FNN religious reporter Mathew Mark Lukejohn filed this report from Rome where he attended a press conference.  The Vatican announced today that Pope Paul will participate in a boxing match. The Pope signed a contract with ESPN to fight Archbishop Guisippe Al Fresco, a prelate who often disagrees with the Pope.

The Pope challenged De Marco last week when the two had a shouting match at a meeting.  The fight will take place during the summer in the open air plaza in front of St Peter’s basilica.

Premium tickets will start at 1500 dollars. These buyers will sit in a grandstand built in front of the basilica’s front steps and for another $2500 will get a plenary indulgence.

Standing room tickets will cost $500 and buyers can add a ten-year indulgence for an additional 250 dollars. The fight will be carried live on pay-per-view with an global audience estimated at a billion viewers, making it the biggest sports event of all time.

All profits will go to defray the Vatican’s cost in searching the basilica’s basement for lost or forgotten relics and/or bodies.

The Pope started working out to prepare for the fight.  He now spends five minutes every morning and evening to improve his footwork and agility.  Archbishop Al Fresco is concentrating on losing weight before the match.

Hank Quense is the author of 50 published short stories along with four novels and three collections of stories. All of these are humorous and/or satiric scifi and fantasy. In the non-fiction area, he has over a dozen articles published on fiction writing and he’s the author of the Fiction Writing Guides series and the Self-publishing Guides series. Both series consist of a number of ebooks. The Fiction Writing Guides and the Self-Publishing Guides are an outgrowth of his lectures on both subjects.