Hm... I'm still in the dark, but I have a few theories.

Author's Response:

The mysteries will start to clear up tomorrow. (I'm curious about your theories, though -- you wouldn't have them if I'd posted it all at once.) 

Also, I feel like I have to explain the scene with the friars and popes. The image comes from a great comical/erotic/horrific sequence in Pasolini's Canterbury Tales, the one where an angel visits some lascivious friar during the night, tells him it's time to die, and then carries him down him to hell.