Popery

I no longer am a Catholic.  As a Catholic or not, I've respected only one Pope as a spiritual leader, and that was Pope John XXIII.  (My favorite Vatican correspondent, Father Guido Sarducci, doesn't count.)  So I'm looking at the ongoing pope puffery with a jaundiced but experienced eye.

Blow away the smoke (white or otherwise) and Pope Francis looks a lot like Pope Benedict Lite: a reactionary on human rights issues who writes ineffective encyclicals on treating the poor better.  He's being promoted as an outsider, which (if I recall correctly) Benedict from Germany was when he was elected.  Yet the Vatican mess is worse than ever.

Of course he could be a surprise.  John XXIII was (or he wouldn't have been elected.)  But with a track record of silence (at best) and collaboration (at worse) during the horrors in Argentina when thousands were simply Disappeared, and an aggressive and high profile attempt to prevent equality for homosexuals in Argentina (he was unsuccessful), it would be a big surprise.  He may turn out to be inspired by Francis of Assisi.  Or he may turn out to be Francis the talking pope.