Last week, I was reading about posthumous execution.

In a nutshell, a person dies, but you hate them so much that you have them dug up, desecrated, defiled and otherwise fucked up, just to make you feel better about yourself. Often, this would take the form of public “torture”, complete with mock trials.

For example, the Cadaver Synod of Pope Formosus in 897:

Pope Stephen VI, the successor of Boniface, influenced by Lambert and Agiltrude, sat in judgment of Formosus in 897, in what was called the Cadaver Synod. The corpse was disinterred, clad in papal vestments, and seated on a throne to face all the charges from John VIII. The verdict was that the deceased had been unworthy of the pontificate. The Damnatio memoriae, an old judicial practice from the Ancient Rome was applied to Formosus and all his measures and acts were annulled, and the orders conferred by him were declared invalid. The papal vestments were torn from his body, the three fingers from his right hand that he had used in consecrations were cut off and the corpse was thrown into the Tiber (and later retrieved by a monk). [source]

Good times, right? It’s even immortalized in art.

My current favorite is the exhumation and punishment of Oliver Cromwell’s corpse:

In 1661, Oliver Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution, as were the remains of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. (The body of Cromwell’s daughter was allowed to remain buried in the Abbey.) Symbolically, this took place on 30 January; the same date that Charles I had been executed. His body was hanged in chains at Tyburn. Finally, his disinterred body was thrown into a pit, while his severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. Afterwards the head changed hands several times, including the sale in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson,[88][89] before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.

Here’s his head:

An eyewitness, Samuel Sainthill wrote: “they were hanged by the neck from morning. Cromwell in a green seare cloth, very fresh embalmed; Ireton….hung like a dried rat.” Mmm, dried rat. NOM!

Benedict XVI gets my vote as the single most evil looking Pope ever. It doesn’t matter what you do to dress this guy up nice, he’s still fucking satanic looking. Slap a Santa hat on the little bugger and he still looks like he’s shooting evil death rays out of his eyes, frying little non-believers where they stand. This is the kind of guy who makes babies cry. He’d probably make me cry too, if I bumped into him in a dark alley. He looks like the kind of guy that skull-fucks the corpses of small animals.

I’ve spent this entire 3-day weekend, trapped indoors and waiting for someone to fix my window so there’s not this huge gaping hole looking into my bedroom. My landlord still has not returned my calls and this morning, the building’s Super carted off the broken window and I have no idea when the new one is coming. Now I have a wider, cleaner and safer gaping hole. No more jagged glass to impede your robberies. It’s fucking insane. I can’t go to work, much less anywhere like this.

Naturally, this experience is leaving me in a rather depressed state of mind. But, in moments like these, you have to look for the positive. Perhaps I have been chosen like that guy in Kansas that says he’s the Pope and that this bullshit is god’s message that I should grow a beard, wear camelhair sacks and preach the word of Our Lady of Agoraphobia. I could make some tablets out of cardboard and I should have a marker or two kicking around here. I could make some commandments and later on I could crucify myself to the refrigerator for good measure. Maybe, you never know. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep waiting.

True to his word, daveb has dispatched an email to Pope Benedict XVI. As to who actually reads or responds is anyone’s guess, but rest assured, if by chance any response is received, it will be dutifully posted.

Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:48:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: “pope_me amadeus”
Subject: Congrats Pope
To: benedictxvi@vatican.va

Hi Pope,

I just wanted to say thank you for being Pope. Maybe people make fun of you because Benedict is your name, but I like Benedict. If I see people make fun, I beat them with a stick. Maybe you should change it to Benny. Pope Benny is cool. You could wear sunglasses. Do you already? I like sunglasses but people tell me I look like a girl when I wear them and I have to beat them with a stick to make them go away.

I read somewhere that you like cookies and cats. So do I! That’s so cool. I really like it when my Mother makes cat shaped cookies. She tells me that she grinds up the neighbors cats and bakes them, but I think she is just making that up to keep me from eating so much. I weigh almost 380 pounds. Many people point and laugh at me saying I am a fat no good lard ass. It’s okay because I hit very hard with a stick.

Well I have to go and clean myself. I will write again soon. Oh, I don’t want to go to hell either. My mom says gluttony is one of the deadly sins but I tell her the doc told me it’s hormonal. I am doing the best that I can.

I will write again soon.

Your number one fan,
Pepe

Here’s hoping there’s a response!

This afternoon, daveb was thrilled to notice that the official Vatican website publishes the email address of the new Pope. Finally, a place to forward all those dirty office jokes, deranged drug-addled ramblings and illucid, slightly threatening and pronographic self portraits.

Granted, there’s likely a cadre of people that filter through the Pope’s email and it’s anone’s guess as to whether he actually responds or even reads them. But hey, fuck it. Daveb’s going to reach out and squeeeze the Pope.

In the meanwhile, feel free to contact him yourself. Email Pope Benedict XVI at benedictxvi@vatican.va.

Remember, Satan is our Lord and Master.

To be continued…

Yay, the Pope is toast, or soon to be anyway. Personally, daveb wonders if he didn’t die a couple years ago and they preserved him and everytime you see him on TV, behind the curtain is a cardinal with some wires and a car battery, making him dance. Pope-dude is hurting. He looks like an evil muppet and sounds fucking hilarious. Nothing brightens daveb’s evening like when on the news he hears, “On Sunday, the Pope blessed the masses and seemed at one point to be trying to speak…”. The camera zooms in on Ol’ Popey and you get a feeling he’s gonna say something momentous like “FUCK DA POLICE!” or come out of the closet as a transgender foot fetishist or something. But no, all you hear is, “GAAAGH AAGGH HHEGHK AGHH” and that’s it. So what’s he trying to say?

Daveb has spent an inordinate amount of time, using state-of-the-art vocal analysis equipment to decipher the Pope’s speech. While his results are not totally conclusive, he offers these possibilities:

Things Pope John Paul II is saying because he knows none of those Catholic bastards can understand him:

• “Is anyone here a swinger, possibly into rubber fetish?”
• I have to go to the bathroom, wait…nevermind.
• “Oy my balls itch.”
• “Okay, a Catholic, a Jew and a Protestant are in a bar…”
• “Help! I’m trapped in a Pope factory!”
• “I like big butts, no I will not lie. You other brothers can’t deny…”
• “Satan is my lord and master. Hail Satan!”

At times in his life, daveb wishes he was an professional evil wrestler. Not your average wrestling maniac, rather a pure fucking evil one. One so purely diabolical, no ring could contain him. Dressing in tights and a mask that just screams “Hit me, I’m evil”, he would terrorize the subways, dominate his office and strike terror into the hearts of puny human weaklings everywhere. His evil laugh would crack mirrors, cause babies to have seizures and cure herpes. Fuck being a good guy, daveb would be pile-driving the pope’s funny little hat right up his ass. He’d get all Darth Vader over the people of New York City. He’d need a utility belt, of course and maybe an attack-midget or two. Daveb doesn’t fuck around.