Ademus Papam!

An estimated one hundred and fifty thousand people waited around on the plaza at St-Peter`s Basilica, for the announcement of their new King, I mean, spiritual leader. And, almost as fast as the white-smoke dissipated, the moment was over, and everybody left. I was left wondering.

I watched the whole thing live; I was at home and sick that day. As a non-believer, raised catholic (by an ex-nun, no less), the frenzy surrounding the new pope has me baffled. Media analysts and critics spent hours analyzing an event with the same fervor and determination as they did the USA election of 2004. I mean come-on. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? This is supposed to be a spiritual event, guided by god and a bunch of old men sitting inside a gold trimmed church, burning voting ballots in a tradition that is almost as old as... Well, its old. Very, very old.

Some crazies might say that god (yes with a small g) himself struck me with the stomach flu that day so that I would not have to go to work and be a witness to his choosing of the new head of the catholic church (yes, lowercase letters again). That is all Bullcrap (capital letter). I think he was probably busy trying to inspire the 115 old fogies at the conclave: *twilight zone music* god is everywhere!!!!

So, where are we headed now? Oh they say Herr Ratzinger is a conservative cardinal. I even heard some Radio-Canada journalist on the French-Canada national news channel up in arms about how horrible it was the conclave ended with such a conservative man as the head of the church (get used to it, I am not capitalizing those words).

Well, stop the presses. "Ademus papam" or we have a conservative pope. Oh my god! (Pardon the pun!) Is it really something worth writing about? Open any newspaper and note how much time has been devoted to precisely that topic. How unbelievable it is, that a conservative organization has elected another conservative leader. I even heard a priest on TV, whose name I wish I could remember saying: "I don't think of the church as conservative, I think of it as catholic." Well, that says it all.

I guess 1.6 billion catholics can't be wrong. Or can they? I will save my religious hate mongering for another post. I just might burn in hell. I hear that's where most of my friends are headed anyway.