he newest pope has been elected and chosen the name Pope Benedict XVI, and already the supreme being of Catholicism has taken a fierce stance against faded fascist groups by renouncing his own brief history with the Hitler Youth. In the world's entire Catholic population, it would seem to be an easy task to find one respectable cardinal who wasn't previously involved with the Nazi party, but apparently Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has some inside dish that landed him in the pope seat.

Responding to accusations of being a fascist, Ratzinger addressed his Nazi history and reassured detractors he was generally against the extermination of non-Catholics. In memoirs, Ratzinger described being "forced" into joining the Hitler Youth against his will as a youngster in Nazi-fied Germany. He left to study for the priesthood, aided by his anti-Nazi family (who kept their anti-Nazism secret), but was drafted into the army in 1943, where he put his hate for fascism to work foiling the Nazi machine from the inside, until he deserted and arranged capture by U.S. troops before moving on in fascism-free Germany to become a priest.

Ratzinger renewed his fight against Nazism Thursday, answering challenges from those who opposed his Popedome.

"I have always been an enemy of fascism in all its forms," said the Pope. "And I look forward to laying down a rigid doctrine of Catholicism, the one true religion, to be obeyed by one and all."

The selection of Pope Benedict came in the wake of the death of Pope John Paul II, who some sources only at the commune claim is still alive and has been taken into hiding by Vatican officials. Why? So a younger, fresh pope of Bel-Air could reinvigorate the stagnating Catholic church.

Pope Benedict has been an advisor of the late/missing Pope John Paul for years, and an opponent of reform within the Vatican. As Ratzinger, his secret pre-Pope identity, he argued against such church-devastating movements as religious pluralism, gay rights, feminism, communism, and liberation theology, which argues that the church should play an active role in politics of change.

Before his election, Ratzinger lectured the selection committee on "relativism" in the Catholic Church, and dedication to principle was unfairly labeled "fundamentalism."

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." Then, the officials still elected him.

As the new pope, Benedict compared efforts to change and reform the church to following whims and fads, and ended his early speeches by extending his arm and shouting a rousing, "Hail the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!" He was then asked by Vatican consultants to not ever do so again.

Theologians believed the selection of Ratzinger a clear attempt to distance the modern Catholic Church from the hedonistic reign of Polish Pope John Paul II.

"The 'anything goes' days of the old pope are gone," said professor of Theology at the Newark University Norm Chauncey, whom this reporter interviewed for strictly vindictive reasons. "The Church was obviously sick of becoming the laughing stock of the world, out of touch with the rigid morality of the modern era and its uncompromising dedication to religion. What better way to bring the wayward back to the fold than to force closer adherence to the guidelines set for Catholics in the 1960s?"

Thanking the professor, this reporter then went home and reaffirmed his commitment to atheism.

rian Nichols, the world's most rightfully-imprisoned black man, appeared Friday in the same courthouse where he killed three people on March 11 in Fulton County, Georgia. Asked to enter his plea by a very timid judge, surrounded by trigger-happy bailiffs and police, Nichols pleaded "déjà vu" in his case.

While his attorneys very politely reminded him he could only plead "guilty" or "not guilty," though "not guilty" seemed an extremely unlikely choice, Nichols laughed off his odd feeling of having been through it all before.

"Sorry," the very large former linebacker told the court, as they listened with wide eyes and trembling lips. "It's just like, wow, I feel like I've been here before in some way. I have this whole memory of struggles with officers and gunfire and—anyway… guess we should get to trial and stuff. So, who's the misguided people who are going to testify against me?"

The judge, who asked not to be identified or even revealed to the suspect, addressed the court from inside a large crate he or she had hauled up behind the bench, and suggested they put off the proceedings and gave the prosecutors a chance to build up a rock-solid case against the defendant—who, the judge acknowledged, certainly may very well not be guilty, for all we know.

A little more than a month ago, the gigantic nasty African-American Hannibal Lecter wrestled out of custody of court officers, secured a gun, and shot three people, including a judge, before making his way outside for a spree of carjackings and hostage-taking that eventually ended in his arrest. Numerous charges were added to Nichols' already long list, which included rape, aggravated sodomy, and false imprisonment, the charges of the previous trial where the convicted badass attacked the court. It was the second trial on the charges for Nichols, after the first trial ended when the jury couldn't come to a decisive verdict.

"Boy, I feel like quite the ass now," admitted one of the holdout jurors from the first trial, who asked to remain anonymous out of embarrassment and fear of possibly being killed. "I owe a few of my fellow jurors some apologies now, that's for sure. Back then I sure didn't think him capable of rape and kidnapping, but now that I think about it, I was worried about him leaping into the jury box and bludgeoning me to death. I just assumed the two were mutually exclusive."

