The $100,000 Camera

One morning the Pope awoke in his bedchamber in the Vatican. To his surprise, he noticed that he had woken up with a massive erection.; Perplexed, he called on his personal physician.

“Doctor, this should not be possible,” he said, “I’m the Pope, and I’m celibate! I haven’t had one of these for 50 years!”

The doctor’s reply was, “Well, father, this is a natural phenomenon for all men, and it will happen even to you from time to time”. The Pope exclaimed “But you must do something about this! I have mass in an hour, and this thing isn’t going away!”

The doctor replied “You have two options… either I can administer an injection to your penis to make the problem go away, which will hurt and make you feel ill, or you can just quietly go into the toilet over there and relieve yourself.”

Fearing the injection, the Pope elects the second option. Unbeknownst to him, a paparazzi photographer has sneaked into the Vatican, and just as the Pope reaches that point of no return, up pops the photographer and begins snapping away.

The Pope immediately summons his security guards, who arrest the photographer, and begin to beat him up. The paparazzo shouts out, “Hey, I thought you were a Christian organization! What has happened to your forgiveness?”

Upon reflection, the pope agrees with the photographer, and relents, saying “Yes, my son, you are right, we shall release you. Unfortunately, we cannot return your camera, as we cannot allow the scandal of what is contained on the film to be seen in the outside world.”

Never slow to take an opportunity, the photographer replies, “But this is how I make my living! If you take my camera, I’ll lose the money I could have sold the photographs for!”

The Pope, feeling guilty, agrees. “Very well, we will compensate you. How about $100,000?”

Ecstatic, the man agrees, and is soon on his way. The Pope, meanwhile attends confession, and the whole story comes out. For his penance, he is therefore ordered to walk three times around St. Peter’s, with the offending camera around his neck.

Out on his walk, he meets a Japanese tourist:

“Ah, so, very nice Japanese camera you got there, Mr. Pope,” says the man, “how much you pay for it?”

“Being the Pope, I cannot tell a lie,” he replies, “I must confess that I paid $100,000 for it.”

“Ah,” says the Japanese gentleman, “look like someone saw you coming!”