Well, either a new pope's been selected, or the Cardinals have sighted a herd of buffalo.
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A German taking over from a Pole. And they say history doesn't repeat itself...
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WizArtist II
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Next he'll go and see some Sea Lions with Barbarossa.
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There was speculation that they would elect an "old" pope that will have a short papacy and serve as a transitional one for the next pope who will be a radical departure from John Paul II. Or something like that.
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I thought Ratzinger was the leading candidate to be the next Kai all along. From what my coworker tells me he's uberConservative and fairly obnoxious.
posted
I can't figure that out either. An 84 year old pope dies and they elect an 78 year old one? Brillant!
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Nim: not so much that he was unlikely to win so much as his short suit being relations with Islam and ecumenism, both critical problems for the church right now. However, he has a lot of long suits to match: street cred for fighting radical materialistic secularism, militant relativism, and experience in cleaning up the church's hierarchy. (On the latter, his latest task was working on the sex abuse scandels. Expect to see him going at the filth there very quickly.)
Topher: correct on a short papacy. B16 has a family history of heart problems, and he's 78. The odds are very against a 20 year pontificate. However, with medical technology getting so good, I think the idea some people have a 5-10 year one ought to consider a strong possibility of a 10-15 year one.
Aban: obnoxious if you mean he won't back down on core teachings that the church is simply not going to give way on (however you feel on them). The man himself, though, is said to be pretty humble. Very academic. He wrote only about 190 books (yes, one hundred ninety; I have to check on the exact figure). I only learned yesterday he had been begging JP2 for years to let him resign as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The late pope would not allow it.
Topher (again): powerful office indeed. JP2 had a hand in bringing down the evil empire. Although taking down Darth Brehnev and his successors, perhaps he should have been called Jedi Master Karwo Kawad.
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I didn't mean anything by it. Those were the words of the coworker I mentioned. I have zero knowledge of the man and very little more interest.
I also don't understand how the leader of a church can be so heavily involved in politics and still claim to be following Christian teaching. But this isn't in the Flameboard, so I digress...
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