Vatican City and weapons of mass destruction

Although Vatican City has never officially sought to possess nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or even biological weapons of any kind, there is still a great deal of world-wide concern over their unofficially-declared holdings of advanced spiritual weaponry, wielded by the Catholic Church's vast and growing army of clergy and canonized saints.

A typical Christian, metaphorically dressed for military success.
DISCLAIMER: This is only a metaphor!

The Original Jesus: A Mighty Warrior (hypothetically)

It is a common misconception that Jesus was a woosy pacifist or something, since He so readily capitulated when cornered and captured by the primitive army of the primitive Roman Empire. Boasting that He could command entire legions of fictional angels to come to His immediate rescue, Jesus unwittingly convinced His entire entourage to bravely run away so they could fight another day. It was during His otherwise uneventful crucifixion that Jesus landed one last devastating blow by unconditionally forgiving His earstwhile executioners. Wow, that showed'em.

Early Christian militarization

Early Christian militarization strategies tended to, at first, favor defensive measures to defend against persecution from Satan's fictional minions and greedy tax collectors, such as Breastplates of Righteousness, Shields of Faith, Helmets of Salvation, Iron Codpieces of Truth, and Hush Puppies of Peace. However, over the centuries, this array of standardized equipment was symbolically augmented with symbolic offensive weaponry, such as Swords of the Spirit, Crossbows of the Soul, Howitzer Cannons of Vengeance, Mustard Gas Canisters of Divine Retribution, and Automatic Machine Guns of Overwhelming Rage. Onward Christian soldiers marched off as to war, armed to the spiritual teeth and fully prepared to engage the godless secular world what with its merely physical guns and bombs. The subsequent and rapid loss of the Eastern Patriarchies and every single Papal State was considered a minor setback by the Catholic Church at that time.

A spiritual airforce raining spiritual bombs on the spiritual enemy. Forgiveness of enemies somehow seems to have been lost in the ensuing shuffle.

Peace-loving Christians turn on each other

In 1517, hostilities broke out between the millions-strong universal worldwide Catholic Church and a crazed monk with male-pattern baldness. The crazed balding monk in question turned out to be either a mighty superhero of invincible bravery and fortitude, or a diabolical supervillain more cunning than Satan himself (modern historians are still debating the alternative viewpoints). Anyway, the evenly-matched opponents traded curses and anathemas and excommunications and other sundry insults for days on end, transforming the entire continent of Western Europe into a scorched wasteland. Since Western Europe was already a scorched wasteland as a result of the fall of the Roman Empire (c. 476 AD), nobody really noticed the difference.

Lengthy wars consume what was left of Western Europe

Meanwhile, the citizens of France were treated to the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, the Seven Years War, the Long Weekend Skirmish, and a lively bar fight in a seedy Marseilles tavern, all in quick succession. France has never been quite the same ever since, and to this day is still split right down the middle as far as religion is concerned. It was then that the agnostic French emperor Napoleon Boned-Apartheid stood up against the Catholic Church and confiscated their entire supply of spiritual cannonballs. Thus Napoleon succeeded in taking over the world, whereupon he promptly surrendered.

Council of Avignon: a pathetic fizzle

Later that week, Pope Francis 0 held a council deep in the Avignon bunker and held aloft the Holy Hand Grenade as a symbol for all two of his loyal cardinals and bishops to rally around. It was only a few scant minutes into the solemn proceedings that somebody had the guts to informed His Holiness that (A) there hasn't been a legitimate pope in Avignon for quite some time now, and (B) the original Holy Hand Grenade was irreversibly detonated in a remote area of Scotland way back in 935, thereby proving that the alleged incendiary device in the erstwhile pope's possession was, in fact, a cheap plastic forgery.

Vatican 1 invents Papal Invulnerability

The Council of Vatican 1 (the first of two planned meetings scheduled to be held within the tiny and cramped confines of Vatican City) spent a grand total of 137 years trying to figure out what the hell was going wrong with the Church's little scheme of marching up and down the square attaining world domination. It was decided that what little was left of the Holy Roman Catholic Empire would focus solely on the defensive aspects of spiritual warfare. So they outfitted Pius VIIII with vestments cut from a special type of cloth that not only made the pontiff completely invulnerable to attack, but could only be seen by highly virtuous people over the age of eight. Beginning in 1994, the church reeled under numerous accusations from former parishioners about what they allegedly witnessed as children: the revolting sight of an old fart traipsing around in his skivvies. As a result of this unfortunate debacle, the comparatively-new doctrine of "Papal Invulnerability" is no longer taken seriously by the faithful and/or wielders of armor-piercing weaponry.

Vatican 2 rediscovers the nuclear option

Meanwhile, half of the world decided to wage war against the other half of the world (and vice versa). The Popes of the World Wars went into abject hiding, so little is known concerning this hidden period of ecclesiastic history, during which all of Western Europe became a vast scorched wasteland (for only the nth time). As soon as the radioactive dust cleared, Pope Pius the XIIth poked his head out of the rubble and proclaimed that he could have single-handedly prevented the war from getting out of hand by commanding entire legions of fictional angels to come to everybody's immediate rescue, but somehow forgot precisely how to do that. Oh, well.

It was during the ecumenical council of Vatican 2 (1966) that circumstantial evidence surfaced concerning Pope Paul VI's sudden mental recollection of secret plans originating from Apostolic times, containing detailed blueprints for spiritual intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying payloads of spiritual nuclear warheads. A test-firing was conducted later that year, resulting in thousands of liberal people's feelings getting hurt in Sacramento, California. Protestants vehemently protested against these terrifying developments, saying that not even Jesus Himself could be safely trusted with such a fearful Godly arsenal, and that spiritual handguns were more than adequate for the task at hand.

Spiritual eye-beams are the most effective tools for warding off the wiles of imaginary adversaries.

Current status

As of 2024, the Pope theoretically has immediate and indisputable access to a total of 8291469824 spiritual weapons of mass destruction, which is sufficient firepower to convince up to ten (10) typical non-Catholics of the error of their ways. However, early in 2017, Pope Francis the 1st accidentally misplaced his personal (and only) key-chain with the Keys of Heaven, which are absolutely vital to input the correct launch codes into the Heavenly Mainframe.