Holy Smoke 

Well it certainly didn't take long for the Cardinals to pick one, and it certainly hasn't taken long for people to start bashing him. Not being a Catholic, I've really only watched all the media attention with simple fascination. I'm mostly fascinated about the media's reactions to it. Part of me wonders why... most of the main stream media hates religion in general... so why are they concentrating so much on this? Here are some general thoughts running through my brain:

It is a Story: Well this is the obvious point to make. There are a lot of Catholics in this country, even if I'm not one of them... and this is important to them. The media is doing their job. Not only that, but electing a new Pope doesn't happen very often... and we all know how the media loves their rare events.

They're Fascinated: They don't get it. Prior to the conclave, every story you read talked about the secrecy... how the Vatican was installing electronic jamming equipment to prevent listening in... how they took oaths of secrecy. It's very un-American... which caused the media to want to talk about it more. Even funnier was because of all the secrecy, that's all they could talk about. They couldn't interview a Cardinal after a failed vote to see what happened. There were no polls of Catholics to see who was winning. They went into the extreme details... going so far as to diagram their seating arrangements during the voting. It must have been incredibly hard for those reporters to sit through.

They Get to Bash The New Guy: Right away we're hearing stuff about how Benedict is "ultra conservative". I've heard how he was the Rottweiler of the Vatican... keeping people in line with "hard line doctrine". How there is probably no chance he'll change policies on women in the clergy, contraception... yada yada yada. I'm also already seeing crap on left blogs about how he was a Nazi. Of course that's bullshit. He was a child in Germany during WWII... he had to join the Hitler Youth. There was no choice there. In fact... he eventually deserted.

Overall, I think they're glad he became Pope. They're hoping he'll drive more people out of the Catholic church. Maybe he will. What will surprise the media though, is that all those ex-Catholics won't become atheists... they'll probably become Lutherans. Personally I don't get the Lutheran church either. That church seems just as rigid as the Catholic church. But hey... whatever boils your kettle I guess. That's the nice thing about religion, especially if you live in the U.S. You can choose your church. I honestly don't understand all the pro-choice Catholics out here. I usually say something like... If you're pro-choice, then you're not Catholic. They really don't give you a choice... yet people still go. Maybe I'm just as fascinated as the media.