The new Pope a prediction.

I was in Rome for the funeral of the last Pope - though to be honest I'm not at all minded by religious belief's. I just happened to book a trip to visit an exhibition of the artist Monet.  The last pope by coincidence timed his funeral at the same time. 

In this age where we have come to realise that women are not second class citizens. That they can have a place to play in all spheres of human endeavour. Take for example Aung San Suu Kyi who has become an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Burma. In 1991, a year after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming victory in an election - which the military junta later nullified, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee chairman, Francis Sejested, called her "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless."

Alternativly the example of a stunning story of survival and recovery. Malala Yousufzai a Pakistani teenager whom a Taliban gunman shot in the head. Who was nursed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Malala became famous for advocating that girls in Pakistan be educated -- which stoked the ire of her attackers -- She has proved her incredible strength by enduring two operations to repair her skull and restore her hearing. The bullet caused swelling in Malala's skull and a break in the delicate bones that help turn sound into sensory impulses to her brain. "God has given me this new life." Speaking for the first time since the shooting. "I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated." You can't help but be humbled by such courage in someone so young.

So in recognition of the new found equality that is no longer bound by gender discrimination. I predict that for the first time in a 1000 years since Pope Joan - a woman will be elected once again as Pope. The rumour runs that a very talented woman (Joan) dressed as a man, became notary to the Curia, then cardinal and finally Pope. One day Joan went out on horseback and gave birth to a son. For all her pains, Joan was then bound to the tail of a horse, dragged round the city, stoned to death by the mob, and was buried at the place where she died. its said that an inscription was put up at the same place. A Latin tongue twister that said: "Petre pater patrum papissae prodito partum". (Oh Peter, Father of Fathers, Betray the childbearing of the woman Pope)

I wonder if she will change the drapes?

Later...