Archbishop Viganò (and many others) has called on Pope Francis to resign. He won’t, of course; Francis is a stubborn old man and feels much put upon, merely because he has done what most, if not all, popes have done in handling problems in the church: Blame the messenger and look away.

In any case, we don’t know whom we might get next. It might be someone of Cardinal McCarrick’s ilk, or a favorite of “nighty-night, baby” Cardinal Tobin.
The learned and perspicacious John Bellairs reminds us of Old Anti-Catholic Canards, such as the Pope Joan story. He explains it in this way:

“Some foolish people believe there was once a female Pope who was elected by mistake. This story probably originated several years after the papacy of Ganymede V, a Pope of doubtful masculinity. This golden-haired, rather limp-wristed young man was elected in 1503, after an unusually long run of lecherous Popes; the feeling was that he would reverse the trend. The chronically anti-Catholic historian Furze calls Ganymede “a raving queen,’ but that indelicate epithet is unkindly used against this admittedly confused man, who had a habit of fainting into the arms of Leonardo da Vinci. It is true, of course, that Leonardo’s unfinished painting “Saint Sebastian Dying in a Bed of Zinnias” was inspired by the sight of Ganymede running through the Boboli Gardens, clad only in a kirtle of begonias. But all rumors, true or otherwise, should have stopped when Ganymede was found dead in his bed one summer day in 1505. He had been smothered by orchids, which were poured into the room by the skylight while he slept.”

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