Turns out I was more of a pessimist rather than an optimist when I thought the cardinals might need one more day to find a new supreme pontiff, as the catholic world now has a new pope, the German born Joseph Ratzinger, who chose as his papal name Benedict XVI.
It'll take a while to learn to say that, since for all my life the title of the pope has seemed to be "pope John Paul II" (in Finnish it sounds more like a single title - paavi Johannes Paavali - especially if it's said quickly) and all the Benedicts were just names from the past.
What is interesting, is that the cardinals in their conclave decided to choose Ratzinger, who now became the oldest pope chosen in a century or so. His papacy will not, I think I'll be safe to assume, be nearly as long as his predecessor's, since he is already 78 years old. Maybe he was chosen, because the church doesn't want a second consecutive papacy as long as John Paul's was. But they do seem to want the conservative line to continue, since Ratzinger is known to support the late pope's principals in many ways.
Time will tell, I suppose.
(I missed the white smoke by probably just a minute or so, as I was flipping back and forth from BBC's coverage to other programs, darn it. But I did get tuned in on BBC before it was confirmed that the smoke was indeed white and before the bells of St. Peter's began tolling. And I did catch the Latin declaration of "Habemus papam!" Yay. That's tv-entertainment.)
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7 comments:
Talking about entertainment...
I was surfing the net looking for some facts about the new pope and the first page I found was Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club! Does it sound a bit weird or I am just old fashioned??
What next? Pope Benedict XVI fan fiction?
BTW, when I checked Wikipedia, it alrady says there that Ratzinger was elected pope on April 19th. Man the internet is fast! : )
Sarin
Although when I took a closer look at the wikipedia page about Ratzinger, the photo of him was not him. It was chancellor Palpatine from Star Wars!
Somebody just said that Wikipedia may be fast but you can't trust everything you see in there. With this example I rest my case.
Sarin
Cardinal - erm - chancellor Palpatine? *lol* I think I can see the resemblance.
But pope fan fic? I'd say you'd have to be a really devout Catholic to read or write stuff like that. What would they write about, anyway? Stories about the pope's mischievous wanderings in the Vatican archives?
Come to think of it, I really don't want to know what anyone would write in a papal fan fic...
I'd say you'd rather have to be an ardent anti-catholic to write a pope fan fic. At least for the really juicy stuff ;) (Or I don't know... maybe the minds of true fans are a lot kinkier than I can imagine.)
But dear Tytti, I was thinking about the considerably less juicy stuff. There are other kinds of fan fic stories out there, you remember? ;) Not all of them have quiet ponds in the forest... ;) Those that have both the pond and the pope, would be the ones that the anti-Catholics read. Or the true fans you were thinking of.
Brr, what a disturbing thought... *shivers*
Re: fanfiction - have you heard or read about the Colombian comic where Pope John Paul II is reborn as a superhero...
You know, I did actually hear about it on radio one day - I had totally forgotten about it. I'm not quite sure I'd read about the adventures of the Incredible Popeman, though...
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