Court officials took no chances with Nichols this time, bringing the besuited behemoth into court in leg irons, shackles, and wearing a global positioning device on his ankle that would self-destruct upon walking out of the courthouse area. For extra safety measures, the gray suit Nichols wore was also packed with gunpowder by deputies and a twenty-foot fuse trailed behind him, just in case he tried to make another break for it.

Bailiff Vigo Metzel was in charge of Nichols' secure transportation to and from the courthouse.

"Some of us wanted to give him one of those half-hockey masks to keep him from eating people, but we thought that just made him look even more terrifying. No one would want to be on the security detail then. Besides, no one would volunteer to put the mask on him."

When questioned as to why anyone would want to defend a client with so much stacked against them, including verifiable security footage from the very court where he's going to be tried, Nichols' attorneys, who also asked not to be identified, said that even though it was unlikely Nichols would go free, they wanted Nichols to know definitively whose side they had been on in the event he ever breaks out again.

In the meanwhile, Nichols has privately told his attorneys and the prosecution that he only made his escape attempt from the courthouse in March so he could find the real perpetrators of the crimes of which he was accused. If he had found them, Nichols said, he certainly would have killed them, too.

Editor's Note: In lieu of Rok Finger's absence, he asked us to print a friendly filler message from his roommate Camembert.

Hello. I'm Camembert Morgen and I suppose I should introduce myself as Rok Finger's roommate. Since Rok couldn't fit a column into his schedule this week, he asked me to fill in for him. Well, he ordered me, but it's not like I listen to him. I'm not scared of him. My girlfriend can beat him up. He's small. Honestly, I'm not scared.

As I said, Rok couldn't do this column this week. Don't worry, it's not a bad thing—not for Rok, anyway. He married an unlucky woman named Ginger Baker over the weekend. Good for him, I say. Terrible for her. I guess she thinks he's rich or something. Maybe she's fooled by the velour suit he wears whenever they go on dates. I don't know. Maybe he has some inner qualities that make him attractive. Though I've never seen any.

I guess I should tell you a little about myself. I can't imagine Rok would waste time in a professional website column talking about his roommate. I'm Camembert, as I said, and I have a hot girlfriend, Loretta. Rok and I are distantly related. Very distantly. I'm his ex-wife's sister's son. But our relationship is a lot closer than that, really, since he paralyzed me, moved into my apartment uninvited, made me a mob target, got me kidnapped by pirates, and generally made my life hell on a daily basis. But he did introduce me to my girlfriend, so I suppose things are about even. Now that he's married, I'm hoping to get out on my own with my girlfriend and make a new life for myself. God willing.

I can't believe anyone really wants to hear about the wedding, but I'm sure if you're fans of Rok Finger, I can't believe you exist anyway. I'll describe the wedding so as not to embarrass myself further with revealing details about me.

The bride wore a lovely black dress, and the groom wore a tuxedo that he may have gotten from a ventriloquist dummy. But you can't tell—one of the better fitting suits in his little collection. They wrote their own vows, but I don't think I heard too many of his because the crowd was laughing very loudly. Rok never makes me laugh, personally, but if you had to live with him you probably wouldn't laugh either. I think the vows were very adamant about who washes the dishes, and he might have swore a little, but that's hardly shocking for Rok.

There was one slightly amusing part for me, I admit. The flower girl, Ginger's daughter Becky, was actually taller than Rok. You don't see that very often. Flower girls taller than the groom, I mean. Everybody's taller than Rok. Heck, even in my chair I'm a little taller than he is. But don't tell him—he gets outraged about it.

After the ceremony, which was mercifully short outside of the vows, we threw rice at the newlyweds. Rok threw beans back. I'm not sure why he had beans with him. He might have just anticipated the rice and wanted something to fight back with. Again, I'm not surprised. But they piled into his car with the special high-pedals and drove off on their honeymoon. He told me where they were going but I didn't bother to commit it to memory. I'm better off not knowing where he is. If the Feds ask me.

So what do they do here at the commune? I'm writing this from home, and although I've got internet access, I've never bothered to read the site myself. I get enough Rok Finger at home, thank you. For another thing, I can't swallow any of that news they put out each week. Does anybody actually believe that stuff? Ah, but I'm no critic. I'm just a regular guy trying to help out a maniacal roommate while he enjoys the silence in the house with his girlfriend, Loretta.

Did I mention I have a girlfriend? She is H-O-T hot, too. And she's real.

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