[BRIEF NOTE] The New Pope

[rfmcdonald]

The white smoke has at last issued forth from the Sistine Chapel.

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's chief enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected as the new Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church today and took the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Ratzinger, 78, parted the red velvet curtains draped over the center balcony of St. Peter's Basilica barely less than an hour after his election by the College of Cardinals and was greeted by a roar of approval from more that 100,000 people packed into St. Peter's Square and spilling into the streets of Rome.

I don't expect that the nature of the Church will change significantly under Ratzinger, since under his predecessor he played a basically conservative role. stoutfellow's assessment may be correct, mind. Then again, seeing as how the Church is a two millennia-old bureaucratic institution, maliszew's reaction might have more weight in the final analysis. I would agree with talktooloose's response for obvious personal reasons, but I can't find myself surprised enough to feel betrayed.

I do wonder how long it will take this website to stop returning a "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" error.