Avignon in the Himalayas

Tibetan Buddhism may soon enter the amusing theological territory mapped out in Christendom during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when a disagreement emerged over whether God was a Roman or a Frenchman and two or occasionally three different men simultaneously claimed to be pope. A similar situation of mutual quietism may arise with the forthcoming fifteenth Dalai Lama, as the incumbent's paperwork regarding his reincarnation seems to be commanding scant respect among the Heathen Chinee. The blasphemers even have a separate selection ritual, involving a ludicrous superstition whereby lots are drawn from a golden urn in Beijing before the Party gives approval to the latest embodhiment. The Christian kingdom of the Trumpster and his head-tribble has responded with threats of sanctions against any Heathen Chinee who compound their country's sin of overthrowing a feudal theocracy by interfering with the due and holy process of metempsychosis. Nevertheless, the fourteenth Dalai Lama has specified that his successor may be an adult and will be a native of a free country: both conditions which may hinder the Trumpster's candidacy despite his famously robe-hued complexion.