OMG! Pope Benedict has announced he will retire on Feb. 28, 2013.

When a CEO of a major multinational quits and gives just two weeks’ notice, everybody pricks up their ears. Those who can hear through the deafening and tasteless “Ding dong the witch is dead,” remix are wondering why the sudden papal exit?  Did the butler do it?  Was it the Nuns on the Bus?  Was it something unseemly on his Twitter account?  Was it the continuing revelations that something is rotten in the city of Los Angeles besides the Lakers?  Was it the Grammys?

The Pope said he’s “justus plumbius tuckered outum”.  Hillary is tired too, but I hope she’ll rest up and be back. My concern is that there are plenty of young Tea Party cardinal types all lined up and eager to continue the anti-woman, anti-gay ultra-orthodox drive toward purity that this retiring pope, always God’s Rottweiler, has sic’d on the Catholic Church.  The young ones think the Pope wasn’t strict enough.  They hate the sinner and the sin.

So let me say, if nominated I will not run. Lord knows I would give anything to hear NPR’s smoky-voiced correspondent from Rome, Sylvia Polgoli speak my name until the cardinals come home, but I am not tempted.  Pride is still a major sin in my Pre-Vatican II playbook.  And you know Donald Trump is considering throwing his hair in the ring.

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning almost thirty years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and eight presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime, scoundrel time and economic down times. Visit her at www.KateClinton.com.