic legend, if not necisarily and authentic actual physcial
objective
> person. Her kid, btw, might have been a hideous monster, or that might
just
> be some Pale Pooch padding to the story from their old Dark Ages stuff-
> pretty interesting idea, however- a pope-birthed child would be the
ultimate
> afront to god.
>
> Actually, reminds me of the "Pope Enclosure" in Hell that Satan proudly
> shows of in the fantastic BBC radio comedy, Old Harry's Game (look it up
if
> you can find it- cannot overstate how good this is). All the popes are
> permanently heavily pregnat- cue lots of latin wailing.
> Gotta be some sort of horrible pseudo-alchemical symbolism there, right?
>
> Yrs Sincerely
> Edward Parsons
>
> "We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in
> the dream) and joyfully killed the Gods."
> - "Ragnarok" Jorge Luis Borges
>
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