The Pope is dead. Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, the Jesuit reformer, the guy who blessed gay couples and pissed off conservatives, dropped dead on Easter Monday.
So what happens now? This episode digs into the aftermath: the secretive conclave to elect his successor (where the frontrunner is an Italian bureaucrat named Pietro Parolin with tasty betting odds), the Vatican’s long history of financial scandals (ever heard of "God’s Banker" hanging under a bridge with rocks in his pockets?)
Also, I’m back from Washington DC, where I finished my play, nearly got Ollie arrested for vomiting in the White House, and learned that Capitol security considers sunscreen a threat to their national security.