It's like he's spat in the face of every catholic in the world.

Good work.

Hilariously, Louise Mensch is all upset and has tweeted this, noting that she's going to 'pray for the Holy Father'.

As if there weren't already enough reasons to consider her an idiot.

If the Pope needs praying for, I'm f'd!

What's the German for 'Oi god...take this job and shove it!'?

He's resigning due to age. So, they'll probably go for a young man in Papal terms. My money is on recent convert and one time young PM - Tony Blair. Just about cap his CV off that will.

What are the essential qualifications? I might throw my mitre into the ring - it looks like a right giggle.

Knew it all along.

I think he's retiring so he can spend his last years travelling around Africa injecting children with the AIDS virus. His campaign of lies, miseducation and banning condom use just wasn't getting the job done quickly enough.

Oi Gott! Nehmen Sie diesen Job an und schieben Sie ihn!

It's another one seen off by Ian Paisley

They'll never be on "du" terms if he talks like that to the boss.

Word is Peter Odemwingie has just turned up in Rome, ahead of a medical in order to become the new Pope - but the Vatican has denied all knowledge of a transfer, so he's sat in his car in the car park!!

At CERN they may have spent billions of pounds trying to find evidence of the existence of the Higgs Boson, but I believe if they allocated the next decade to assisting just me, doing nothing else, I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in this development.