Apparently, the smoke was indeed white. The bells are now tolling across the Vatican and throughout the city of Rome, as we celebrate the election of our new Pope! In about one-half hour, he will be introduced to the world from the front balcony of St. Peter's Basilica.
Before that happens, however, he will don his new papal vestments. The Cardinals not elected will then swear their allegiance to the new Pope one by one before the rest of the world sees him for the first time.
40 comments:
Is that 30 min or 1 hour and 30 min? You wrote the former but did you mean the latter?
I'm underestimating the amount of time it will take because I don't want anyone to miss it because of me. It may take longer than 30 minutes, true. But I don't think it will take 90.
According to CNN, 30 minutes!
Everyone at work, Catholic or not, are really happy that it's white because now we won't have to be too glued to CNN.com anymore!
Most of my co-workers are betting on the Brazilian cardinal!
As this new pope assumes the papacy does his previous post as cardinal remain vacant or is a replacement required?
Anonymous, there is no set number of Cardinals who must be "replaced" on a one-to-one basis. The new Pope will create new Cardinals at his first Consistory, probably about a year or so from now.
This is getting really exciting! I wonder what my family back home are wondering about who is it going to be! :)
If it is the Nigerian cardie, I'll be really pleased! I'll lose the work pool (I picked Rodriguez), but he's my 2nd choice! :)
Ratzinger it is.
I was just about to go to bed when my (atheist!) friend SMS'd me the news. Now I'm wide awake, wondering who on earth it could be.
Pope Benedict!
I hope it's anyboby but Rodriguez.
I live in Honduras and contrary to news reports many here who would believe he would be a disaster of a pope.
Apparently it'll be Benedict XVI..
God bless Pope Ben the 16th! :)
I thought for sure it was going to be Arinze...
I am shocked it's Ratzinger. A dear friend of mine sent me this news article -- and I don't know what to make of this. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html
Anyone?
There is no need to name a new cardinal when a cardinal dies.
However,Ratzinger will be naming a replacement for himself as Cardinal-Bishop of Velletri,and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.Sodano will likely replace him as Dean.
Trish:
No need to be shocked. That news article is old stuff, and it has already been debunked by none other than the Jerusalem Post.
Here is the full article, in response to the Sunday Times:
By Sam Ser, THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 18, 2005
London's Sunday Times would have us believe that one of the leading contenders for the papacy is a closet Nazi. In if-only-they-knew tones, the newspaper informs readers that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II and suggests that, because of this, the "panzer cardinal" would be quite a contrast to his predecessor, John Paul II.
The article also classifies Ratzinger as a "theological anti-Semite" for believing in Jesus so strongly that – gasp! – he thinks that everyone, even Jews, should accept him as the messiah.
To all this we should say, "This is news?!"
As the Sunday Times article admits, Ratzinger's membership in the Hitler Youth was not voluntary but compulsory; also admitted are the facts that the cardinal – only a teenager during the period in question – was the son of an anti-Nazi policeman, that he was given a dispensation from Hitler Youth activities because of his religious studies, and that he deserted the German army.
Ratzinger has several times gone on record on his supposedly "problematic" past. In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth.
"At first we weren't," he says, speaking of himself and his older brother, "but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the Hitler Youth.
"Thank goodness there was a very understanding mathematics professor. He himself was a Nazi, but an honest man, and said to me, 'Just go once to get the document so we have it...' When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it' and so I was able to stay free of it."
Ratzinger says this again in his own memoirs, printed in 1998. In his 2002 biography of the cardinal, John Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in detail about those events.
The only significant complaint that the Times makes against Ratzinger's wartime conduct is that he resisted quietly and passively, rather than having done something drastic enough to earn him a trip to a concentration camp. Of course, whenever it is said that a German failed the exceptional-resistance-to-the-Nazis test, it would behoove us all to recognize that too many Jews failed it, as well.
If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.
As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.
If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.
As for the Hitler Youth issue, not even Yad Vashem has considered it worthy of further investigation. Why should we?
Trish;
This is what I was afraid if Ratzinger was elected.
The article is written in a tabloid manner, Ratzinger was drafted during WWII and never saw combat. He had no choice. If I heard correctly, he even desserted and was shortly captured by the allies.
After that he went to the seminary.
He's also very friendly with the Jewish community, but I'm sure there'll be another Dan Brown book with a Nazi Pope heading the Church.
*sigh*
Need to see this dudes bio - word has it he served in the Nazi German army in WWII... could that be true?
Wow, Veronica, thanks for posting that article.
Do you have the URL to the original? I'm going to need it for the next couple of weeks I suspect.
Wow, Veronica, thanks for posting that article.
Do you have the URL to the original? I'm going to need it for the next couple of weeks I suspect.
Hola Capitán América! :)
The Jerusalem Posts' article URL is: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/Subs/Entry&cl=1&finish=ContentServer?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1113704370906
You will need to register, though. Membership is free.
