Popen Thread

Can one nominate oneself for the position? I would make an AWESOME pope.

Somewhere, Dan Brown is feverishly working on a manuscript, having already left a voice message for Tom Hanks.

I don’t really have a preference for who should be Pope, but I would like them to choose the Pontifical name Hilarius II.

Nah, the name they should choose is George Ringo I.

There have been five Pope Sixtus’s in history, so I have been wanting for some time for some Pope to become Sixtus the Sixth (or Sixtus Sextus in Latin).

On the authority of no less than St. Malachy (or possibly St. Malarky): in persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis ciuitas septicollis diruetur, & Iudex tremendus iudicabit populum Å¿uum. Finis.

Hold onto your hats.

“Can one nominate oneself for the position? I would make an AWESOME pope.”

Seconded. Eight more votes and you get to the Papal conclave at least. Best of luck

“Can one nominate oneself for the position?”
I thought you had to be a Cardinal first. Don’t know whether baseball players would qualify though.

I sort of are curious where the next Pope will come from though. The center of gravity of the church has been shifting South. Maybe an African would be in the running. They picked a Pole and communism broke down. The German was always just a stop gap.

So maybe the threat from Islamists suggests that it might be expedient to pick a tropical African. Is there a suitable Candidate (Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan perhaps)?

In the wake of the previous thread, I suppose we needed a little comic relief — a glimpse into what the politics of authoritarian government reduces to in the fullness of time. Fellini’s Vatican fashion show has never seemed more relevant, although those who favor robes and trappings over scrabbling for rats in the gutters will no doubt remain as oblivious as ever. If the gaucheries of the Romney campaign have left you feeling depressed and out of sorts, you should take heart and rejoice that Holy Mother Church is eternal.

Betting firms have Peter Turkson from Ghana at 10/3, which is at least comfortably ahead of Bono @1000/1.

Aparently there is one serious Candidate from Ghana (Peter Turkson), who also is relatively young for a cardinal. Most of them seem to make the case that the church is a gerontocracy.

I find myself wondering whether anyone is going to be sad to see him go. Catholics I mean. What has he done that anyone might admire or be happy about?

Substance McGravitas,

What happens in the conclave STAYS in the conclave.

Paddy Power has Richard Dawkins at 666-1.

chris y @28
” I’m not sure they’ll risk a twenty year papacy ”

Why is it a risk for an conservative authoritarian organisation? I thought authoritarian organisations liked having a leader? Do you think they want constant in-fighting?

reason @29. The constant infighting has been going on since the first century. They can handle that. But what if the guy they choose turns out to be unsound on some issue that crops up after a year or two? They don’t want to wait twenty years before they can take corrective action.

Scott P. 02.11.13 at 3:31 pm
There have been five Pope Sixtus’s in history, so I have been wanting for some time for some Pope to become Sixtus the Sixth (or Sixtus Sextus in Latin).

And do you suppose he will, sext us?

They don’t want to wait twenty years before they can take corrective action.

Oh, they’ve always had ways of dealing with that too. Just ask Celestine V, he of “il gran rifiuto”.

The infighting started at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, probably. One does wonder whether John the Baptist really so easily gave up control of his own little sect. (Or, perhaps, how many of John’s followers transferred to the new dispensation without controversy?) Then there was the “who is going to sit at Jesus’ right hand?” controversy.

One does wonder whether John the Baptist really so easily gave up control of his own little sect.

Difficult to keep control when your head’s on a platter. But the Mandaeans are still around, so yeah, right from the get go. Pretty much like every other tradition/movement/institution then.

The pontiff is the bishop of Rome, so, yes, the person selected must fulfill the same requirements as that to occupy any other bishop’s seat – which, yes, means that Woody Allen (currently married), Ayatollah Khamenei (currently married) and Joan (can’t become a priest) aren’t in the running, unless they perform some fairly notable machinations (theoretically possible in some alternative universe for Allen and the Ayatollah). There could theoretically be a married pontiff if a priest of another denomination converted to Catholicism.

Have they tried the route of picking up the smelliest, most incoherent, drunkest hobo they can find, and elevating him, on the “what you do unto the least of these…” principle? It would let them do that Japanese-emperor thing for a while. Good fun for everybody.

“Woody Allen (currently married), Ayatollah Khamenei (currently married) ”

But would the Jew/Muslim thing have ruled them out? Genuine question, could the Pope, technically, not be a Catholic?

Sadly, there’s little possibility that the College of Cardinals will elect someone willing to change the Catholic Church’s destructive and outdated policies on sex and gender. John Paul II and Benedict XVI appointed virtually all the cardinal-electors, so the next papal candidate will likely be someone in their theological mold. But they will probably try to help their public image by electing someone who is not associated with the sexual abuse scandals wracking the Church. There’s also a good chance that the elected candidate will be younger, more telegenic, and possibly non-white: Latin America and Africa have plenty of theologically conservative bishops and cardinals.

aside from giving the child molester co conspirator cardinal of Boston a sinecure in Rome, Benedict was also responsible for this, from wiki:

Ratzinger defended and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine.. Dominus Iesus, published by the congregation in the jubilee year 2000, reaffirmed many recently “unpopular” ideas, including the Catholic Church’s position that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” The document angered many Protestant churches by claiming that they are not actually churches, but “ecclesial communities”.[28]

copied from wiki
This is where I miss Alexander Cockburn, the only one with balls enough to call a spade a spade.

