h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As I understand it (I am not a Catholic) once a Pope is elected, he remains the Pope for the rest of his life. What happens if the elected Pope become incompetent to do the job either through illness or old age ? what if he develops dementia ? can he be taken out of office and by whom ?

Not quite sure, having decided against being a catholic a long time ago, so excuse any mistakes.

A pope can retire if necessary but it was a rule bought in quite recently in view of increasing life expectancy. The thinking being that it would be too hard to run the church when bedridden.

A pope can also abdicate for politcal reasons or if he feels/accepts he's not the man for the job. But it has to be voluntary; The cardinals can't push you out the back door if they don't like you. Otherwise, or so I've read, J.P II would've gone a long time ago. (There are rumours about popes being bumped off but I'll only get moderated if I start on that one.) I think about 6 have stepped down in the past for various reasons. It's a bit like the monarch abdicating - very rare and a last resort.

In the case of dementia though, a lunatic pope isn't an enormous problem. Contrary to popular misconception, the pope isn't infallible in all things only when passing judgement on divine matters. An example being in the 40's the pope ruled that Mary was taken bodily up to heaven. People had thought so before but equally others claimned to know where she was buried. Once the Pope says otherwise, it's dogma and therefore true.
But if the Pope tries to tell you while playing Scrabble that his dubious word *is* in the dictionary, you can argue it with him.

I presume at the first sign of the Pope going a bit peculiar, retirement would be suggested as a good idea. But you never know...

You say that as if he wasn't peculiar to begin with.

You've got to worry about any man who gets up early on a Sunday, puts on a dress and starts drinking wine.