Viva El Papa!

(long live the pope)

So.. we have a new Pope.. Joseph Ratzinger..
Or as he will now be known Pope Benedict XVI
I was hopeful that they would elect someone who would move the faith forward, perhaps allowing women to become more of a part of the church.
I have always wondered in my Catholic upbringing why the Nuns in my particular church seemed to do all of the work, tending to the sick and disenfranchised, while the priests took up huge collections for a new home to be built for the priests.. You should have seen this home.. It had fireplaces in the bedrooms and a huge pool. Certainly not a home for a servant of the Lord who was espoused to not care about material possessions..
And the Nuns?
They lived in a Dormitory near the hospital..
Hardly seemed fair, and probably colored my views of my own religious upbringing.

This new Pope I hear, was a member of the Hitler Youth..
A fact that allegedly is not disputed by the Vatican, but instead spun into a tale that all the boys in his village were forced to join in..
Now other villagers say this claim is false.. but his family is allegedly firmly anti-Nazi..
Still though an interesting choice as the Shepard to the Catholic flock..

I would have preferred the Brazilian or the Nigerian; perhaps they would have a better grasp of the world we live in today.. Perhaps they would move the faith forward..
Loosening the restrictions on birth control, and changing the language as it pertains to us gay folk.. John Paul’s statements on gays were quite harsh, and didn’t make me wanna run back to church by any stretch of the imagination.

So, whatever Benedict XVI’s past is, we shall see what he has in store for the future, sadly there are many disappointed people in the world today..

Fortunately for me, I pray to my god, not a man in long flowing robes who lives a very contained life in the Vatican.. How can someone be effective if they don’t look at what is going on around them and make a change for the better?
The ceremonies witnessed the past couple of weeks with the funeral of JP and the election of the new pope may be mired in ritual, but it is archaic and not representative of the world we live in today.