In response to #49, it was not Benedict XVI who gave Law his sinecure in Rome. It happened before he became pope. One feels, or at least I do, some sympathy for the guy because he has had to try to undo some of his predecessor’s bad deeds, as in Maciel and the papal election rules, without being too overt about it. And the resignation may be considered as a perhaps not too subtle critique of the way that predecessor let the place go to hell in the last few years of his papacy when he was physically and intellectually unable to do his job.

I have not read Dominus Iesus, but a guy I used to know who had read it, and whose opinion I trust, told me that, although the one paragraph always quoted was indeed very offensive, the rest of it was fairly innocuous.

I agree with Gene O’Grady (#51). I think B16 kind of reigned in the whole pope-as-superstar business begun by JP2. Things got so nutty under his predecessor esp. toward the end: hundreds of new saints all lacking a popular cult, mugging with Bono, changing the Rosary, announcing the vision of Fatima was all about him, Schiavo-fest, etc. B16 instead just acted like a pope.

So, in some alternative world, the person could theoretically convert/be baptized, be ordained and be seated as the bishop of Rome one rite immediately after another. Outside of the alternative world, that hasn’t ever happened.

Hey, don’t rule out Newt Gingrich: he probably has another 20 good years in him.

Could an artificial intelligence be Pope?

” Could an artificial intelligence be Pope?”

The elephant in the room..

“One feels, or at least I do, some sympathy for the guy because he has had to try to undo some of his predecessor’s bad deeds, as in Maciel and the papal election rules, without being too overt about it.”

As shown in the recent and excellent HBO documentary “Mea Maxima Culpa,” Benedict acted against Maciel as soon as the latter’s protector, JPII, was out of the picture. Benedict is part and parcel of the ghastly and criminal institutional failure represented by the child molestation scandal, and his attempt to clean things up hasn’t always been adequate, to say the least, but he seems to have been far from the worst.

Th only decent Pope was a lawnmower.

The link to the acrobats upthread was awesome. I particuarly liked the pan to the nuns fanning themselves …

I predict one of the underground cardinals in China will be the next Pope. It worked once. . . .

Why the focus on Africans or Latinos, bad Jim, what about a Chinese Pope to challenge the PRC dictatorship?

“So, in some alternative world, the person could theoretically convert/be baptized, be ordained and be seated as the bishop of Rome one rite immediately after another. Outside of the alternative world, that hasn’t ever happened.”

It’s come close in this one though. One of the Medicis perhaps? Priest, Cardinal and Pope all in a day or two?

Poland has always been overwhelmingly Catholic, so having a “local boy” as Pope meant a lot in 1978. Catholicism has been always a very small minority in China. The nearest equivalent in Asia to Communist Poland would be the Philippines, but with 80% Christian, it wouldn’t have the same impact. They could try Việt Nam: 6% Catholic, mostly in the South, but still under some sort of Communism.

“I suspect that an appropriately chosen inanimate object could be Pope.”

Let’s make Twitter the next Pope then. It would be good to know that all the strident and mutually incompatible views held on social media would suddenly become infallible.

I forget who asked, but a pope from China is out of the question. The Chinese Catholic Church isn’t considered to be fully in communion with the Vatican, as the PRC has a hand in its appointments. So far from being a two-fingers to the PRC, appointing a pope from China would be quite a coup for that state and likely to be gloated over self-righteously the same way the Nobel prize for literature was.

Actually, we all can become pope, thanks to Project Pan-Pontification. You go to this site

http://discordia.wikia.com/wiki/Pope_cards

and print out a card which begins

The bearer of this card is a genuine and authorized

POPE

and you are then a pope with full rights and privleges, including infallibility.

If an inanimate object can be Pope, I suggest a Shiva linga. Checks the Asian box and is appropriate symbolism for the clergy’s principal avocation.

@ keir #57
“Could an artificial intelligence be Pope?”

The question is: Could a natural intelligence?

Ambrose was an unbaptized layman when he was elected Bishop of Milan. He was baptized, ordained and consecrated in quick succession.

One of the more notable fathers of the Church, except for his rabid anti-Semitism.

@ Maria 77,
Right, new pope would not be from official Catholic church in China, but rather from the underground catholic church there. There are Cardinals “in pectore” (secret) there.

i’ll be happy not hearing his german-accented italian anymore.

C’mon, Annie, the one thing I really liked about his predecessor was that his Italian was easy for me to understand. And, unfortunately, often with appalling content.

On the other hand, the three finest male speaking voices I ever heard live were (in chronological order) Muhammed Ali, John Paul II, and Richard Burton.

The Star Wars parody ‘A New Pope’