Pope Reassigned to Uranus
Writer, Editor Remain at Odds Over Rehashed "Uranus" Joke

5/4/02 - Church officials absolutely baffled parishioners and everyone else for that matter when it announced that Pope John Paul II was aboard a Delta II rocket launched last month, also containing an orbiting satellite with dozens of atmospheric measuring pods for a full and thorough probe of Uranus.

An artist's rendition of the 'All New Uranus Satellite' in its final approach of Uranus, with probes extending from the spacecraft's chassis in their pre-launch position. Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II, still within the confines of the Satellite, prepares to also be discharged into the dark, dry atmosphere of Uranus. The artist, along with the writer and interns at Humor Is Dead, were hard-pressed to create any story that was more surreal than the current state of the Catholic Church.

As named by interns at JPL, the 'All New Uranus Satellite' is expected to follow the 'Herschel Highway', a trajectory named in honor of the planet's discoverer, putting the space probe at the gas giant's back door by 2015, at which time it will drop it's payload of scientific instruments and Pontiff, all of which are expected to make a fiery entry into Uranus's dark, dry atmosphere.

NASA officials, seemingly playing ball with the story, issued a statement stating "Yah, he's in there all right. Popemobile too."

A spokesman for an unknown higher power in the Catholic Church said that Earth's Pope was being reassigned to Uranus, the distant planet not known to harbor any life.

The Catholic Church, now acknowledging that it is embarrassingly and ridiculously obvious that the Earth is not the center of the universe, has made the bold assumption that the Church, being the one true religion, must therefore have a hierarchy above and beyond the Earthling Pope John Paul II. Popes, now believed to be assigned to all heavenly bodies, report to a "solar pope" the Pope assigned to a planetary system's star, in our case, the Sun Pope. Sun Popes, in turn, report to a Galactic Pope, and so forth up the chain of command in the known universe.

"Honestly, what the hell is going on?" exclaimed one worshiper/cultist at St. Peter's Basilica after the announcement. "The pedophilia scandal has now ridden all the way up to the Archdiocese of the Solar System? This could go galactic!"

The announcement from The Vatican seems to have put a significant acceleration in the number of recent Catholic Church dropouts. At last poll, the number of remaining parishioners closely matched the attendance, and the creditability, of your average Star Trek convention. Coincidentally, several Cardinals recently held a news conference at just such a convention.

"Popes assigned to planets without life really do not have all that much to do," reported Hong Kong Cardinal John Baptist Wu, when asked rather sarcastically by the gathered Trekkies what Popes do on uninhabited planets. As for why, Wu replied, "God is somewhat of a prankster. Besides, he's probably angry at scientists and the other nonbelievers for naming planets in this solar system after other Gods. It's blasphemy. I think he chose Uranus to shame us."