Posted By BillHeise on March 26, 2010

Apparently Christopher Hitchens wants someone to arrest the Pope. Fair enough, but the Washington Post found someone to confound the question: “A pope can voluntarily resign, but it’s interesting… Who would take his resignation?”

They may be right, but a determined party can make it difficult for him. My church history says that if a pope oversteps his power, as did Boniface VIII did, there are measures that can be taken. Dante condemns Boniface to the eight circle of Hell, even though he wasn’t dead when Dante wrote his poem (but that didn’t stop a Dante, who was a great holder of grudges).

Sciarra Colonna (member of the medieval Collonas) had a little better luck. He tried to arrest him at “The Outrage at Anagni” (how great was history for entertainment before Pro Wrestling?) but, as our Vatican correspondent will tell you, he failed (but not before slapping the Pope really hard). The Pope obligingly died three weeks later.

Christopher Hitchens needs to find a new Sciarra, or he needs to man up and try to arrest Him himself.

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