The Rapture, the bodily ascension of all truly God-fearing Christians into heaven before the final battle of Armageddon, was credited today with ridding the world of Christian extremism.
The Catholic Church was thrown into disarray when not only the Pope, but all serious contenders for his successor all simultaneously vanished early this morning. An emergency meeting was held to decide how to cope with the power vacuum. However, only three people turned up and they soon agreed that actually everyone thinking that one man in a dress was the infallible messenger of God was a bit creepy and left the position open indefinitely. Unable to find a colour of smoke to express this, a spokesperson simply walked out of the building and told reporters using talking.
Speaking on their blog, the British Humanist Association expressed surprise that the prophecies of the "somewhat incoherent" book of Revelation had come to pass, but relief that mankind "can finally start to get some good, secularist work done" in the few remaining weeks before the coming apocalypse. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MPs were quick to take credit for finally removing the twenty-six Church of England bishops from the House of Lords.
It is not known what form the apocalypse might take, but with most Republican-held senate and congress seats now up for re-election, William Hill have hugely lengthened their odds for nuclear war.
