Ransom Demand for Pope’s Skull Reported

Thieves have stolen the skull of a 14th century Spanish pope from a ruined palace in a remote town in Spain--and are reportedly demanding a ransom. The skull of Benedicto XIII was stolen in April from a boarded-up palace that once belonged to a local count, a Civil Guard officer in Sabinan said. The mayor of the nearby town of Illueca, the birthplace of the pope, has received two scrawled ransom notes ordering him to bring $5,400 to a park in the city of Zaragoza, the newspaper La Vanguardia said. The newspaper report said that the mayor went to the rendezvous accompanied by police officers but that the thieves failed to appear. The pope, known as Papa Luna, was born in 1325. He became the second “antipope” after the Great Schism split the Roman Catholic Church in two and divided its followers between the pope in Rome and an antipope in Avignon.