Trump vs Raila: The battle for the papal throne

The world seems topsy-turvy at the moment. Stereotypes and assumptions are being turned on their heads, and we all have to adapt and adjust where possible, or find ourselves left with our mouths agape at the madness.

Taking advantage of this global haphazardness, I scored myself a lift to the Vatican on a private matatu jet. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. 

The flight took off from Malindi Airport and on it were the members of a not-so-secret campaign team, the Sons of St Adonijah, sponsored by fans of former PM Raila Odinga.

This group of people are convinced that they have a winning formula to get their man the top job within the Catholic Church.

Their only rivals are from a US organisation, the Order of St Upid. Their sole mission is to see President Donald Trump take on a second job as Pope. When I arrived, I found this bunch had already set up camp outside the gates of Vatican City.

The two delegations arrived ahead of most of the cardinals who from Wednesday, May 7, would be huddled together in a fancy chemistry lab, burning pieces of paper with the intent of producing white smoke as opposed to black smoke.

The princes of the church have been doing their utmost to ignore the campaigners from the order of St Adonijah and those from the order of St Upid. 

If by the time you read this neither Raila nor Trump have been elected Pope, you will know they succeeded in locking them out of the race. But as I file this news copy, the contest is wide open. 

Technically, any rational baptised Catholic male can be elected Pope. The candidate picked does not have to be a cardinal, though it has been more than 500 years since a non-cardinal was elected.

In fact, the candidate can also be a layman (women are still barred), but he must be willing to be ordained a bishop at the last minute before assuming the papacy, if he isn’t one already.

So far, neither Trump nor Raila seem to have any issue with this, and there are unconfirmed reports from both camps that their candidates have converted to Catholicism in preparation.

If either man is elected, it will be a development no theologian or constitutional lawyer saw coming. However, it is one which those of us who share memes on social media could have told them about immediately Pope Francis arrived at St Peter’s Gate.

A message on Trump’s Truth Social said the St Upid people had cited “a need for fresh marketing strategies and geopolitical diversity” as their reasons for putting up their candidate.

They say their agenda for the Vatican, also known as Project 2025 (b), is to build a “big, beautiful wall” around the Vatican to keep out what they vaguely referred to as “non-saintly types”.

Meanwhile, my mole from the St Adonijah group told me that they were aware that for a weighty consideration, the cardinals would be willing to throw tradition into the Tiber, and open the Holy See to external applicants.

They said their man was rigged out of power in 2007, 2013, 2017, 2022 and in Addis this year, but that they would not concede the Holy See without a proper audit of the smoke signals.

I am reliably informed by my Vatican Deep Throat that the papacy, previously known for demanding celibacy, humility and fluency in Latin, is now apparently seeking someone with charisma, name recognition and a sizeable Twitter following.

I met this confidante during a smoke break in the shade of the Vatican’s colonnades. Furthermore, I could tell he was cardinal by his black cassock and red cap.

As I left the Vatican for a secret location at a construction site in Langata to await the outcome of the vote, I had one question on my mind: Would the Vatican opt for Trump’s divine deal-making and golf-course chapels, or Raila’s liberation theology, complete with mass rallies and liturgical reggae?

One thing is certain, the smoke rising from the chimney this time might not be white, it might be orange, or even red, gold and green.