By Pat Cashman

I knew the U.S. visit of Pope Francis last week was big when I even saw news of it on those shows like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and TMZ. I can’t swear to it but I thought I heard the following on-air exchange between two perky hosts:

“I just love the white cassock Francis is wearing! Is that Prada?”
“Actually I’m told that it’s Armani. However, my sources say that the previous Pope went with Versace all the way.”
Growing up Catholic, popes were always a pretty big deal in my family. My mom had a couple of pictures of any current pope on the walls. There was a smaller one above the stove in her kitchen. (Coincidence or not, she never cooked a bad meal---at least never one that gave us stomach cramps.)

She also kept a bowl of dried flowers and spices in the living room that she liked to call Pope-pourri. (There was one pope that she didn’t like so much. For him, she kept a bowl of sour cream out for a week.)
When Thanksgiving rolled around, she allowed us to eat any part of the turkey we wanted---including the fatty rear. That particular part usually went to my visiting uncle---who coincidentally had a fatty rear.
But Mom would not abide ever calling that part “the pope’s nose.” She insisted the term was rude and insulting. (However, she eventually compromised calling it “the agnostic’s nose.”)

She bought my dad some “Pope Soap on a Rope” one Christmas. She hoped it would wash his sins away. But all he got from it was a rash.

My brother came up with the idea of turning a large size popcorn bag into a tall pope hat---and won a best costume contest at his school. Second place went to a kid who used a traffic cone.
I decided that someday becoming pope would be a really cool career goal. I didn’t know how much the gig paid, but I figured it had to be pretty good based on the cool car the pope rode around in. (Now that the latest pope has switched to a smallish Fiat, its appeal is diminished.)

While most popes have previously been cardinals, there were some that were not. On the other hand, Stan Musial was a great Cardinal---but was never considered for the papacy.

However, in 1513, Pope Leo X got the top job without even being a priest---so I imagined that I could still get the nod even I was a cowboy or an actuary. In fact, according to the history books, many of the early popes were more randy than the Kardashians---and some even killed people. Maybe they were sinner-intolerant.
Still, when I read that 30 of the first 31 popes had all become martyrs, I decided to aim my career plans in a different direction to something safer. Like lion taming, parachute testing or radio talk show hosting.
Yet, if a guy wanted a job with a lot of titles, he couldn’t do better than being pope. Among the pope’s alternate names: Vicar of Christ, Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy (which sounds vaguely like ‘Chief Monkey’), Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Vatican City State---and Supreme Pontiff. All of that would require a really big business card---and an enormous wallet.
The late Yogi Berra said he once encountered Pope John Paul II. It went like this:
POPE JOHN PAUL: “Hello, Yogi!”
YOGI: “Hello, Pope!”
It turns out the proper salutation is “Hello, your Holiness.” That seems pretty easy to remember---but it apparently didn’t come to mind for a local TV newswoman that I heard refer to the pontiff as “His Pope-iness.” She really did.

I wish my mom were still around to witness the amazing visit of Pope Francis. She wasn’t crazy about every pope, but she would have liked this one---especially his humility.
She never liked holy people who went around performing miracles all the time. “I like saints,” she’d say. “But I prefer the ones who just mostly prayed a lot---not the showboats.”

And she would have been OK about Pope Francis speaking up about supposedly non-church issues like the environment. She’d probably say, “He has a responsibility to talk
about that stuff. After all, if people don’t believe in climate change, they better hope they wind up in Heaven and not the other place.”

I hear Purgatory can get pretty warm too.

pat@patcashman.com
Pat can be seen on a brand new sketch show “Up Late NW” airing Saturdays on KING 5 and throughout Washington and Oregon. He also co-hosts weekly on-line talk show:www.Peculiarpodcast.com