In what Vatican officials are calling “an administrative faux pas,” 39-year-old Damo Thompson from Eaglehawk has been appointed the next Pope after his Bunnings fire pit let out a plume of white smoke.
Witnesses say Damo was burning off an old futon, a broken office chair, and “half a pallet I got from my cousin who works at Mitre 10,” when the thick white smoke billowed into the sky over Eaglehawk.
Locals initially assumed Damo was either cooking snags or burning evidence.
However, Vatican satellite monitoring equipment read the plume as a ceremonial signal indicating that a new Pope had been chosen.
Within minutes, cardinals descended upon Eaglehawk sanctifying Damo’s backyard with holy water from Lake Neangar.
“I thought it was the boys coming over for beers, next thing I know I’m in a Popemobile made from an old Holden Rodeo and I’ve got a ring on that doesn’t even open beer bottles,” said His Holiness Pope Damonius I, cracking a Carlton Dry during his first official sermon at the Eaglehawk Bowls Club.
Vatican spokesperson Father Luigi Oregano told The Bendigo Standard “the Lord moves in mysterious ways.”
“While it is unorthodox,” Oregano said, “Damo did show strong leadership qualities when he told the cardinals to ‘rack off’ until he finished his last Winnie Blue.”
“About time we had an Aussie Pope,” said Damo’s nan Liz. “And not one of them fancy ones either — one that knows how to reverse a boat trailer into a lake.”
More to come.
