{"id":7234,"date":"2005-04-19T10:56:23","date_gmt":"2005-04-19T17:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/04\/19\/putting-the-calendar-on-hold.html"},"modified":"2005-04-19T10:56:23","modified_gmt":"2005-04-19T17:56:23","slug":"putting_the_cal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/19\/putting_the_cal.html","title":{"rendered":"Putting the calendar on hold …"},"content":{"rendered":"

The College of Cardinals has chosen Joseph Ratzinger to be the next Pope<\/a>. The executive summary is, Don’t expect any changes in Church doctrine or practice, except for more cracking down on dissent and intellectual heterodoxy, for the next several years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listening to a blurb on NPR last night, the one thing Ratzinger has going for him is that he’s not stupid; he’s been called one of the preeminent theologians of his generation. Indeed, the joke goes …<\/p>\n

Cardinal Ratzinger and two other prominent theologians die in a car crash and arrive in heaven. God asks to speak with each of them privately.<\/p>\n

The first theologian goes in, and, a few minutes later, comes out, in tears. “How could I have been so wrong?”<\/p>\n

The second theologian goes in, and, likewise, reemerges a few minutes later, wailing, “How could I have been so wrong?”<\/p>\n

Ratzinger goes in, and then, after a long interval, God comes out, weeping, “How could I have been so wrong?”<\/p>\n

Of course, the office also shapes the man, and it will be interesting to see how Ratzinger goes from being the official enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy to being the pastoral leader of a billion Catholics. It will also be interesting to see how the selection of a European comes across to much of the non-European Catholic world, and how a perceived hard-liner is seen in the more liberal West.<\/p>\n

I’ll keep him (and the Church he leads) in my prayers. They’re going to need it. (As, of course, do we all, self included.)<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/u>: And it’s officially Pope Benedict XVI, who enters office at age 78. At his age, not to be morbid, I strongly suspect we’ll not see as long a tenure as the previous pope, and that may be a sign of hope for folks looking to other directions for the Church to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The College of Cardinals has chosen Joseph Ratzinger to be the next Pope. The executive summary is, Don’t expect any changes in Church doctrine or practice, except for more cracking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7229,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/20\/naming_of_names.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":0},"title":"Naming of names","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Apr-05 12:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'know, there's a lot one can find to criticize over the direction and\/or theology of the Catholic Church. And, certainly, there are aspects to the record of Cardinal Ratzinger (now...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7945,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/14\/im_just_wild_ab.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":1},"title":"I’m just wild about Harry","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Jul-05 11:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"While the headline \"Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels\" is a bit misleading (the comments date back to May 2003), the gist of the story about then-Cardinal Ratzinger writing approvingly to...","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6600,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/13\/canon_law.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":2},"title":"Canon Law","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Aug-04 12:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite sufficient disagreement with the Catholic Church on various matters both trivial and profound, I have a lot of respect for its centuries-old traditions and ritual (which is one reason...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17093,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/12\/unblogged-bits-for-mon-12-apr-2010-202pm.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Mon, 12 Apr 2010, 2:02PM","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Apr-10 12:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Buffy Season 8, and What Makes a Series Good - I felt the same way about S8, largely because, with a comic book canvas to paint on, the writers got us away from very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18909,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/13\/unblogged-bits-wed-13-oct-10-1731-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Wed. 13-Oct-10 1731)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Oct-10 5:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... A series of layered deceptions - \"But the bottom line remains the same: Karl Rove and his fellow GOP hatchetmen are raking in obscene amounts of undisclosed money, using it to lie to voters,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30388,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/27\/donald-trump-is-a-dolt-theologian-donald-youre-fired-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":7234,"position":5},"title":"Donald Trump is a Dolt (Theologian Donald, You’re Fired Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 27-Sep-12 10:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So Donald Trump, of all worldly people, gets invited to speak at the convocation at Liberty University, bastion of evangelical Christianity, run by Jerry Falwell, Jr. himself. \u00a0And in that speech, he taught\u00a0(among other things) the Gospel of Getting Even: I always say don\u2019t let people take advantage \u2014 this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dolts"","block_context":{"text":"Dolts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/dolts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/donald-trump1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}