A NEW PAPA

Ok, so what can I say? I can say, “Oh yeah!, Oh baby!, Kick it down!, Kick it down!” Cardinal Ratzinger has been elected Pope Benedict XVI – in just two days!!! The Church has chosen one of it’s chosen to lead it. It has chosen a true son of Pope John Paul II to carry on his legacy – and I’m a bit happy over it.

I wish I could say the same of the MSM (Main Street Media)

This is from Reuters (“Alleged Terrorists”)

“Arch-Conservative German Ratzinger Elected Pope”

“Leaders Hail New Pope, Liberal Catholics Dismayed”

No way in the world this could be a Good thing.

This comes from the Associated Press:

Some Jews in Israel Wary About New Pope

From the New York Times:

In St. Peter's Square, Optimism and Concern

This is just a few hours after the news, wait until tomorrow. A man I respect, Andrew Sullivan, who is gay (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that”), is particularly dismayed:

“THE FUNDAMENTALIST TRIUMPH: And so the Catholic church accelerates its turn toward authoritarianism, hostility to modernity, assertion of papal supremacy and quashing of internal debate and dissent. We are back to the nineteenth century. Maybe this is a necessary moment. Maybe pressing this movement to its logical conclusion will clarify things. But those of us who are struggling against what our Church is becoming, and the repressive priorities it is embracing, can only contemplate a form of despair. The Grand Inquisitor, who has essentially run the Church for the last few years, is now the public face. John Paul II will soon be seen as a liberal. The hard right has now cemented its complete control of the Catholic church. And so ... to prayer. What else do we now have?”

The Church – authoritarian? No!! Surely you jest! The Church has always been wide open to interpretation! Moron. Equal is the email you posted from a reader:

"As one who is on a similar wavelength with you regarding the direction our Church should take and the reforms that are needed to prevent its extinction in the West, I find myself far less pessimistic than you on the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as the new Pontiff. Perhaps it's simply because I was looking at the election as a realist. To put a twist on the infamous Rumsfeld quote, you elect a pope with the Conclave you have, not the Conclave you'd like to have. In regards to this election, the Conclave that Western Catholics like me and thee had was an older, more conservative group appointed almost entirely by JPII to reflect his conservative views on doctrine and his populist-conservative views on political and social world issues. The result was about what I expected: an older, doctrinaire Cardinal from John Paul's inner circle ascending to the papacy."

Andrew, what if you and your readers are wrong? What if, in your short time on this planet you have got it all wrong? Perhaps you and your friends need to heed the words of G.K. Chesterton, a Catholic apologist who never understood the doctrine of priestly celibacy:

"The Greeks felt virginity when they carved Artemis, the Romans when they robed the vestals, the worst and wildest of the great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of a woman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, the modern world (even while mocking sexual innocence) has flung itself into a generous idolatry of sexual innocence — the great modern worship of children. For any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt by a hint of physical sex. With all this human experience, allied with the Christian authority, I simply conclude that I am wrong, and the church right; or rather that I am defective, while the church is universal. It takes all sorts to make a church; she does not ask me to be celibate. But the fact that I have no appreciation of the celibates, I accept like the fact that I have no ear for music. The best human experience is against me, as it is on the subject of Bach. Celibacy is one flower in my father’s garden, of which I have not been told the sweet or terrible name. But I may be told it any day." (Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p 153-4)”

In an nutshell, what G.K. is saying is that, even though the doctrine of celibacy makes no sense to him, he has been wrong an awful lot during his life and the Church has almost always been right, so he’s going to accept this doctrine on faith, because who is he to say the Church is wrong?