Election of the New Pope
 

anyone else interested in seeing all this take place and play out? i am! i have been watching the live video on yahoo.com and saw the black smoke. so i guess i will have to wait again tomorrow.

Eligo in Summum Pontificem... (I elect as Supreme Pontiff)... hold on, wait a minute... we'll try again tomorrow. :D

Michael Moore was in Rome campaigning and handing out goodie bags...

www.michaelmoore.com


Fat Bastard!

Cnn.com is reporting there is a new pope.

There Is A New Pope

I started to cry happy tears when I was watching TV & they broke into my program to tell us.

I am so proud to be watching history happening for Catholics. I called my grandma and she was crying and that got me a little teary eyed. I am Catholic and elated that there is a new leader of the Roman-Catholic Church.

i wish i was there right now. this is the most exciting thing to happen today.

It's Cardinal Ratzinger, who will be Pope Benedict XVI.

Edited because the news people got screwed up on their Latin and said "XXVI" rather than "XVI."

A priest in my office said that the new Pope will be bad for American Catholics. Any thoughts?

This guy is supposed to be verrrrrry conservative. I was sort of hoping to have a more liberal pope. It would be interesting to see some reforms go on in the church. Not to mention that I don't like feeling guilty everytime I take birth control.

He is old though. 78. Maybe there will be another one in the next 10 years?

He's very conservative, and has many of the same stances as the previous pope- against homosexuals, women's involvement in the church. Haven't seen mention of his birth control stance but i'd bet it was the same.

I am surprised that they named one so old. He's 78.

Just a side question: What does everyone think about the pope prophecies? Centuries ago, St. Malachy "predicted" a list of popes with Latin mottos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes

I thought their preference had been someone who was older; my understanding was that they didn't want the next Pope to serve for quite as long as the last one, and would pick and older candidate to assure that it would work out that way.

Maybe, I haven't been following it as closely as to who's saying what. I'm guessing he's in decent health, or as much as you can be for a 78 year old.

I'm happy they picked someone so fast, but very disappointed in that the church doesn't seem to want to make any changes. They're losing young people right and left. And refusing to keep with the times will always hurt an organization in the long run.

There was actually a lot of speculation that the cardinals would do just that -- after a 26-year papacy, many thought they would want a "caretaker pope" rather than another potentially long papacy.

The new pope is, indeed, conservative, but probably not that much more so than John Paul II. He was one of JPII's right-hand men. He was also one of only 3 (I think) cardinals who was not made a cardinal by JPII. He was made a cardinal by Paul VI, and before that was a participant in Vatican II.

I called my friend Debbie as soon as I saw the smoke. We must have spent at least five minutes saying..."that's white smoke, but there are no bells." I don't know if it was because of the factit was almost the top of the hour or what, but man it took a long time to start ringing.

As for Pope Benedict XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger)...My friend Debbie was screaming when she heard his name. I guess he wanted the job after all. There were news reports that he didn't want to be Pope.

I wonder how he will live up to the legacy Pope John Paul II left for him.

Neither of the ladies in my office who are Catholic were able to answer this, so I thought I'd come here to GC.

Does the new pope get to pick his own name, or is there some sort of assigning process? I was just curious why he would pick Benedict XVI instead of something like John Paul III (for example) or whatever.

i dont really know why, but i wanted that one cardinal from nigeria to be the next pope.

Not being a Catholic, I have no real "dog in this fight", but doesn't it bother anyone that the former Cardinal Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth? This is far from the only quote I could find about his involvement.

"This is all especially striking in light of the fact that said Papal directive was delivered to Cardinal George via Cardinal Ratzinger -- a Hitler Youth member.

That the Church's "National Socialist Party" sympathies extend well beyond Ratzinger's "youthful indiscretion" (as the Republicans would say) has long been a matter of public record. And equally long-standing is the fourth estate's unwillingness to to do anything other that toady to the Church -- even now in light of its manifest evil."

I'm pretty sure they get to pick

Each pope picks his own name.

Most of my family is Catholic (I am not). I'm somewhat concerned about the extreme conservative I've heard Benedict XVI to be.

~ Mel.

I thought they were allowed to pick their own name... but I could be wrong.

No women priests in the church yet? I am curious to know what his plan will be to bring in more Catholic priests. Stream-lining the schooling may help: I have a friend of a friend that is going to be ordained. It's like a seven year education process.

