Fone Forum

There were two Roman Catholic boys, Timothy Murphy and Antonio Secola ...
... whose lives paralleled each other in amazing ways. In the same year Timothy was born in Ireland, Antonio was born in Italy. Faithfully, they attended parochial school from kindergarten through their senior year in High School.

They took their vows to enter the priesthood early in college, and upon graduation became priests. Their priestly careers have come to amaze the world, but it was generally acknowledged that Antonio was just a cut above Timothy in all respects. Their rise through the ranks of Bishop, Archbishop, and finally Cardinal was meteoric to say the least, and the Catholic world knew that when the present Pope died, it would be either Timothy or Antonio who would become the next Pope.

In time the Pope did die, and the College of Cardinals went to work. In less time than anyone expected smoke rose from the chimney and the world waited to see who they had chosen.

The world, Catholic, Protestant and secular, was surprised to learn that Timothy Murphy had been elected Pope. Antonio was beyond surprise, he was devastated because, even with all Timothy's giftedness, Antonio knew he was the better qualified.

With a gall that shocked the Cardinals, Antonio asked for a private session with them in which he candidly asked, "Why Timothy?'

After long silence one old Cardinal took pity on the bewildered Antonio and rose to reply, "We knew you were the better of the two, but we just could not bear the thought of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church being called Pope Secola."

Excellent! Thanks for that one, BJ.! ;D

 ;D.........LOL........... Pope Secola..... ;D

Can someone please explain me SECOLA!
(sorry for my lack of knowledge!)

No need to apologise. I would think gb is referring to papal secularity...

Really?    :-\

Might the explanation not be far simpler - that they didn't want to appoint a "Pope Century"?   ;)

BTW, was the spell checker not available when you posted dlR?   :-\

Have I taken it too far then?? LOL :D
No, the spell checker wasn't available as I used OperaMini to post it.

It is good to see a gentle leg pull by HiPD being taken in good spirit by delaro.  Congratulations to you both for your contributions.        :-\

I can confirm that the spell checker may not be available when posting from a mobile using Operamini.  It can sometimes be useful to use the native browser instead - if you have an advanced Symbian model.

I will also experiment with using Operamobile for Symbian the next time I use my 6120 classic.  It may be that offers more sophisticated options.       ;)

( BTW dlR you need to double the r, not the f, in referring. )       ;)