Worst of all not who I had in the sweep.

On a serious note while not religious I recognise that in her last years the Church was source of comfort for my mother and it saddens me that they seem to be completely failing to grasp the nettle of clearing out with full disclosure all their dark old secrets and bad practises.

The cardinals shouldn't be electing new pontiff they should be resigning en masse in recognition of what a sorry state they had left the Catholic Church in.

>Update - may have spoken too soon re his story. Claims out there that during the first three years of the military dictatorship when he was provincial of the Jesuits, he withdrew protection from two Jesuits who were secretly arrested and had refused orders to stop working with the poor. ( keep in mind that during this period there was a very large schism among Catholic clergy in Central and South America regarding the role the church in social activism and the place of Liberation Theology. cf the murder of Archbishop Romero in El Savador in 1980.
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>This will, of course, be the subject of a lot of comment in the subsequent days, but his own lifestyle seems to speak well of him.
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>>Charles Mingus said "The Shoes of the Fisherman are some jive-ass slippers" :-) (oops- correction "the shoes of the fisherman's wife ..." hmmm )
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>>Looks like they got it right. Picking Francis sends a signal. And he's a Jesuit! As an interested outside observer representing the Reform Transcendental Sufi Pagans of the world, I applaud the choice. Seriously, his story is interesting and I think the world will be encouraged by what they learn of him.
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>>>The Roman Catholic Church has a new Pope! He is an American and the first American to serve in that office. His name is Jorge Bergoglio, and he is from Argentina. For those of you who think that only a person from the United States is an American, I must say that Argentina is a part of the America’s.
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>>>How is a Pope chosen? After listening to the media experts my conclusion is this: There are three different sized garments that a new Pope will wear for the first two days after being selected. The new Pope will wear the garments that most closely fit him. The important thing is this: There is only one pair of red shoes available. So I imagine that the person selected as Pope is the one who can wear the shoes? :)