You know my worry with the new pope isn't that he's conservative, it's that he won't be conservative enough.
I mean think about it: they weren't going to elect a guy who was going to take office and go "You remember how we were all 'ooops' on the eating meat on Fridays and the whole Galileo is a heretic thing? Yeah, turns out it's the same deal on women priests and faggots. Sorry! Our bad!" That was never going to happen.
On the other hand, what could happen was the election of someone so conservative that finally some of the absurdities of what the Church clings to would come to light. Or, at the very least, that the Church on the whole becomes so conservative that people finally stop putting up with it.
Not that there aren't those who agree with a conservative Church. But my feeling is that we had a lot of people who were sitting on the fence until a new pope showed up. They figured JPII was half-corpse already, might as well hang out for a bit and see how it goes.
And what those people needed - what the Church, IMO, needs - is a pope who's just going to say fuck it all and be as bad as he wants to be. Gays? Banned. Female priests? You get excommunicated for even suggesting it. Contraception? Oh Hell no.
In fact, go even further. I want a pope who comes out and says that you have to put Latin back in the Mass, and if there's even a hint that you once masturbated that means you're not allowed on Church property. I want a pope who ups the tithe and makes it explicitly clear that it's going to pay for the moving funds of all the priests they're shuffling around to get away from their child molestation charges.
Hell, I want a pope who says naming pets with human names is one of the biggest sins.
Something. Anything so that the Church can finally break, as it's so obviously in need of right now, and then it can right itself and the new thing can right itself and hopefully some good will come of it.
But my feeling is that Benedict is not going to make that happen. Yeah, he's conservative, but he's been on the inside for a while now. My suspicion is that JPII really stopped being his own spokesperson long before he died, so I have a hard time believing that we're going to see significant change now that Benedict is actually wearing the big pointy hat on more than a symbolic level.
More than that, he's already old. So even if he does come out and name a horse as his successor, people are just going to shrug their shoulders and go back to waiting for the next guy.
So it's not the conservativism of Benedict that gets me. It's that I don't think he's conservative enough.
Ah well.
I mean think about it: they weren't going to elect a guy who was going to take office and go "You remember how we were all 'ooops' on the eating meat on Fridays and the whole Galileo is a heretic thing? Yeah, turns out it's the same deal on women priests and faggots. Sorry! Our bad!" That was never going to happen.
On the other hand, what could happen was the election of someone so conservative that finally some of the absurdities of what the Church clings to would come to light. Or, at the very least, that the Church on the whole becomes so conservative that people finally stop putting up with it.
Not that there aren't those who agree with a conservative Church. But my feeling is that we had a lot of people who were sitting on the fence until a new pope showed up. They figured JPII was half-corpse already, might as well hang out for a bit and see how it goes.
And what those people needed - what the Church, IMO, needs - is a pope who's just going to say fuck it all and be as bad as he wants to be. Gays? Banned. Female priests? You get excommunicated for even suggesting it. Contraception? Oh Hell no.
In fact, go even further. I want a pope who comes out and says that you have to put Latin back in the Mass, and if there's even a hint that you once masturbated that means you're not allowed on Church property. I want a pope who ups the tithe and makes it explicitly clear that it's going to pay for the moving funds of all the priests they're shuffling around to get away from their child molestation charges.
Hell, I want a pope who says naming pets with human names is one of the biggest sins.
Something. Anything so that the Church can finally break, as it's so obviously in need of right now, and then it can right itself and the new thing can right itself and hopefully some good will come of it.
But my feeling is that Benedict is not going to make that happen. Yeah, he's conservative, but he's been on the inside for a while now. My suspicion is that JPII really stopped being his own spokesperson long before he died, so I have a hard time believing that we're going to see significant change now that Benedict is actually wearing the big pointy hat on more than a symbolic level.
More than that, he's already old. So even if he does come out and name a horse as his successor, people are just going to shrug their shoulders and go back to waiting for the next guy.
So it's not the conservativism of Benedict that gets me. It's that I don't think he's conservative enough.
Ah well.