Habemus Papem!

We have a pope! By now I'm sure those words are known to everyone whether they are Catholic or not. It is amazing to me how much one event can captivate and inspire the world. Not to mention the excitement of seeing the white smoke!

Now I'm a huge dork and once I heard the news that Pope Emeritus Benedict was retiring I decided I was going to become more knowledgeable about the whole conclave process. I highly recommend the book Selecting the Next Pope by Greg Tobin. He gives a high overview history of the Papacy and discusses how conclave became what it is today and why many of the rules came to be. For instance did you know that the rulers of Italy, Austria and France used to have veto power? And the tradition of selecting a new name is just that a tradition it has no basis in church law.

“The first pope to exercise the option of choosing a new name was Mercury, an elderly Roman presbyter, whose given name was that of a pagan god; he reigned as John II (533–535).”

Excerpt From: Tobin, Greg. “Selecting the Pope.” Sterling. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/selecting-the-pope/id425139342?mt=11
All in all I enjoyed it.

I am excited about Pope Francis I. I am no theologian, bible thumper or even that religious but I feel he is a grand new beginning for a new phase in church history. Call me naive but I don't think we can look to his past actions to see how he will lead our church. It is such a life changing role that to try to compare it to when he was a parish priest or even a bishop is like comparing apples to oranges. And maybe the College of Cardinals were right to select an older gentleman to be the Bishop of Rome. The world changes much more quickly than in the past, so maybe we should have a more frequent change in leadership as well.

One more thought and then I will retire my soapbox... There will no doubt be many naysayers who say the Church is flawed and that the Holy Father should  make more rapid changes to our faith. And they are right the Church is flawed because the Body of Christ is flawed. All humans are flawed. The beauty of our Church, our Body of Christ is that it is OURS to change. Gandhi had it right when he said "Be the change you want to see in the world"

There you have it... my thoughts on it all. As you react remember I'm just a stay at home mom trying to figure all of this out too- so be kind. I just feel so excited to be able to see it all and in a few short weeks visit the place where it all happened.

If you would like the thoughts of someone much smarter than me check out Whispers in the Loggia. He has actual degrees that make him have qualified opinions!

I promise I will soon be back to my regularly scheduled program of kids antics and travel quips!

Happy Day!