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Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, of Argentina. He will be known as Pope Francis.

His stances on homosexuality and abortion piss me off.

But then again, none of the previous popes were peaches either.

And that would be why you're not Catholic (I assume).
It's funny how an agnostic like myself, who goes against most of everything the Church stands for, can suddenly get really excited about who the new pope's gonna be.

Well, I'm an atheist who's reporting the news.

We'll see how things go with gay marriage. Although he's against gay marriage, he's not anti-gay, and he's for supporting the poor.

On women's rights, we'll see, but I wasn't expecting any pope to take a more modern stance on abortion.

It's a good choice strategically. This seems to have been attended as a move forward without pissing off the conservative base. I'm a bit disappointed that the church is being held back in that sense, but at least we're moving forward a bit.

They should have picked Dolan.

Someone need to make one of those "Who's that pokemon?!" with the "new" pope.

It's certainly nice to see an American pope. I was surprised to see an Argentine selected, and although Dolan would've been a fine choice, I doubted that he was going to get it.

Apparently he's a Jesuit, the first one, which explains the name Francis.

Catholic and any-other-soccer-team fan? Become a San Lorenzo fan or spend eternity in hell.

It could have happened, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_M._Dolan

This may have been a better choice though.

Pope Elton John I? The most beautiful pipedream I've ever heard.

^^Goodbye, yellow brick church, where the dogs of Christianity howl. I've had enough of your papacy, I'm going back to my plow.

Back on subject: I don't believe in marriage, and unless 2 men wanted to adopt a child, I don't see any reason to get married. But I don't know too much about that stuff, so I support them only because they're human beings too.

Two things:

First:

Second, he looks like George Bluth Sr. from Arrested Development, which is the greatest show you've never seen. Observe:

WHO'S WHO?!

I don't care if he looks like a character from some sitcom, I want to know who in Star Wars he looks like.

He doesn't look like Roan Fel.

wat culd off ben

Ah, finally a pope simultaneously described as orthodox and progressive. Helps poor people, hates gay people, and if he knew about poor gay people, he would still be a moron. And he's a Jesuit, which means he's going to focus on the gospels. He took public transport and cooked his own meals. Basically he could be the most boring one yet.
If we're allowed favourites, mine is John Paul I. He only lasted a month.

Me being a christian, I don't see the need for a Pope. It doesn't seem like he does anything except for eat good food all the time, look spooky, and make speeches.

You do know that Catholics are Christians, right?

He's a Fascist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/14/pope-francis-argentina-military-junta

Hey buddy, this isn't a phpBB forum.

You need to use HTML or textile. It even says that that's what you need to use when you make posts. Does it say that phpBB forum script is usable here? No. It's broken and pointless.

Me being Catholic, I can tell you he's there for Catholic children to confuse with Santa Claus. I'm not saying a lot of his duties couldn't be performed by a Magic 8-Ball, but he does have powers and a purpose. For instance, defrocked priests need his permission to have sex. Technically optional, but not if you want to stay Catholic while you're at it.

I seem to be wrong about Francis already – this guy has plenty of back-story. Not quite as easy to milk as Nazi Youth, but his dealings with the Junta are pretty interesting. He's got beef over the Falklands War, too. Not all peace and unprotected love with this one.

The new popes first speech translated to
"Bill keep yer beard on, i'm gonna tear that bell down and shove it up your ass"

>me being Catholic
Somehow, I don't buy it.

Umm… Duh… Everyone knows that. But what I'm getting at is not all Christians are Catholics. I'm more of a Methodist sort of guy. They're pretty much the laid-back version.

Actually, a lot of people don't, a lot of people seem to think that there's a difference.

But here's a fun fact: The Catholic Church isn't the only Christian Church that has a pope.

Scotty from Eurotrip would be the best pope…

In an alternate universe…

We don't need a pope because the Higgs Boson gives us mass.

Forgive me father for I have sinned… I stole that joke…

You have a point. I'm not Catholic. I haven't made confession, received communion, etc. in 3 years. This means I'm out of the Church simply by not attending. No such thing as a lapsed Catholic in reality. What I meant to say is 'having been raised a Catholic'. I have some experience of the devotion to the Pope, and I consider it as an insider and outsider. I am also probably a bad person for saying negative things about an elderly man I've never met, but I'm deciding not to have any Catholic guilt about it.

And yeah, like Katie C. says, being a Catholic Church doesn't mean it's a Roman Catholic Church. It gets weird when a Catholic Church recognises the Vatican, but the Vatican doesn't recognise it. The Pope is a late addition to Catholicism, and the start of Roman Catholicism.

All that said, I won't say no to Easter eggs.

I don't think you understand. I wasn't referring to other Catholic popes, there's only one. I was referring to the Orthodox Popes, and as some might remember, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church were the same at one time.

Now, if you want to know the difference between the Roman Catholic Chruch and the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church as a whole, the Catholic Church is divided into 23 or so other churches. They are all Catholic and they are all united under the Catholic Church, they all recognize the Pope. 22 of these are the Eastern Catholic Churches, they are small, the biggest has 5 million people and the smallest has 2500 people. The other church is the Roman Catholic Church, which is by far the most massive.

Not to mention that the pope is traditionally the leader of the Church, and therefore Simon Peter is technically the first Pope. Some documents may confirm a lineage of popes from the beginning of Christianity to the 2nd century, when the office of pope/Bishop of Rome is definitely established, according to large amounts of historical evidence. So no, papacy isn't a relatively new concept, it just evolved from an older position that had the same amount of unofficial power. All it really got was legitimacy and a title.

Now papal infallibility is a different story; established during the 1850s.

I know. I think they meet up occasionally. I fucked that sentence up big time and I'm sure I meant to bring up the other popes. I really should have started a new paragraph, I didn't mean to mess that up and misconstrue your point. I was just making another point I find interesting (but with poor formatting). I only meant that to call yourself Catholic didn't mean the Pope was bothered with you, even if you follow him.

I think I've found a new favourite papal seat, the Coptic Church's pope, purely for the title: "Pope and Lord Archbishop of the Great City of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Orthodox and Apostolic Throne of St Mark the Evangelist and Holy Apostle". None of that "Servant of Servants" business.

(Also please don't read any sarcasm or anything in what I post, unless it's clear, I genuinely find this stuff interesting. I'm not very good at tone and religion is a grey area.)

Again, I'm really sorry I was vague. I was referring less to the Simon Peter kind of pope (the older position, as you said), but I would regard 2nd Century as late, from the perspective of the movement at the time. I didn't realise changes were still occurring so far beyond the Donation of Constantine (which I admit is a really bad reference point, but it's what I think of).

Though woah, I definitely did not know about the infallibility being so new. That's curious. I wish I'd known that back at school.

Gabe Newell for pope.

Yet another alt universe