Papal Observationism

I haven't been able to avoid PopeMedia – this all Pope, all the time thing. I want to, but it's not just happening, given the absolutely stupid level of coverage the Catholic Church is getting right now.

Mostly I’m learning that I know very little about Catholicism, which makes sense on account of how I'm Jewish. That and they seem to like to dress up for occasions. Still, despite the ignorance and lack of perspective, it’s all so ubiquitous that I can’t help but share some thoughts.

When I read Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope, the very first thing I thought of and still can’t shake was just, "Pope Cliff?" I can’t get it out of my head. There’s an image lodged there of Pope Cliff explaining dogma in a pedantic Boston accent.

Though we can probably all agree Benedict XVI will be less funny.

One thing that strikes me as utterly bizarre in all of this is the Papal Conclave, where they vote to elect the new Pope. Now from what I know about the Pope (which is little, see above), he’s infallible. Isn’t he? But how can you vote somebody into infallibility?

Imagine being a cardinal one day, the Pope passes on and gets smacked in the head with a silver mallet, there’s the conclave, a few days later a chimney announces you’re the new Pope, you wake up the next morning infallible. What’s that like? ...Today I can do no wrong, literally. Is that a lot of pressure or a big relief?

For the rest of the cardinals, it has to be bit of a bum deal. How much would it suck to vote against a guy who’s afterwards perfect by definition and always right? Where’s the recourse?

"Your eminence, this interpretation on..."
"Shh, infallible."
"A number of us were hoping to take a different tack in matters of..."
"Infallible."
"However if one were to..."
"Don't make me tap the sign."
"Look, we were able to talk about this yesterday."
"In-fal-i-ble."

I know it’s obvious, but I wonder if Bush thought this was the deal he was getting last year.

I wonder how he feels it’s measuring up.