Yeah- I saw it coming that Joey the Rat was going to get his button (I guess it's Benny One-Pound now). You KNOW all that talk about an African Pope was just that- can you imagine all the chatter during the Conclave cocktail party?

"An African? Why not a Jew?"

Neckbone, yeah, for the sake of ecumenicism I was originally rooting Arinze... you know, even though I’m not a practicing Catholic or anything. I liked the idea of a bridge builder. Unfortunately, he was widely regarded to not be an original thinker (aka: tool yes man). I don’t think he had what it took to be a strong leader. I can understand the Cardinals’ reluctance to support him. A poor leader would have weakened the Church.

Still, the Benedict guy scares the holy fuck out of me. I’ve been reading up on him all day and he just gets scarier and scarier. Even his choice of name is scary. The last pope named Benedict was really upset about Germany’s raw deal at the end of WWI.

I think we can all remember the last significant world leader that had a wild hair up his ass about the Treaty of Versailles.

I agree with your concern, and Bennie hasn't said anything that really allays the fear. But consider that he's also 78 years old- I mean, he was almost too old to vote. I can't help but wonder if he's just a placeholder, but for what? There certainly hasn't been any indication of liberalization of the Church. Quite the contrary, if that were the case they would've elected a temp more moderate than JP2, but benny is if anything more conservative.

I wonder what they're up to?

One of the stated goals has been to open dialogue with Muslims, but to your point- the last German to do anything meaningful with regard to Muslims was probably Rommel in North Africa...

electing a pope with one foot in the grave is the rule. John Paul was an anomaly... an never would have happened were it not for Vatican II; which in itself is ironic, what with John Paul being subversively contemptuous of the Second Vatican Council. The older the pope, the more power the Cardinals’ exert over the Church. I suppose Benedict shouldn’t come as a surprise, I still would have like to have seen it take more than 2 days to pick John Paul’s dirty little henchman.

And Rommel, heh... there you go pointing out the one single WWII German figure that I had even one ounce of respect for. Well, with the exception of Einstein and Marlene Deitrich. Deitrich... prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr