Trump Demands Traditional Imperial Veto Power Over Conclave
"I just don’t want one of those radical left lunatics, ok?"
Donald Trump, the Ecumenical President of the United States and Nominally of Canada, Greenland, Panama, Gaza, and the Occupied Mexican Territories, was interviewed today about what he hopes will be the outcome of the coming papal conclave.
Trump, as would be expected, hopes to become Pope himself, but failing the cardinals selecting him directly, demanded “at least a veto right over whomever the cardinals might choose to elect.” He’s referring to a historical Catholic practice up to as recently as 1903, where the ruling imperial Catholic emperor could veto a valid election and prevent a cardinal’s election.
“I wouldn’t use it to control the result,” Trump commented. “I just don’t want those cardinals to elect another radical left lunatic like the last guy, right? That time was so bad for the Church and the stock market. We need to prevent that from happening again, right? Since I’m basically the emperor king over the world’s imperial power right now, doesn’t that mean that I get the right to veto any silly choice they might make? Rome’s in Italy, Italy’s in NATO, and we pay more than our fair share to keep NATO going. It means we defend Rome and the papacy right now without getting paid back for it, and we’re the imperial power over and above the Vatican. We’ve actually been screwed over completely by the Vatican in trade for the last sixty years. We export nothing to them, they export the Bogus Ordo and theological liberalism. Terrible trade. Horrible. It would only be fair if I got the right to veto whoever they might choose. Maybe if they give that power to me, I'll take the tariffs off of the Vatican and off their ol’ ‘bogus ordo’? Hmm, I’d sure like to see that. The Cardinals know the right choice they need to make. Give me the veto and I’ll help them out, right?”
Trump later clarified his comments, adding, “I’ll take Cardinal Dolan, I’ll take Zuppi, I’ll even take that dancing Filipino guy Tagle. I’m even open to a cardinal who voted for Mitt Romney. I just don’t want one of those radical left lunatics, ok?”
Unfortunately for Trump’s claim to be the universal emperor, Eduard Habsburg, heir to the Habsburg dynasty (Holy Roman Empire) and current Ambassador of Hungary to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, is at the very least Catholic and has a better claim to this abrogated custom of veto power for Catholic monarchs.
Given that Trump is on most issues more woke, modernist, and leftist than even Pope Francis, Eduard Habsburg would also probably be a far better influence on the conclave than any influence that might come from a hypothetical Trump veto power.
Meanwhile, even while it’s questionable whether he can recreate this power by himself, the Cardinal Secretary of State of the Vatican, Cardinal Parolin, reported papabile, has supposedly offered French President Emmanuel Macron this veto power, in order to ensure that Parolin himself will get elected in next week’s conclave.