Somebody Explain This To Me

So the Pope is near death. And the news media reports stuff like this:Yahoo! News - Catholics Pray as Pope Slides Towards Death

And I have to ask: why? Why pray for the Pope? Are they praying for God to spare his life and let him live? When I was raised Catholic, we were taught that the Pope was basically God on Earth, or at least God's top representative here. If that's the case, what difference will Bob's prayer make when the Pope has The Man's ear already?

Or are they praying that God will accept the Pope into heaven? A lot of people pray that for their dying loved ones, that God will have mercy on their eternal souls and allow them to enter the pearly gates. Good Grief (almost said God there), if ANYBODY is "saved" it's the Pope, right?

So maybe they're praying that the Pope is comfortable and not feeling any pain. I would think that the Vatican's health care benefits would take care of that. I'm sure the Pope is getting the best treatment money can buy... it's not like he's poor or something. He has been sick for a long time now; he probably should have retired a decade ago, but Pope's really don't do that.

My suspicion is that all of those praying Catholics are secretly praying for themselves. They SAY they're praying for the Pontiff, but they're really trying to curry favor with God... "See how selfless I am? I'm praying for a guy who doesn't even need my prayers!"

More later...
Paul