Or you can just go to Crux News (www.cruxnews.com) and read the article there.
Veronica - thank you so much for clearing this up for me. I just couldn't believe JP2 would select someone with this background to Cardinal.
Is there anyone else out there that feels awkward - like we are blessing our new Holy Father -- but it should be JP2?
I feel so torn....
Veronica, thanks.
I already had to use the link to the article in another thread of another forum. Very useful! :-)
Er,it was Paul VI who made the future Benedict XVI a Cardinal (in 1977).It was JP II who gave him a post in the Curia and elevated him to Cardinal Bishop.
(And it was Boney and Jimbo who kept him off their Papabile list...)
Ben the 16th sounds like his heart is in the right place, but I have doubts. He isn't as charismatic or confident as John Paul, which attracted many of us young people to the Catholic faith. I hope Ben the 16th addresses the social issues in South America as well, like the Protestant evangelists that are winning many souls. At any rate, God Bless Ben and give him the knowledge and ability to revitalize and govern the church!
GOD HELP POPE BENEDICT XVI RID CUBA OF COMMUNISM
Joseph Ratzinger understands first hand how hate and communism can plague a nation, as he himself fell prey to the nazis as a child. So please, Pope Benedict XVI help Cuba's children experience enlightenment and help them find freedom from persecution and a dictatorship that underlines hate and oppression.
I'm delighted with Benedict's election, though I'm certain it will expedite the schism of the Catholic democratic church of America. During and for some time after Vatican II I was a hearty proponent of changes in liturgy and other reforms, but of late, have felt much uneasiness at the fractured application and abandonment of core principles. If it’s not dancing girls during Good Friday services, it’s poly-lingual masses on Sundays, and applause at every nit-witted drop of the hat. The reverence and sacredness have been lost. I think we have been so concerned about losing members that we forgot to do the work, live the word, and let the Lord take care of the count. I’m hoping Benedict XVI will, as his choice of names telegraphs to me, a re-consecration of purpose and return to reverence.
The Filipino people are rejoicing for the newly elected pope. We hope that Pope Benedict XVI will love the Filipinos the way Pope John Paull II loved us.
Mabuhay!
so.. was there a 'special relationship' between Paul VI and Ratzinger?
God Bless Papa Benedict XVI! I am eagerly awaiting the return of the Latin Mass.
THE NEWLY ELECTED POPE WILL NOT BE AS NEUTRAL AS THE LATE POPE JOHN PAUL 2 .SURELY THERE'S SOME POLITICAL MOTIVE BEHIND THIS MOVE. YOU WILL FEEL IT IN THE COMING MONTHS. NOW, WE ARE ENTERTING THE LAST AND THE CRUCIAL PHASE OF THE UNIVERSE. THIS IS THE AGE OF ARMEGADDON AND SURELY I CAN SAY THAT THE POPE MUST BE AN EXPERT ON ISLAM AND JEW.NOW AND IN PAST ALSO ALL THE POLITICAL MOVE WHICH YOU OBSERVED AND WHICH IS OUT OF OUR SIGHT WILL BE DEFINED BY THIS RELIGIOUS FIGURES, NOT BY THOSE WHOM WE SAW AS THE CURRENT LEADERS TODAY.SO PREPARE FOR THE FINAL FIGHT, IN WHICH THE TOUGHEST CAN SURVIVE.EST OF LUCK.
To End-Is-Near Anonymous,
I can't even read your post. Is your CAPS lock stuck? The all caps is blinding me! Therefore, I'll have to delete it soon. Any opposition to this?
A former Nazi youth. During the world war2, millions jews died in gas chamber to massmurder. How do christians feel about this new pope?
How do we know he love people and world??
Yo, Anonymous, have you read any background on Benedict or are you parroting/plagiarizing the comments of ill willed/uninformed? Does the term conscripted mean anything to you? Or am I to suppose the same guy who won't ID himself on a simple blog would stand up to Hitler’s SS and refuse to dig ditches for the Reich?
im so happy there is a new pope! Benedict XVI!!! im so happy 0('.')0
I have studied Latin through high school and college and am proficient in the language. However, its continued use in the litugy following Vatican II that promoted the vernacular in worship stricks me as pure assininity! To most individuals, Latin is pure mumbo-jumbo and to what purpose in worship and liturgy? If someone feels the need for mumbo-jumbo, watch EWTN network. There's plenty of that nonsense on there.
to the person who expressed fears about a Dan Brown book about a Nazi pope...unfortunately, it's already been done in a book called Papal Reich
by Arun Pereira
There are plenty of people who consider the Vatican II promotion of the vernacular to be the "pure asininity" (I speak as a non-Christian observer).Remember,Jews all over the world use Hebrew in worship,Moslems use classical Arabic whatever their background.There is something to be said for having one uniting language of all worshippers throughout all places and times.
Read Revelations-study the scripture!
Post a Comment