Isn’t it time for a puff of prettier smoke to announce a female Pope?

We’re used to female PMs and Premiers. We’ve even survived a few queens and women as GG. Even the Ancient Egyptians had a female Pharaoh. It’s time for change at the Vatican.

Imagine if the world’s religions head a great voice from the sky that sounded more soprano than baritone – saying “I am a She!!!” Picture: Alberto Pizzoli / AFP

In a Commonwealth Census some decades ago a mysterious entry appeared in the “religious observance” category. In the small print below the big numbers of RC and CoE, beneath those practising Methodism, Judaism and Islam, there were a few of my mob (avowed disbelievers) and, trumpet blast, 13 Australians who identified as “Primitive Beiderbeckians”.

This was a raspberry-blowing exercise against conformity organised by my old friend Ray Marginson, a bureaucrat with Melbourne’s Metropolitan Tramways Board and later at Melbourne University. Ray’s secret passion was jazz. He had a vast collection of old 78s and was a particular admirer of, yes, Bix Beiderbecke, the US cornetist and pianist. Ray had discovered that if more than a dozen professed a belief, it cracked it for inclusion in the Census. Hence those 13 PBs among the millions of RCs and CoEs.

More recent head-counts have religion in dramatic decline, with fewer Christians and zero PBs. Ray? Almost as long dead as Bix. Now the fastest growing faith is not to have one. Pentecostals like ScoMo may have their Hillsongs, but my mob is on the march.

In a sense even the most ardent God-botherers are atheists – in that they only believe in their God and regard all others’ gods as surplus to requirements. The Ancient Egyptians had dozens of deities and India’s Hindus have thousands more. But even among Christians there were, and are, countless fractures and fissures, leading to holy wars. Crusades were not only against those pesky Muslims but among Christians themselves. Heresies and blasphemies abounded. Hence holy wars, inquisitions and burnings at the stake.

Far from bringing peace and love, religion is fuel to many of the ongoing horrors on this planet, as I’ve been proclaiming in columns for years, and in two irreligious textbooks – Adams Versus God and, more recently, Adams Versus God: The Rematch. I think it’s fair to say I’ve won, if not by a knockout then certainly by TKO.

But God is a poor loser. Despite being beaten by me, by science and by improved education, He (and the gender of God is rarely disputed in any currently practised faith) continues to ignore the referee’s decision. Across the world, He causes or endorses armed conflict and refuses women’s rights, as we see everywhere from the Vatican to the US Supreme Court.

Imagine if the world’s religions head a great voice from the sky that sounded more soprano than baritone – saying “I am a She!!!” That would put a cat among the pigeons outside St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London. Not to mention every mosque, synagogue and temple. Imagine if at the Second Coming, the Messiah was a Missiah. Or a Msiah. That might be a bit of a shock for the patriarchy.

We’re used to female PMs and Premiers. We’ve even survived a few queens and women as GG. But isn’t it time for a puff of prettier smoke to announce a female Pope? Pope Francesca to replace Pope Francis? FFS, the Ancient Egyptians had, in Hatshepsut, a female Pharaoh.

But in Rome the odds are stacked. No female Cardinals. No Georgina replaced our George. Amen? Awomen.