5. Pope Francis

[Paul Bearer 6,099]

And the winner is............

[Death Impends 7,953]

Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to become Francis I

[Paul Bearer 6,099]

Again, I don't think they are expecting a long papacy

[Death Impends 7,953]

Yeah I just checked and the dude's only like two years younger than Benny was when he got elected.

[Spade_Cooley 9,513]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

[time 8,586]

I hear the new Pope and the old Pope are already in business together.

[Octopus of Odstock 2,186]

The DDP has a new entrant for its top 40 in 2014 then

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

You beat me to it. They said on our broadcast that "he is very influential in the Italian Church" so it sounds like a real Machiavellian one has got himself elected. Only one lung? Sounds like all that white smoke won't do him much good.

[Paul Bearer 6,099]

I wonder if that means we'll lose the Falklands now.

[the_engineer 1,415]

Personally speaking I think they went for him as they realize they made a mistake electing benedict xvi and since he came second they elected him.

 

Had a feeling they would go to the america's for the new pope , though i thought marc ouellet would get it .

[themaninblack 2,112]

This will put the wind up the Falkland islanders...

 

And if England play Argentina in the next World Cup, forget it. They have Leo Messi AND God!

[Perfect Passing 277]

This will put the wind up the Falkland islanders...

 

And if England play Argentina in the next World Cup, forget it. They have Leo Messi AND God!

 

I wonder if the three Falkland Islanders that voted against British Rule now think the Winds of Change are about to blow!

[Red Flag 84]

Well done to the BBC for predicting it correctl...oh wait

[Paul Bearer 6,099]

BREAKING NEWS: Argentina lays claim to Vatican City on the basis "there is a temporary Argentine population."

[adrian0719 220]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

 

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy.

[msc 18,431]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

 

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy.

 

And TB.

[adrian0719 220]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

 

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy.

 

And TB.

 

I never thought that that would be an issue while reading, but maybe growing up poor in Argentina, he had it... Either way that lung capacity can't be too good.

[msc 18,431]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

 

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy.

 

And TB.

 

I never thought that that would be an issue while reading, but maybe growing up poor in Argentina, he had it... Either way that lung capacity can't be too good.

 

My great uncle had one of his lungs taken out due to TB as a teenager. He got to 77.

 

This new chap is 76.

 

Long term appointment, clearly.

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

The Good:

- He dresses and acts humbly. He lives in an average apartment and takes public transport.

- He is relatively liberal (as far as these guys go) except on marital matters, on which he is a staunch conservative.

- He has chosen the name Francis, and the names they choose do have a lot of symbolic value, so presumably he wants to model himself on Francis of Assisi.

- As Engineer noted, he was Ratzinger's main opponent last time so this is as close as you will ever get to the cardinals admitting they made a mistake last time round. This is a huge backflip for them.

- He is not tainted by any child abuse scandals.

- He has, in the past, stated that the Curia must be reformed.

 

The (Very) Bad:

- There are rumours that he was somehow complicit in the Dirty War in Argentina.

- He is obviously very political to have gained the support and to have been elected so quickly. He obviously knows how to play the factions and backstab his way to the top.

- He is a Jesuit.

 

He is also described as "not being very energetic or charismatic."

[themaninblack 2,112]

Well as long as he lasts longer than John Paul I, he'll be doing alright...

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

An American Roman Catholic website was doing summary pieces of the leading contenders prior to the Conclave. Here is the article on Bergoglio.

 

Some extracts:

 

"Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country's military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied. There was also an e-mail campaign, claiming to originate with fellow Jesuits who knew Bergoglio when he was the provincial of the order in Argentina, asserting that "he never smiled.""

 

No doubt the media will investigate the allegation now and see if there is substance to it or if it was just part of a smear campaign.

 

 

Also, "...the doubts that circulated about Bergoglio's toughness eight years ago may arguably be even more damaging now, given that the ability to govern. and to take control of the Vatican bureaucracy, seems to figure even more prominently on many cardinals' wish lists this time." Futhermore, "he has generally tended to accent growth in personal holiness over efforts for structural reform."

 

Maybe they wanted someone they could easily manipulate again and ensure that it was business as usual.

 

To be fair to the bloke, on a more positive note, "Bergoglio still has appeal across the usual divides in the church, drawing respect from both conservatives and moderates for his keen pastoral sense, his intelligence, and his personal modesty. He's also seen as a genuinely spiritual soul, and a man of deep prayer" and "he has shown deep compassion for the victims of HIV-AIDS; in 2001, he visited a hospice to kiss and wash the feet of 12 AIDS patients. Bergoglio also won high marks for his compassionate response to the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-story building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. It was one of the worst anti-Jewish attacks ever in Latin America..."

 

Also in his favour, "In September 2012, he delivered a blistering attack on priests who refuse to baptize children born out of wedlock, calling it a form of "rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism"" and "Bergoglio has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism, including a robust defense of the poor."

[BadEgg 38]

The new Pope gives me the Horn

[thefunkyfaz 51]

Well as long as he lasts longer than John Paul I, he'll be doing alright...

Who can tell? He's 12 years older and lung-wise is deficient to the tune of one...

 

On another note, couldn't help but notice that the Cardinal Protodeacon who made the announcement, Jean-Louis Tauran, didn't look that well. Parkinson's, apparently. Given his high status in the Cafflick church he'll probably get a UK obit, so might be another one to watch...

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

So they've elected a 76-year-old with one lung. Yeah, this isn't going to be a long-term appointment.

 

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy.

 

And TB.

 

I never thought that that would be an issue while reading, but maybe growing up poor in Argentina, he had it... Either way that lung capacity can't be too good.

