I was listening to CBS TV on my Walkman and heard that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has juat been elected the newest Pope today by the College of Cardinals. He has chosen the name Benedict XVI, which will, I'm sure, be debated and discussed quite a bit.

Apparently he was close to the late John Paul II, so his choice was not totally unexpected. I don't forsee any drastic change in the Roman Catholic church's policies in the near future, but rather an re-entrenchment to very conservative values.

Not being a practicing Catholic any longer this doesn't have an immediate effect on me one way or the other. It will be fascinating to learn more about this man in the next few days & weeks.

I joked with my wife that this particular Cardinal will probably go the Sgt. Schultz route over questions about what he did during WWII. "I knew nothing! I saw nothing!"

Yeah, that's probably not very nice, but that's why we have blogs, right?