Survivor: Vatican City

"The Tribe has spoken."

Here's the premise: Take a bunch of people. Have them bring along only a few personal items. Take them to a remote location and seclude them, forcing them to live together for a while. On a regular basis, the participants take a vote. Before the votes are taken, political alliances form, then break, then form again. When they vote, they put a name on a piece of paper in secret, then they hold up their vote and say it out loud. The votes are carefully placed in a special container, and the votes are counted. Whoever's name shows up the most gets voted out of the group - they are no longer part of the tribe. Everyone vows to keep it all quiet until the whole thing is over. Each time a vote is taken, a symbolic symbol involving fire is used to communicate the results.

Ah. It turns out Mark Burnett did not have such an original idea after all. I wonder if he knows more than he's letting on . . .

"I talked to Cardinal Gonzales from Venezuela, and he's decided to vote for Cardinal Schmidt. But I don't know. Schmidt doesn't pull his weight around here; he just sits around while the rest of us do all the work. He brought candy bars with him, and he's not sharing. I'm not sure how I'm going to vote."

"I overheard Smith and McBride talking about an alliance with the Italians. I think I'm going to join them."

"Hey, look! We've got mail!"

"It's the next challenge. It says we need to solve this puzzle. If we don't solve it, we don't eat."

"What's the puzzle?"

"Looks like we've got to figure out the nature of the Trinity."

"NO! I was afraid of that. I do better at the physical challenges - rosary bead stringing, or lighting incense, or a fish eating. I'm not a threat on the theology stuff."

"Don't turn around, but Cardinal Stewart is walking around in his birthday suit again!"

"Disgusting."

Brain Burp: I've got an idea. A new way to handle pastoral search committees. Lock 'em up in the church building. They don't get out until they've hired a pastor. Every time they take a vote on a candidate, they reveal the results by lighting the church steeple: red means they failed to get a majority vote, green means we have a new pastor. After about two weeks, if they still haven't got a pastor, we withhold their food. After another week, we shut down the plumbing.

Protestant conclaves. Oh, yeah.