 

My great uncle had one of his lungs taken out due to TB as a teenager. He got to 77.

 

This new chap is 76.

 

Long term appointment, clearly.

 

Just found this which clarifies the matter for us DeathListers:

 

 

 

"Bergoglio has slowed a bit with age and is feeling the effects of having a lung removed due to infection when he was a teenager -- two strikes against him at a time when many Vatican-watchers say the next pope should be relatively young and strong.

 

But in general, only having one lung shouldn't really hinder health at all, said Dr. Sandhya Khurana, M.D., an associate professor of medicine and a pulmonologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who is not the pope's doctor.

 

"If you have normal lungs, then that's certainly possible to just live with one lung and we get proof of that on a regular basis because of people who have lost a lung through surgery, for an infection, or cancer," Khurana told HuffPost. As long as "they have normal breathing ... and normal lung function, they seem to do OK."

 

A big factor in the respiratory health of someone with only one lung is the condition of the lung that is still in the body, she said. If a person was a smoker or had a diseased lung to begin with, then he or she won't tolerate the removal of a lung as well. But if the person is healthy, then that won't be generally be a limitation.

 

Even though the infection Bergoglio suffered from as a teenager has not been revealed, Khurana added that a common treatment for people who suffered from lung infections decades ago (such as tuberculosis), when antibiotics were not as advanced as they are today, was to have the infected lung purposely collapsed to make it nonfunctional, since it's possible for people to function with only one lung. "I would say it's not rare" for that to occur back then, she said.

 

Dr. Richard Shemin, M.D., professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, who also has not treated the pope, told HuffPost that since Bergoglio's lung was removed as a teenager and he's already managed to live to age 76, "my expectation would be that his lung is not necessarily going to be a life-limiting event.""

 

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/pope-one-lung-jorge-mario-bergoglio-francis_n_2870515.html

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

More info on him coming in quickly now:

 

 

"Bergoglio became a priest at 32, nearly a decade after losing a lung due to respiratory illness and quitting his chemistry studies.

Despite his late start, he was leading the local Jesuit community within four years, holding the post from 1973 to 1979.

 

Cardinal Bergoglio, to be known now as Pope Francis I, is very much seen as a voice of conscience, a champion of social justice in his home country.

 

He in fact gave up the opportunity to live in the Archbishop's palace in Buenos Aires and chose to live in a simple apartment and cook his own meals.

 

Described by his biographer as a balancing force, Bergoglio has monk-like habits, is media shy and deeply concerned about the social inequalities rife in his homeland and elsewhere in Latin America.

 

"His character is in every way that of a moderate. He is absolutely capable of undertaking the necessary renovation without any leaps into the unknown. He would be a balancing force," said Francesca Ambrogetti, who co-authored a biography of Bergoglio after carrying out a series of interviews with him over three years.

 

"He shares the view that the Church should have a missionary role, that gets out to meet people, that is active... a church that does not so much regulate the faith as promote and facilitate it," she added.

 

"His lifestyle is sober and austere. That's the way he lives. He travels on the underground, the bus, when he goes to Rome he flies economy class."

 

But the new Pope is not without controversy. He has been described by some as an unwavering conservative - something that may be of concern for those hoping for reform in the Church... It is believed he is very closely aligned to former Pope John Paul II and under a generally conservative theology. That may be something of a return to what Vatican officials felt had been a very successful dynasty."

 

 

At a glance: Pope Francis's views

 

What he opposes:

• Firmly opposed to abortion and euthanasia.
  
• Opposed Argentina's government promoting free contraception.
  
• Against gay marriage, calling it a "real and dire anthropological throwback".
  
• But he says individuals who are homosexual should be respected.
  
• Opposes gay adoption, calling it discrimination against children.
  

Pope Francis's causes:

• He is a champion of social justice.
  
• Deeply concerned about social inequalities in Latin America.
  
• He says extreme poverty and economic structures which support this are violations of human rights.
  
• He is not afraid to challenge governments and other powerful interests.
  
• Francis, the name the new Pope has chosen, is believed to represent poverty and humility.
  

Source: http://www.abc.net.a...oglio3f/4571792

 

***

 

Here is info on his alleged role in Argentina's Dirty War:

 

"Known as the Dirty War, this period saw a brutal battle between the ruling military elite and leftist guerrilla fighters, in which up to 30,000 Argentines were "disappeared" and others were raped or killed.

 

Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky chronicled how the Church and Bergoglio were involved in this dark era. As described by Hugh O'Shaughnessy of The Guardian in 2011:

 

[Verbitsky] recounts how the Argentine navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

 

Bergoglio contended to writer Sergio Rubin that he hid these people to keep them from the violent military junta, not the Human Rights Commission — even as his Jesuit order and Church leaders publicly endorsed the dictatorship.

 

He later said the endorsement was one of political pragmatism, which is understandable in the face of certain death, if not exactly righteous, according to the AP.

 

Bergoglio also faced criticism from human rights lawyer Myriam Bregman, who tried to bring the Catholic leader to court for allegedly turning over two priests to Argentine death squads — charges which others have denied.

 

In any case Bregman sees evidence in Bergoglio's statements that he knew of the dictatorship's crimes. "The dictatorship could not have operated this way without this key support," she said, according to the AP.

 

Certainly the waters here are a bit muddied. The history has many sides, as it often does when it's so far removed from such shocking tragedy and conflict. But it shouldn't be forgotten, even as the present is filled with white smoke and cheering crowds."

 

Source: http://www.businessi...3#ixzz2NSfqlzBs