If elected pope …

This year, for Halloween, I was going to go as pope but decided that that would be irreverent. So rather than going as pope, I’m going to run for pope instead.

My campaign strategy is simple, really. Of the 6 billion people on this planet, only about a billion are Catholic. I’m going to go after the non-Catholic vote. As a previously ignored majority, I figure it should be easy to win their vote.

I’ve got in mind a number of changes. One is to revisit the policy towards women. Traditional religions have been notorious in their treatment of women – relegating them to lesser positions and silencing them in churches even though they show up in greater numbers than men. To help signal the kind of changes that I will champion, I intend to change their names from Nuns to Sums.

Concerned with rising obesity levels, I’m changing the name of the Sunday service from Mass to Form and will be using new high-fiber wafers and sugar-free wine.

It’s time to reach out to the Baby Boomers. They’re nearing retirement age and their minds are beginning to drift towards thoughts of their own mortality. They are ripe for conversion. Taking the name of Pope John Paul George Ringo, I feel that my papacy would be specially suited to that mission.

Along those lines, it seems time to end religious intolerance. Religious wars, speaking out about the hell-bent direction of those of other faiths, and the dismissal of “heretical” beliefs just makes the world a more dangerous place. With this in mind, it’s time to let non-Catholics be Catholic. I have my lawyers working on the details of how this could be logically possible, but it seems that if even non-Catholics were Catholic, it would be harder to perpetuate religious hatred. Imagine how disoriented and impotent Muslim fundamentalists would feel if they suddenly learned that they, too, were Catholic. My first papal bull would be to declare everyone Catholic (and as a parenthetical, acknowledge that Albert Pujols is the world's most popular Cardinal).

Please remember me on November 7. I have to admit that my candidacy is not motivated only by a vision of a better world. Outside of the amazing art collection, it seems as though the two best perks of the job are infallibility and getting to wear a cape – something I used to think reserved only for superheroes.