Panic as Penultimate Pope 'rushed to hospital'

We at Doom Towers don't believe in the end of the world. You might think that's odd for a bunch of people who produce a magazine about the end of the world but from the general tone of this blog it shouldn't really come as much of a surprise.

Yet even we, with all our sneering and cynicism, felt our hearts jump into our throats when we saw the 'Pope rushed to hospital' headlines pop up a few hours ago. Y'see, we've been watching Pope Benedict for a while now and, well, we've been praying that he avoids a ... somewhat untimely fate.

For according to the so-called Prophecy of St Malachi, Joseph Ratzinger is due for a very short stint in the top job. As reported in The End is Nigh #3, Malachi supposedly penned a list of all the popes "up till the Second Coming". When Ratzinger was elected in 2005 he became, according to that list, the 'penultimate pope' - the last before the final pope, who would either be the Antichrist or the one ushered him in.

There is plenty of evidence that the list was made up long after Malachi died (not the least of it being that it's remarkably cryptic and requires quite a stretch of the imagination to 'fit' each pope to their description), but if you're a believer then you'd know that Ratzinger would supposedly reign only for a short time before dying.

And, since he's only been in post since '05, we ... well ... we were worried for a moment there.

Luckily, we stopped panicking when we saw this - turns out he just had a bit of a spill.



Phew.