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Seriously, I wonder why the Vatican would choose this guy over the last Pope.

I'm guessing it had something to do with the last pope dying...

Sorry I just had a Joe Biden moment. I meant after the last pope.

With the Church alive and thriving in the southern hemisphere, I wondered the same thing. Maybe they thought they needed a tough old Teuton to whip secular Europe into shape. One can see how well that's working. . .

They chose Joey the Rat because he's the biggest whip Opus Dei has in the church. Opus Dei has completely taken over the Catholic Church, and will be the death of it in a generation.

you're right.

any time anyone "slams" any religion (or anything else for that matter), they must also "slam" all other religions, just to be fair.

i'll have to go back in my articles. i know i slammed peyton manning, so there are 31 other quarterbacks i need to slam. i'm not a fan of bush, and so that leaves more than 200 years of presidents i have to catch up on, just to be fair.

this might mean that our articles are all very, very, very long, but that is the price we'll have to pay to avoid being criticized by defensive, paranoid knuckleheads. ah, america.

I found this post to be very ignorant and very inflammatory.

heh. i think that was the point.

hasnt anyone ever heard the word "context" around here?

I am 29 (nearing 30) and slam all religions equally.

I'm 22; I disconnected myself from the Catholic religion at the age of 9. I consider myself agnostic and have no great desire to change that about myself.

You, Beth, certainly have the right to be Catholic. Tenny's article said nothing to the contrary. Its people like you that stifle citizen journalism in the United States.

Tenny, thanks for a great article. Not surprisingly, none of the MSM is carrying his recent antics. Thank goodness for NV.

I'm not a big nitpicker...but did you have to use your blog link as your username? Isn't that sort of against the prohibition on self-promotion mentioned in the COH?

You should probably look into getting that changed.

27, a recovering Catholic, and greatly amused by this. American Catholics - excepting, it seems, your URL based commenter - have a bit of a different take on much of Rome's pontification. Benedict XVI is an old bulldog and the College of Cardinal's choice is an odd one. The man won't last long and, while the conservatism in the Church has been a good thing in some areas of the world it's been overwhelmingly negative for so many others.

I suspect we'll see a much more liberal pontiff once Benedict dies. Maybe the Church will wake up and realize that there are real issues to be addressed in the world - and that the increasingly secular West neither cares or much considers what the Pope thinks about Homosexuality.

Benedict XVI is an old bulldog and the College of Cardinal's choice is an odd one. The man won't last long and, while the conservatism in the Church has been a good thing in some areas of the world it's been overwhelmingly negative for so many others.

I suspect we'll see a much more liberal pontiff once Benedict dies.

the College of Cardinals' choice was right on the money. Remember, the Catholic Church plays a long game.

Really, JP2s tenure as pope was a tough act to follow. The elevation of Ratzinger to become his replacement was, I think, based partly on his age. It's almost as if the church recognized that after JP2, the Catholic community would need a short-term rebound relationship with another pope. By short term, I mean 5-10 years.

Ratzinger fit that bill perfectly; he'll be dead in under a decade and (hopefully) the last of the "old guard" to fill the post. Really a more apt papal name than Pope Benedict XVI would have been "Pope Temporarious."

-J

53, also a recovering Catholic (having rehabbed quite a bit as a Methodist); now I feel a good fit with the Unitarian Universalists... (whom I formerly referred to as "The Church of Whatever." Not anymore :)

Looking for the path to MY God's commandments - and not at all partial to those misinterpretations by well meaning, or not always well meaning 'editors.'

Absolutely NOT a fan of commercial religion.

My response. Sorry for the length, but with that many logical fallacies...

I suspect we'll see a much more liberal pontiff

John Paul II appointed a whole raft of Opus Dei cardinals. They will only elect another Opus Dei Pope. Look what happened to John Paul I: a young, healthy, liberal Pope, died under mysterious circumstances, and no autopsy performed. The same thing would happen if another liberal (assuming there are any left) cardinal is elected Pope.

Amen, Joules. What I find amazing is that people are even offended by what someone else says. Why should Paul's opinion of me (actually, not me, but rather an institution over which I have no direct influence) matter (assuming I were Catholic)? Would not such offense illustrate a lack of faith and conviction in my beliefs? If I now who I am, and am happy with myself, why should someone else's opinion of me, my religion/lack thereof, or anything else cause me offense?