Father Guido Sarducci: "Find the Pope in the Pizza"

With Pope Francis, interest in all things Papal are high. Now that American pizza is largely on par with Italian pizza, perhaps it is time to follow the sage counsel of Father Guido Sarducci:

Ayyyy howza bout some Neapolitan, yer holiness?

"And, going along with this Papal mania, I've kind of designed a contest about the Popes.  

"It's called "Find the Popes in the Pizza" ... All two hundred and fifty-four Popes, they're in here. ... And, what we're gonna do in about one minute, we're gonna put a close-up of this on your screen and, you at home, all you have to do is get some, like, wax paper, any kind of paper you can see through and paste it to your screen -- or tape it, whatever you want -- and all you gotta do is get a pencil and draw a circle around every place you see a picture of a Pope. And, while we're doing this--

"Well, I think what I'm gonna do for the prize, whoever wins -- you know, finds the most Popes -- they'll get to have a button that I designed myself. I noticed on the tour, the best selling button was this.  It says, "I Got a Peek at the Pope" ... And I designed a button that I think even more people can relate to.  It says, "I saw the Pope on TV" ... This is what you win. And now, I think, we're about ready. So while you're looking at the pizza for thirty seconds, I'm gonna play a cut from Pius XII's album. ... Here is Pius XII singing 'On the Sunny Side of the Street' ... And now find the Pope in the pizza. Good luck to you. All two hundred and fifty-four."

You may be aware that Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci, hasn't reprised that role since 2010. And, at age 70, he's earned his retirement. Who, then will carry on the Papal Pizza linkage? We here at Pizza Quixote are proud sponsors of The Pizza Habit. 

This new team is proud to extend the tradition of identifying Popes in and around the righteous circles (or, in Sicily, rectangles). We spoke to two key members of team (based in Tuscany), Sisters Lucille and Bertrille. They shared this message:

"Popes and pizza have been bonded since the beginning, like bread and butter, like love and marriage, like Martin and Lewis, like reality TV and the decline of civilization. We want you to have Pope/Pizza 24/7. We will Facebook the pizza, we will tweet the Popes, we will put them on Instagram, and for those living in 2003, MySpace. For those living in 1993, we'll send an AOL instant message. 

"Some little known facts about Pope Francis -- he once owned a pizza joint in Newark NJ, making triangle-shaped pizzas. But it failed because no one could get proper boxes for it. He spent 8 years doing Karaoke for tips after that before he set his eye on, as he says, "the whole Pope-y schtick."  We're glad to take the baton from Father Guido Sarducci and we pledge to track Popes in Pizza and we hope to expand to Calzones and, Lord willing, garlic knots.  God bless."