Looks like they finally made up their minds about who should be the next Pope:
Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez of Chile made the announcement to a cheering crowd in St. Peter’s Square.
Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI, appeared on the balcony of the Vatican Basilica to greet the people and deliver his first papal blessing.
Wonderful. Can we actually get back to covering news that’s actually important now? Please??
Update: Looks like Buzz is with me on this one.
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Posted on 04/19/2005 at 12:08 PM 
Posted on 04/19/2005 at 12:35 PM 
I don’t think this issue of the new pope is going away anytime soon, considering that the new pope is an ex-nazi; a member of the Hitler Youth. The fact that the conclave elected an ex-Nazi a pope is a disgrace to John Paul II’s legacy. John Paul II reached out to the Jewish community. Ratzinger was a soldier against them.
Posted on 04/19/2005 at 01:38 PM 
They did it in three ballots and avoided having to go into a sudden death kickoff.
1. Well, I suppose news that affects rather directly the religious lives of a billion Catholics around the world (or, more—heh—parochially, some 50-odd million folks in the US) might be considered important by *some*.
2. There are a lot more grounds to be dubious about Cardinal Ratzinger than the fact that, like most teens in German in the 30s-40s, he was a member of the Hitler Youth. That said, I’ll be interested to see how he deals with any sort of ecumenical efforts, given his history as official enforcer of orthodox doctrine.
3. Given that the man is 78, I suspect we won’t have him around for very long. Which may have been one of the issues behind his election.
What - send in the Beast Ratzinger to grind us down, then elect Pope Feyd who will be greeted with relief but who will actually be enforcing the same things - orthodoxy, less individual rights/responsibilities - that John Paul II was espousing in these later years?
What can I say? Apparently the Cardinals thought he was the best choice.
And couldn’t he have chosen a better name the Benedict?
Actually, Benedict is an interesting name to have chosen. There’s a long tradition of it (obviously there have been 15 predecessors), but the previous Benedict, who served during WWI, was known as a conciliator and moderate after the previous Pope Pius the whateverth.
Posted on 04/19/2005 at 04:45 PM 
I’m totally with you! I say let’s get back to watching a jury unbelievably acquit Michael Jackson. (You KNOW that’s what’s going to happen, right?)
When I was a teenager, I was a “Jesus Freak.” Now, I’m… not.
I think people should give Ratzinger a break on what he was when he was a teenager.
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Ahhh, Les, enjoy the grand spectacle, will you?
As a European, I can say that this will probably only hasten the further spread of atheism here