God knows we need them here.

ETA: Him or the guy from Latin America. I thought that would have been neat to see.

They pick their name to be symbolic of what they hope to accomplish as pope. Benedict the 15th was a "unifier" and looked to the roots of the church for his guidance.

I am not bothered by his past as a Hitler Youth b/c I do believe that time can change a persons beliefs. He never hid his affiliation with them. If you ever read (not that many of us have) his memoirs, he talks openly about it. Now that is something on my to do list. Pick up his memoirs & read.

I also believe that we first need to see how his papacy will run instead of picking it and him apart before he is even in office for one full day. Conservative or not, we need to wait and see. We may just be pleasantly surprised.

the "unifier" thing is interesting... not sure how someone with such a conservative stance is going to be unifying....

People don't change THAT much. 78 year olds certainly don't change their convictions at the drop of a hat (thinking of my grandfather). Not to mention the outcry he would face from those who elected him if he did change his positions all of the sudden. From everything i've read, his positions have been VERY clear.

We have every right to discuss him and the impact he may have on the church and our lives.

I got it from Charlie Gibson on ABC;)

I think it is supposed to be peacemaker-like. He and John Paul 2 were very close and he is expected to follow in that way.

Very reasonable response. I'm not sure I could be so forgiving about a leader in my own church, but that's good that you can!

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Habemus Papam! Benedictus XV!, Deo gratias!

The new Pope picks his own name. Usually it reflects a Saint or previous Pope that the newly elected Pope feels admiration for or is influenced by, but it is purely up to him.
My guess is that Pope Benedict XVI will carry on in the same tradition as his predecessor. They were close friends and saw eye to eye in just about everything.
One key bit to consider is that he is considered to be shy and gentle in his approach. He is a strict conservative but apparently finds it difficult to be gratuituously hard on people.
In any case he has a hard job ahead of him and we would do well to ask for help and guidance for him. Oremus!

I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss him & his papacy. I'm saying that first we need to see how he plans on running things.
His positions have always been clear but how can you compare the philosophies of a young adult to a 78 year old man?

After the new Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals, two questions are asked him in Latin: "Do you accept election?" and "By which name do you wish to be called?" He can either choose his own name or any previous Pontiff's name.

Cardinal Ratzinger selected Benedictus XVI (Benedict XVI), as he was ordained in the Order of St. Benedict (O.S.B.) - the Benedictine monks.

It's actually the first thing they do after accepting the election -- pick the name they will use.
Hmmm. Grains of salt called for, I would think.

According to reports I have read, Ratzinger's father was a policeman, and his family had to move in 1932 because of his father's outspoken criticism of the Nazis. While that doesn't necessarily mean the son wasn't in the Hitler Youth (we all have our teenage rebellions), I would be more willing to trust the allegation if it was in a real news source.

I think it's clear that this is a "stay-the-course" election. And as much as I know lots of people would have liked to see female priests, for example, that simply wasn't going to happen, given the pool of candidates. Married priests, maybe, but not female priests.

ETA: I found this story in the Times of London on Ratzinger's Hitler Youth involvement.

A few things worth noting:

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.


This part was a little more troubling to me:

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

It is something, though, that he deserted and spent time in a POW camp.

I'm raising my glass in your direction here. Good answer! :)

Isn't he the one who said if you vote for someone who is pro-choice you should not receive communion? Sounds harsh.

for a list of all the pope names, visit http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

pope number 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 (and many more) all have names that sound interesting.

I wonder if he had this planned for a while. "When I rise to the top of the Catholic Church, I shall be known as Benedit the 16th!"

It doesn't seem to be something to come up with on the spur of the moment.

Interesting. Has there ever been someone who said no?

I don't think Benedict XVI (until recently Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) had much choice in joining the Hitler Youth. Membership in it was practically required (as long as they were racially suitable) of all German youth from age 10, when they became members of the Jungvolk (Young Folk). Around age 14-15, having passed many political and proficiency tests, they became Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).

A small minority of Hitler Youth members were very fanatical Nazis; most were 'card carrying' members, mostly paying lip service to the propaganda. An SS division named "Hitlerjugend" was composed mostly of former members of the Hitler Youth - their fanaticism covered up their relative inexperience and they were nearly wiped out by the Allies in WWII.

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Apparently there have been several.