ORENSE, Spain — She was called Nieves, and he, Gregorio. They fell in love in torrid, romantic Andalusia. She had had her eye on him, it was said, since they were teenagers and she was an aspiring nun. Now he was 56 and they could confess their mutual adoration. It would be one of those beautiful love stories that plays well on daytime television, and nothing more, had Nieves not spent years digging into certain scandals surrounding the Palmarian Catholic Church, and were Gregorio not Gregorio XVIII, said by the several thousand followers of the schismatic sect to be the one true Catholic pope.

Since May there has been a new pope, Peter III, in the would-be “Spanish Vatican,” because Gregory XVIII "lost his faith,” he said, and eloped with Nieves. She had uncovered plots against him, according to various reports. And, having left the fold, he decided to tell all he knew (or said he knew) about this sect and the millions of dollars in donations the Palmarian Church receives each year.

If you have never heard of it, you are forgiven.