The Pope Is Dead. Who’s Next?

The death of the Pope is not big news for those who’ve been paying attention to the news and knew of his critical condition. Personally, I assumed it would happen in the next day or two. But the list of potential successors to the Papacy, it looks rather interesting. If nothing else, it reinforces a sense of that non-monolithic nature of the Church that commenter Joshua occasionally mentions here.

3 thoughts on “The Pope Is Dead. Who’s Next?

  1. Acoording to my knowledge I think the american media (most of them) want to have american cardinal to be the next pope . Thats rediculous you know being the country which polute the world with poluted air and throwing air towards the Africa & asia and at the same time their young generation is very dangerous I hope u people can remember the asasination done by aschoolboy last month u know this is not the first time . I want to tell the American people and american media You may be the most developed country in the world ,you may be enjoying the best facilities in the world but look inside you and see whether most of you people have a life where according to your heart you can say hey I am a good guy my heart is clear Iam a truly happy man, I dont think so Not more than 5%can say that .so just tell me how are you going to go for that selection even I think that the cardinal is a good fellow but if he cant control his own country people how can he control the world and we all know how many people have killed in Iraq and afganistan It’s ok he cant control the war and Bush it’s ok but he could have stop the throwing of 1/3 of their corn harvest every year to ocean to keep the rate fly higher you know in Asian & African counries people die of hunger.So you people dont have any right to go for the selection even.
    Thank you

  2. Wow! Achila, a few thoughts:

    – I’m not American

    – Most people who read this site aren’t in America

    – The government of plenty of countries from where the next Pope may come has done awful things

    – The chances of an American becoming Pope this time are quite low as it stands to antagonize much of the world.

    Why you chose to post your rant here, I don’t know. It’s fine, but the fact that bits of it are uninformed — like the notion that throwing food causes hunger; paying people not to grow full harvests is questionable, but what often causes hunger is the difficulties in distribution. Yes, those governments in Asia and Africa are at least in part to blame.

    Finally, I think anyone has the right to go in for selection. None of the things you complained about are perpetrated by the American Church, you know. It doesn’t mean they’ll get in, but of course they, like anyone, has the right to try.

  3. I agree with u Achila on the fact that an american cardinal does not have a chance of becoming the next pope, howevor he still has a chance to go in for selection. There most likely wont be an american pope because of the political view towards americans right now. I am an American, and its pretty sad that i believe that way (sad towards the U.S) I think most americans are snobbish, and have it too good. We havent really seen war on our front, so many americans dont know anything about the “real world” Personally anericans have dug ourselves into the situation that we are in, by going into an unjustified war with Iraq, although i do have to disagree with you about afganistan, i think we were right to enter a military conflict in search of Bin Ladin. The war in Iraq was not right though. So to end, there most likely will not be an american pope for a very very long time.
    With great pleasure responding to both of you,
    thank you.

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