DEATH OF THE POPE
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As of April 19, 2005, the Catholic church has a new pope. By an eerie coincidence, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has opted to call himself the same name I gave my fictional apostate pope in this story that was written in 2004--Pope Benedict XVI.
The differences between the real-life newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI and the fictional Pope Benedict XVI of my story are, thankfully, huge. For starters, the real-life Pope Benedict is a German and the fictional Pope Benedict in my story is Italian. The real-life Pope Benedict is a conservative Catholic; the fictional Pope Benedict in "Death of the Pope" is a New Age apostate. What kind of pope the real-life Pope Benedict XVI will turn out to be, only time will tell--if his history is any consideration, he will chart a conservative course for the Catholic church as Pope John Paul II did. In the meantime, we can only watch and see. K.G.