Well, there we go. Everyone’s favourite rodent serenader has won the Papal election. Cardinal Ratzinger (sorry, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI) is now Pope with all the mystical theological powers that position entails – which may or may not include the ability to crack walnuts with his teeth.
Judging by the photos in all the papers he does quite look the role – like someone’s jolly and good natured grandfather, or maybe a beardless Santa Claus. Obviously the Cardinals decided to hark back to all those medieval Popes who enjoyed a good meal, as opposed to the rather skinny and ascetic John Paul. Appearances aside however he’s apparently a staunch conservative, so we’ll just have to see if he’ll end up moving the Catholic Church forwards, backwards, or just keeps it running on the spot.
While I don’t know if he’ll be a good Pope, I do know one thing he’s good for – search engine hits. My ramblings about St Malachy and comments on what a great name Ratzinger is saw my visitor numbers jump from 13 on Tuesday to 314 yesterday. I’m quite pleased at the idea of 314 people looking for solid information about De Gloria Olivae and ending up reading my ill-informed rants, it’s probably done them all a world of good 🙂
Hmmm, I’ll have to check out what the Malachy pundits are saying about Ratzinger (sorry! His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI). They’ve had a couple of days, they should have found a weak and subjective link to olives by now. I would have been much more impressed if St Malachy had said something like De Muris Carmen, but that’s probably just me 🙂
Better go, I have work to do.
