April 23, 2025
By: Elias Monroe

You can believe me or not. I get it—it sounds insane. But someone needs to say it before it disappears. Again.

My cousin works in Vatican security. That’s not hearsay—I’ve seen the badge, the photos, the encrypted phone. We don’t talk much, but when he drinks, he slips. And three weeks ago, he said something that’s been stuck in my skull like a splinter.

“The man you see in white… isn’t the same one they wheeled in.”

I thought he meant spiritually. Like, you know, trauma changes people. But no. He meant it literally. The Pope—the Pope—died in the hospital. Third night in. Heart failure, they said. But before the press could even smell it, they had the body swapped. And someone, somewhere, pressed ‘Power On’ for a replacement.

A clone. Not the weird movie kind, either. More like a prototype.

They’ve been tweaking it ever since. Public appearances are kept short, no unscripted questions. He smiles too much. Blinks at odd intervals. One of his homilies in March had the same paragraph repeated word-for-word three times. Vatican PR spun it as poetic emphasis.

What my cousin told me next chilled me: “They only got five years out of this model. Max. After that, it starts to break down. Rapidly. They’re already planning the next version.”

You want to know why I’m saying this here? Because I tried other places. Accounts vanished. Posts disappeared. Messages stopped delivering.

I don’t expect this to last long. But if you read it before it’s gone—look a little closer the next time he waves from that balcony. Look at the eyes. They haven’t aged a day since February 2023.

And that’s not how time works.