Chelsea Quinn Yarbro wrote a book called “Magnificat” in which a Chinese woman is elected Pope. It’s been a while since I read it, so I can’t recall the machinations involved, but I did like it.
Of course there is the ultimate Pope - John XXIX (maybe) from Graham Greene’s short story, The Last Word.
Fran Lebowitz gave us the laid-back Pope Ron. (His motto: INFALLIBLE BUT NOT INFLEXIBLE.)
I forgot one from the Babylon 5 spinoff, Crusade. A news broadcast has video of a papal procession, not close enough to see the Pope’s features, and the name Pope Bernadette II.
The plot to the buddy cop/dog Chuck Norris film Top Dog involved white supremacists wanting to assassinate the unnamed Pope who is to speak at a “Coalition for Racial Unity”
The ending has the titular Top Dog grab the Pope’s scarf and accidentally pull him to the ground.
Female popes are popular in futuristic settings. Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire post-apocalyptic fantasy books have one too - unfortunately, she’s as venal and corrupt as her Borgia predecessor, and is ultimately dispatched in a fairly horrific manner.
And if the real pope ever meets the anti-pope?
If we’re going with antipopes, there’s Pope Michael of Kansas:
I think it would be like the end of Timecop.
Of course Lexx had Pope Genevieve I (Giggerota the Wicked in a past life) in season 4.
The particular future Pope’s name was not given, but in Woody Allen’s Sleeper we see a newspaper headline ‘Pope’s wife has twins’.
It’s been years since I read it, but I believe Paul Gallico’s The Small Miracle has an unnamed Pope, who intercedes on the protagonists’ behalf.
There was the one about the Catholic head honcho who had all the answers to life’s questions. It was called The Straight Pope, if I’m not mistaken.
Later canonized as Saint Cecil
IIRC, Cecil has in fact made reference to being Catholic.
Well if he was the pope it stands to reason, now we just need to verify the rumors about the bears…
Pope Cecil? Why, that’s Hilarius!
No, Hilarius II was the one before him.
That was a fun little movie even though Chevy Chase was in it. A chase scene choreographed to songs from The Mikado is a wonderful thing.
Esme says, “Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh!”