Vatican heist sees millions of years’ worth of indulgences stolen

The latest round of the Catholic blame game kicked off earlier this week with the Holy See’s announcement that it had been robbed. Believers listened in horror as the Pope’s spokesmen reported how thieves had broken in during the night, and made off with several tons worth of paper indulgences. The rest of the world barely batted a collective eyelid when it later developed that nothing of actual value had been stolen.

Quite how the burglars entered the Pope’s vault is unclear, though Vatican authorities are reportedly meeting with their contractor, Honor System Security Ltd., to assess the breach. In the mean time, any obvious flaws will be addressed with candlelight vigilance.

Though neither Italian police nor the Carabinieri have released a list of suspects, the theft bears all the hallmarks of frequent sinners such as gays, and some of the hallmarks of casual sinners, such as Hallmark. The Vatican also suspects religious skeptics who aren’t quite skeptical enough to be sure there’s no God, but is skeptical that said skeptics are organized enough to pull of such a heist.

In simpler times, the stolen property itself would have pointed to the likely culprits. Mothers of unbaptized children were once the most prolific thieves of indulgences, but in recent years organized crime rings, some of them full of good Catholics, have been responsible for the biggest robberies.

Taken together, the indulgences amount to millions of years off time to be spent in purgatory, and as such represent about 5% of the global indulgence black market. Vatican authorities are confident that the majority of the stolen indulgences will wind up in the United States, particularly California and Arizona. Since the introduction of crimesin, illegal Mexican immigrants have all become sinners in the eyes of God. It is a setback they certainly could have done without.


Paco has to sell a lot of tacos to pay for his ill-gotten indulgence

Asked about their plans to retrieve the stolen indulgences, the Vatican said that its chief worry as always was that sinners would be cheating the system and not spending enough time being punished for their transgressions. Still, a spokesman reassured reporters that they “can always print more,” though he cautioned that recent cutbacks will mean future indulgences will be printed on A5 paper, rather than the standard A4.