Greetings, parish orphans, and retrogrades.

Breaking yesterday was an interesting story about Pope Francis, allegedly to promulgate a new

apostolic constitution in the very near future, which will abrogate the usage of Pope Benedict the 16th term,

Pope Emeritus.

This is a very interesting story, and it was broken by Vaticanista, an Italian named Antonietta Calabro.

It's been expounded upon by other Vaticanistas, better known ones,

like the American John Allen from Crux, and my personal favorite of all Vaticanistas,

Antonio Sochi, as having more interesting implications than even those implications which would reach

the inter papal relations, I guess the intra-papal relations between Pope Benedict

the 16th and Pope Francis.

Here's what John Allen and Antonio Sochi think it might be an August surprise.

Now, I'm not endorsing this view, but I want to unpack the relative merits,

yay or nay, as to whether or not this would be considered an August surprise.

What is an August surprise?

Well, John Allen, who understands American politics very well, is likening it to an

October surprise, which is a political hack trick from the campaign used the month before a regime change through a vote.

Right. We have votes for major elections in November in America representing a regime change.

And October surprise are last minute major events that shake up

the political landscape weeks before the vote, which will change the regime. So John Allen is saying

that if Pope Francis truly releases this apostolic constitution,

which would abrogate the idea of a,

uh,

...