The Veiled Chameleon: April 2005: I like this new pope

I like this new pope

So, a new pope has been chosen for the Catholic Church.

Frankly, I don't really give a damn. To me, he's just some character running around in a funny hat. He's a bit similar to a clown in that regard. However, there's a lot of people annoyed at his selection, or, rather, the selection of who he is, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, of Germany, to be the pope. It seems that he's too fundamental, too conservative.

Based upon what I've read so far from those who are against him, I'm rather pleased with the choice. Here's why:

As I understand it, the pope is the representative of God, not of the people. If any one Catholic, or each and every Catholic alive, disagrees with the direction of their church, then they can just stuff it. They don't get to choose, God does. Theirs is not to question why, theirs is to just buck up, quit whining, and do as they're told...by the pope.

While I don't go for this church organization thing, nor the infinitely less tenable super-human "God" thing, the situation is symbolic of reality: truth is not subject to vote. We've been living in a politically correct atmosphere in which anything perceived as a slight (such as using red ink to grade tests, or having hard drives labelled "master" and "slave") gets afforded monumental significance, the relevance of facts has been subordinated to the relevance of self-esteem, and emotions have become far more persuasive than reason (Gerry Spence, a lamentably successful attorney, actually wrote a book advocating from cover to cover emotion over reason in arguments, citing his tremendous success in court using precisely those methods).

This pope seems to be against all of that. He basically says, "You don't like it, tough." Or, put another way: Grow up.

That rocks.