Manish, I just thought of a good idea. It involves building a chimney in our North Dakota blogging HQs and not coming out for days.

Does it involve making crispy pre-meal appetitizers for all your loyal readers? Baked, not fried, apparently.

I was so dissappointed to learn the smoke color comes from chemicals and not straw.

Wow, this is the third edit to this story. And a sign that I read Sepia Mutiny way too much if I can notice the differences.

Our high bandwidth costs-- so you're the culprit!

Oh Vij-ji

First of all "Rediff" is not "India"

Second, essentially what Rediff states is true. The new popat's conservative background is pointed out in the linked NY Times article itself. And highlighted by E. J. Dionne in the Washington Post. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64469-2005Apr18.html)

So what gives. Seems like you like to chide India more than anything else. Now have a papad!!

Oh anon-ji,

Ve kid because ve care.

Now have a jalebi!

Habemus papam - we have a sin.

Ladoos anyone?

Of course, I always first get my news from SM...

But... ugh... another European Pope? Even when over 45% of all Cathlolics are Spanish-speaking? Thought this time would be a little different...

Rani, Vatican could satisfy everyone's needs if they elected a spaniard - european and spanish-speaking.

Interestingly, this pope was in the Nazi youth. (warning: I'm linking you to the NY Post).

Complicated issue, but surely they could have found someone that hadn't been?

-s

As an Indian Catholic, I am saddened by the choice of the new pope. I was personally hoping for a liberal Catholic pope who would update the Catholic Church’s teaching on liberation theology. Liberation theology combines Christianity with political activism to attain the goal of increasing human rights and achieving social justice. Pope John Paul II was a good pope if you compare him to the other horrible popes that there have been in the past, but he didn’t believe in liberation theology since he thought it was too influenced by Marxism. As a result, you have a lot of conservative bishops and cardinals appointed by JPII in South America who believe the same way. The problem with these JPII appointed cardinals and bishops is that they do not speak out against the repressive governments of their country. Instead, they sit there while their country is being torn apart since they believe it is not their job to speak out against social injustices. If you want a good example of a liberation theologian, look at the story of Bishop Óscar Romero. He spoke out against his repressive government (El Salvador) and the U.S. for funding the government. Obviously the El Salvador government didn’t like this and as a result, Bishop Romero was killed by a death squad.

So I guess I’m going to have to wait another couple of years for the chance of a liberal pope who might also be willing to discuss birth control. By then though, I probably won’t be a member of the Church anymore.

Indian Catholic,

Liberation theology sounds like a horrible idea. We are hearing enough about Ratzinger for implying politics in his writings about communion, but for a pope to engage in politics so directly and as part of a concrete agenda....do we need another set of Crusades to inform us this is a mistake?

-Bob
MinorityRetort
http://www.MinorityRetort.com
"Cause Not All Indians Think Alike"

Minority Report,
Liberation theology is very different from the political and material motivation behind the Crusades. With liberation theology, priests work within their own country to promote social justice and the defense of human rights. It is not like the Crusades where the Catholic Church advocated invading another country in order to acquire land and political power. I don’t agree with Neoconservatives, but I can describe liberation theology it in their terms as “the spread of freedom and democracy.” The key difference however between the Neoconservative belief and liberation theology is that later does not advocate violence. So you therefore could compare it to Gandhi’s movement of satyagraha, or non-violent resistance.

Increase the Peace

Indian Catholic

Headline for today's sermon:

"Papadum Preach"

This is from an article written in 2000 that predicted Ratzinger would be Pope after John Paul. Sounds like a nice tolerant chap:

In 1997 Ratzinger annoyed Buddhists by calling their religion an ‘autoerotic spirituality’ that offers ‘transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations’. And Hinduism, he said, offers ‘false hope’; it guarantees ‘purification’ based on a ‘morally cruel’ concept of reincarnation resembling ‘a continuous circle of hell’.

Hey, Hindus got off lightly by Pope Ratzinger, they are only morally cruel living in a continuous circle of hell. Buddhists practice a religion of 'autoerotic spirituality'

I was thinking, does that word mean what I think it means?

So I go to dictionary.com, and yeah, it means what I thought it means:

au·to·er·o·tism

1.Self-satisfaction of sexual desire, as by masturbation.

2.The arousal of sexual feeling without an external stimulus.

Can anyone make sense of that one? Man, I reckon it makes him sound a little sex obsessed, but that would be a stereotype of Catholic clergy.

Nevertheless, bearing in mind his worry about Buddhist's autoerotic spirituality I will be watching carefully to see if he shakes His Holiness the Dalai Lama's hand the next time they meet.

Can anyone make sense of that one?

I think he meant "self-obsessed" and "loose", but I'm just guessing. The quote sounds pretty orientalizing too. It's also disturbing that he allegedly "predicted Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church's main enemy this century."

Buddhism? Has he been listening to too much M.I.A.?

Anyway, I think this stuff sounds a little sketchy (particularly that last quote) and I want to see some better sources before I buy this entirely.