A friend of mine had expressed hope that the new pope would be Pope George Ringo, so that all four Beatles would be properly honored.

To answer your question....I *think* the name just has to be that of a saint, but most of them chose to honor previous pope.

Ok, I just looked it up. From religionfacts.com:

Just. Keeps. Getting. Better. And. BETTER!

All hail Pope George Ringo!!! I've given out too much mojo to mojo you, Deather! :D

It's things like this that have people worried:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7560325/

It's one thing to not change underlying principals of the church with the times. It's another to ignore the humanity of your followers and to exclude your followers from amecable relations with people of different faiths. It's that kind of restrictive doctrine that people are afraid of.

This had us laughing. An ongoing discussion in my office is about the name changes rappers do.

All hail Pope Eminem!!!!!!!

More seriously this has me concerned ".... silencing dissenting theologians, and stomping down heresy wherever it may rear its ugly head."

Silencing dissenting theologians, stomping down heresy. Because different opnions are a bad thing? Didn't Saddam silence dissenting opnions?

Yep, that's exactly it. I don't remember everything he's done that's made me roll my eyes and say, WTF? But some things do stick out in my mind. I remember that there was a nun somewhere in the Northeast US who was ministering to gay and lesbian Catholic and he ordered her to stop. Also, I remember a letter during the last presidential election that said something along the lines of American Catholics who do not vote pro life should not receive communion. It was amusing to me, because, according to the Catholic teaching on the consistent ethic of life, voting for GWB is also voting against life. So basically any Catholic who voted in the last election should not receive communion.

:(

I'm just curious why all over the world the move seems to be towards the more dogmatic. As if the matters of God are ever revealed with that much clarity. Is this a response to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism?

I'd like to say that being an athiest, this does not impact me - but in some ways, I feel I may soon be under attack (if not already - "godless modern trends must be rejected").

Exactly. So much of what people vehently demand to be adhered to is not the word of God (even assuming you believe the Bible is the word of God) but rather man's interpretation and tradition. I don't know much about Catholicism and papal doctrine, but I gather it's a lot like orthodox Judaism where many people look to the Talmud (an immense interpretation written by a conclave of Rabiis centuries ago) first and Torah second. I understand the aim of the Talmud, essentially following Talmudic law guarantees compliance with Torah as the Talmud erects a giant safety buffer to ensure that there's no way you're breaking God's word, however that quickly gets muddled into being the definitive word when it is anything but.

I'm much more familiar with 300-1700 Catholic theology than I am with the contemporary theology. A major difference between Catholic and Protestant systems is that Catholicism requires intermediaries between believer and God. It's throughout the belief system. You might pray to God, but you also pray to saints in the hopes that they will interceed with God on your behalf.

I actually don't know what the modern take is on bible study, but part of the resistance to translations of mass and documents into the vernacular is that people might make their own interpretations of the holy writings. This comes up time and again in medieval writings against various reform-minded heresies. At least then, it was believed that only those who had taken vows and studied under supervision of the Church were qualified to interpret scripture.

Something I teach my heresy classes is that it truly was a matter of (eternal) life and death. Oh sure, there were times and places where folks said "hey! my neighbor's really rich and I'm in a bind. If I rat him out as being Jewish, I'll get a portion of his estate!" But there were also Church officials who took their work very seriously. If they didn't convert you, you'd burn in the hellfires. If they screwed up their preaching and you believed the wrong thing, not only would they burn in the hellfires, but they would have condemned you to the same fate.

I'm sure I was going somewhere with this at one point.

I think the dogmatic voices have grown louder. I don't know if it's a response to increased uncertainty, or if we just notice the dogmatism more because there are more of us who aren't, or if it's both, or none of the above.

I read up more on Ratzinger today and alas, I'm not so hopeful any more. I hold out a small kernal of hope that he was previously playing the assigned role of bad church cop and will be a more open-minded and inclusive leader, but I'll admit the odds aren't good.

Again, I'm quoting a friend, who would have responded to this better than I'll be able to:

"Since I'm not Catholic, I hesitated before giving my opinion. I think it's accurate to say, though, that the Pope is perceived by many to be a political leader, in addition to his role as leader of the Catholic Church. In that role, what he does affects me at least to some degree, so I offer my opinion for what it's worth for that reason only."