Pope Rat

Habemus papam, Josphus Cardinale Ratzinger, age 78, former archbishop of Munich, former dean of the College of Cardinals, former Hitler Youth, and former Nazi soldier. This guy is from Germany, a country where Catholic churches are down to half-empty pews on Sunday mornings, and still slipping. This is one of the two guys voting in the papal conclave who was not given his red hat by John Paul II. He is the guy who was the doctrinal disciplinarian of the Church as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (of Inquisition fame), and who succeeeded in squealching all discussion of religious topics in favor of "education" and stiffling "dissidents" who were trying to be progressive thinkers (kind of like Galileo was a dissident when he argued to the Church that the earth is round, not flat). This is the guy who blamed the pedophile priest scandal in the United States on the fact that some priests are homosexual (if you look at the evidence, not all of the pedophiles were gay and not all of the molested children were boys), who has publically stated that homosexuals are "objectively disordered and intrinsically evil," and who doesn't even think that the sexual abuse scandal is a problem. He is considered to be an archconservative, and even more conservative than was John Paul II. This is the guy who came up with the concept of "papal fundamentalism." This is the Vatican official who is so against the ordination of women to the priesthood that he even forbade the discussion of the topic. In fact, women may even lose their current roles as readers and eucharistic ministers, even altar girls—just last year, he wrote a letter to all the bishops of the church affirming the subordinate role of women and attacking feminism. And, this is the guy who, when faced with questions from Africa about halting the spread of AIDS, insisted that the Church's prohibition on birth control included a prohibition on condoms for HIV prevention.

So much for the adage, "He who goes into conclave a pope comes out a cardinal." The press reported (how do they know these things?) that he went in with forty-four committed votes. Sounds like he wanted it badly. Oh, well. The Catholics will do what the Catholics will do.

All I can say is Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.