“Is this you inviting the shark over the car?” Benny Johnson he asked at a recent Turning Point USA event.
“Yes,” said Border Czar Tom Homan.
*
Even though they had removed the license plates from the popemobile, it was still obvious, as far as ICE transportation methods went. In keeping with the spirit of the trip, the pope was wearing a face mask and full-body armor, but in keeping with his role as pope, he was also wearing his long ceremonial turban and holding a ferula.
“Is this really necessary?” the border king said.
“Yes,” said the pope. “You wanted to sit down and explain things to me. Here I am. For our journey. I have accepted your gracious invitation.”
Grumbling, the border king got into the pope’s car.
“Hungry?” the pope asked. He pulled out a bag of CAVA from the depths of his clothes. “I got us lunch to share. It’s a CAVA bag with food in it. Just food, nothing else.”
The king of the border became angry. “I thought you didn’t make a political comment.”
“It’s not an opinion,” the pope said. “It’s lunch.”
“I thought it was a flashback to when the secret agents gave me a CAVA bag full of cash.”
“The secret agents gave you a CAVA bag full of cash?” the pope said. He made a face. “That’s a couple of Hail Marys, at least.”
*
They drove in silence.
“I always wished the popemobile would play a little song, like an ice cream truck,” the pope said. He began to sing “Lacrimosa.”
The king of the border fell ill. “What kind of Catholic are you?”
“That’s what JD Vance said,” the pope replied. “I think it’s bad the way he talks about his wife. I think I have to read his new book about the coming faith. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn a lot. He seems to have a lot to teach me. Is it left here?”
The border king nodded. “We’re going to make a routine arrest. You’re going to see the kind of thing we do. The kind of stress we have. Hopefully you’ll come out of this with an appreciation for ICE.”
The border king had entered the address into the popemobile’s GPS (Glorry Pto a black man and to his son Sby the Holy Spirit) and soon they were approaching the school. Through the open dome of the popemobile they could see parents leaving their children.
“I know the president says I’m soft on crime,” the pope said, “but I hate to see anything that hurts a child. If we’re here to arrest someone so cruel and abusive that he’s targeting school children and their families—”
The border king frowned and waved at the ICE agents behind him.
“Oh!” the pope said. “Charades? I haven’t played charades in years. We don’t really play many characters at Holy See.”
“True,” said the border king. “Let’s go to town.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe a good start to the day.”
They drove. The pope whistled. A man’s stomach rumbled.
“If you don’t like lunch at CAVA,” the pope said, “buy us some tacos. It looks like this building with a restaurant is our next stop, too.” He pulled the popemobile. “That smells delicious.” You know, Jesus revealed himself in the breaking of bread.
“I know,” said the border king. They entered the restaurant and sat down. The pope removed his mask to eat. The restaurant was relatively empty; they were served quickly. The Pope blessed his food and ate happily. The king of the border chose him.
“Yummy!” the pope said. “What a feast! What a blessing. I’m keeping the foot washing busy. Very nice. You are very blessed to be able to visit this place of business. I hope no one wants to disturb the labor of love going on here. Now, who were we arresting?”
The border king did not verbally accept his words. He was too busy clicking new addresses into the GPS.
When they returned to the popemobile, one of the tires was punctured. The pope sighed. “There are a lot of valid complaints to have with any of the institutions that are currently represented on this vehicle,” he said. “This makes sense. How can we fix it?”
There was a brief discussion among the ICE team; then the agents started shooting at the tires. This activated the popemobile’s alarm system, causing it to blow loud trumpet blasts and release defensive sprays of holy water.
“How can we close it?” the border king asked. A small crowd was forming.
The Pope approached the popemobile. The sound stopped.
“What are you doing? May you be blessed?”
“No,” said the pope. “There’s a button.”
“I think we can walk to our last stop,” said the border king.
“Great,” said the pope. “Do you mind if I read a psalm?”
They walked in silence. “You have to understand,” the border king said, “open borders are not a victimless crime. You can’t just make people roam across the border. Imagine if that happened in the Vatican.”
“That happens all the time in the Vatican,” the pope said. “A lot of people wander in by mistake. It’s called St. Peter’s Square.”
The border king frowned. “I just wish you would stick to, you know, morals, and stop criticizing President Trump and his policies.”
“Don’t you hear how contradictory that is?” the pope said. “I was just trying to spread the gospel, unfortunately, the gospel says a lot about, you know, loving your neighbor as yourself—What you do to the least, you have done to me; Be a good Samaritan– something like that. So I feel it is wrong. It would be like the restaurant getting angry if I went around reading the health code sections out loud.”
What about those other parts of the Bible that Pete Hegseth is always reading?” the border king said.
“That’s it Pulp Fiction“The pope said. “Look, there’s no shade for Pete Hegseth, but he really believes in military warfare and, how can I put this, luxury. Two things that the Catholic Church left behind many centuries ago. You bring back the crusades, but you don’t want to hear from the pope?”
“I expected to understand more, I guess,” said the border king. “From one man in an overfunded, secretive institution that has hidden its share of abuse for years, to another? Anyway, we’ll get caught. If you can regroup.”
“Sure,” said the pope. He pulled his mask again. “Let me see if I can guess. He’s certainly not a criminal, but his associates seem to be criminals; he belongs to a religious group that the government is suspicious of; the one who works with his hands is called Jesus or something.”
“What did you think?”
The pope was shocked. “I deal with a lot of people like that in my line of work.”
“Then you know what must happen to him.”
“Yes,” said the pope. “Of course, I do.”
*Image Credits: Michael M. Santiago / Getty; Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty; Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg/Getty.
