Whoaa! He looks like Uncle Fester but with hair!

In any case, it would be pretty hard to get someone worse than Pope Urban II.

It’s a hard choice between Urban II, who instigated the First Crusade, and Innocent VIII, who appointed Torquemada and gave the Inquisition the go-ahead to use any means necessary to stamp out witches…

Yes, Ratzinger is pretty evil too, but I don’t know if he’s in the same class with these guys…

I find the politics that go into choosing a pope quite fascinating. Only yesterday I was discussing this with a friend, who pointed out that the Vatican are very savvy, and would want a pope from the wider world, but with European links. Then I read this.

Actually, as she’s an atheist from Portugal, my friend is just thankful that they don’t seem to be going for the Portuguese candidate. Admittedly, he appears more liberal than this guy (and incidentally, would be the first pope who smoked – don’t know why that’s relevant, but for some strange reason I found it amusing), but there’s a big referendum coming up on abortion soon in Portugal, and she’s anxious that the catholic fervour whipped up by the election of a Portuguese pope might affect the results.

I find the potential repercussions of what, to me, is a singularly uninteresting event, quite amazing.

I thought for a second they would pick up a guy coming from south america, that would have been refreshing.

The Austrian news said there’s an African bishop being considered.  Now that would be refreshing.

Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria is presently the fav pick by Paddy Power, probably the biggest bookies in Eire and Britain.

Interestingly, Josef Ratzinger chairs the conclave.  This, historically, gives him worse chances than those others also in the running.

(A Nigerian pope, imo, would be the best choice.  It would push racists to the fore-front within the church and facilitate a culture-purge.  Not that racism is a central problem in this church, but certainly in Western Europa and North America it is a lingering factor.)

Originally posted by TheBo$$:
Now, after His Holiness JP2’s death, we have a new problem: a really evil dude named Joseph Ratzinger will probably become pope.

So the guy is conservative, the link says nothing about why he should be considered evil.  What makes him evil?  Just curious.

So the guy is conservative, the link says nothing about why he should be considered evil.  What makes him evil?  Just curious.

Well, in this case ‘strongly conservative’ gets equated with evil. Note though that I think TheBo$$ is at least somewhat joking (in his choice of words at least, if not in his opinion).

However - good choice. If you want someone for organized evil - choose German.

I nominate the Emperor from Star Wars for Pope.  He at least could shoot lightning from his fingers and his guards looked cooler than those pansy-assed morons with stupid-looking suits designed by Michelangelo.

I thought Juan I would be a likely name for the next pope (seeing how Juan Diego was recently canonized), but it would be translated to Latin anyway and become John XXIV.

I called him evil as a half joke, but as Socialist Swine said on his blog Ratzinger could destroy a lot of the progress made under JP2.

Pope Palpatine I-----i like that---has a real ring to it.

Pope Palpatine I-----i like that---has a real ring to it.

He may have a shot.

From Rum and Monkey: Upon suspecting the pope of being dead, the Camerlengo, currently Eduardo Cardinal Martinez Somalo, verifies that the pope is dead by spitting in his eye and shouting “you sister-fucking son of a goat!� three times. At which time the Pope either rises and smites the Camerlengo furiously with lightning from his fingertips, or remains being rather dead. The Pope chooses to remain being dead in this case.

Some folks are saying there’s an outside chance of a Canadian Pope. Being a Canadian I think that would be damn cool.  But sooner or later there will be a “3rd World” Pope given the ever declining number of clergy in North America and Western Europe, which I suspect will be followed sooner rather than later by a similar decline in the old Iron Curtain countries.

They need to do it right this time and not end up with that messy John Paul I situation. Anyway I don’t give a rats ass who they choose to head up the; it’s so holy it’s actually gone to evil, catholic church.

I am starting to view the catholic church as I do Michael Jackson. Sure we’re pedophiles and what are you going to do about it. We are also rich.

Fuck organized religion, fuck it in the ear. Hypocritical bastards all.

Tim,

What Canadian cardinals are there?  There’s Ouellet, Ambrozic, and Turcotte.  I don’t think any of them are serious candidates, they’re all too young.  I think none of them are much older than 60 or 61.  Then again JPII was pretty young as well.  Also I don’t think, outside of Quebec, there’s all that many Catholics in Canada, I would figure it would make more sense to choose a pope from South America, which seems to be the last strong hold of Catholicism.  Then again, given that I’m not religious let alone Catholic, as long as the new pope isn’t from Opus Dei or Ratzinger I’ll be satisfied.  I just worry that there’ll be a ultra-orthodox conservative pope that’ll push for activism within the Catholic community which’ll add to the strength of the religious right.  Moreover, given that the RCC is a whole lot more respectable than Jerry Falwell a shift to the right on its part would lead to the ultra-right religious bloc gaining further legitimacy.

-Socialist Swine

There might be even worse alternatives…
Dubya has this real obsession of being god and this would be logical step toward it so hope that they reject him if he applied for an that office.

I think he looks like an old, demented Barnabas Collins.

Actually Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination in Canada, the 2001 census stating that 43.2 % of Canadians consider themselves Roman Catholic, 29.2 Protestant, 1.6% Eastern Orthodox, and 2.6% “other” Christian, which presumably includes such things as the Coptic denomination.

Realising I was slighting everyone else I should also mention that those calling themselves some variation on Atheist, Agnostic, Humanist, no religion and so forth were 16.2%, Buddhists 1%, Hindus 1%, Jews 1.1%, Muslims 2.0%, Sikhs .9%.  And of course there are other small groups ranging from Confucionists to Santeria that don’t have sufficient numbers to reach near one percent.

Actually, I have been conferring with a friend of mine (she’s catholic), and I can tell you that I’m going to be the next pope.

Al it takes me is to finish my conversion (all rites and stuff) to catholicism before the 18th April. For catechism law says that ANY catholic male may become pope. And I AM searching for a job right now. Just think of all the nice civil engineering projects I will undertake in the name of God’s glory.

Shit, I shouldn’t have told you this here on this site, since Les is also searching for a job. But then, what would HE offer to the church? A StupidEvilPope-Blog? Nah, vote for me, not for the other guy!

Les for pope! Wooo hooo… I might take up religion again if we had a Stupid Evil Pope!

It’s not like Les’d be the first Stupid Evil Pope, the churches history is full of them.

It’s not like I could possibly be any worse at the job than some of the previous Popes.

Tim,

It’s true that Roman Catholicism is the leading religious group, in terms of size, but then again Quebec has 20% of Canada’s population and the maritimes has another 3-5% of the population that accounts for most of the Catholics.  Indeed, I know around here the major religious denominations are the United Church, the Pentacostals, and the Mormons, with a hand full of Catholics (most of whom are from the maritimes).