I am very glad that the Most Eminent Cardinals have elected a new Pope. Since Portland is 8 hours behind Rome time, the voting sessions were scheduled to finish each day at 3 a.m. and 10 a.m. - and that was going to get old real fast. I mean, there was no way I was going to sleep through the 3 a.m. session and have to wake up hours later only to learn that I'd missed all the fun.
As it is, I stayed up last night (actually, I slept from 12:30 a.m. to 2:45 a.m.) to watch the smoke pour out of the chimney at 2:49 a.m. And it was... grey. So when the bells didn't ring, I went to bed and slept fitfully until 8:30, when I awoke and prepared for the day. I stopped to check the TV at 9:00, and the commentators were speaking about being unable to tell what color the smoke really was. Since it was a full hour before the voting session was due to be finished, I figured something was up... then the bells started moving, and tears came to my eyes. A flood of tears, with shouts of "My God, they really did it... we have a Pope!"
Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez really did a bang-up job of working the crowd for the most anticipated announcement he'll ever give in his life. The greeting to the enormous crowd in St. Peter's Square was charming, in several languages (Italian, Spanish, German, French, and English), and then he started in with the Latin formula:
"Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum [I announce to you a great joy]..."
"Whaaaa! Whaaaa!" went the crowd...
Wait for it... wait for it...
"Habemus Papam!" (Whaaaa! Whaaaaa! Whaaaa!)
The Cardinal Deacon's muted smile was undeniable... he continued in Latin, "His Most Eminent and Reverend Lord, Lord Joseph..."
"Whaaaa! Whaaaa!" went the crowd...
"Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church... (Wait for it...) Ratzinger!"
"Whaaaa! Whaaaa!" went the crowd...
"...who has chosen for himself the name of Benedict XVI!"
"Whaaaa! Whaaaaa! Whaaaaa! Whaaaaa!" went the crowd, whipped into a frenzy.
The name the new Pontiff chose, Benedict XVI, really is an amazing choice. He knew that he couldn't choose John Paul III, because that name is too fraught with expectation. He couldn't choose Paul or John, because that would seem to send a theological and ecclesial message that he preferred one to the other. And Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, having been drafted and forced to serve in the German army, certainly couldn't choose Pius, given the heaps of BS that John Cornwell published, accusing Pius XII of being "Hitler's Pope".
So Benedict is a name that indicates that this Pope will be in continuity with the tradition of the Church, while at the same time indicating that with which he will be primarily concerned, namely peace within the Church and strengthening the bonds of charity among all peoples. I discern these goals of the new Pope Benedict XVI by referring to the first encyclical written by his Papal namesake, Benedict XV, on November 1, 1914, as World War I was beginning:
Such, moreover, has been the change in the ideas and the morals of men, that unless God comes soon to our help, the end of civilization would seem to be at hand. Thus we see the absence from the relation of men of mutual love with their fellow men; the authority of rulers is held in contempt; injustice reigns in relations between the classes of society; the striving for transient and perishable things is so keen, that men have lost sight of the other and more worthy goods they have to obtain. It is under these four headings that may be grouped, We consider, the causes of the serious unrest pervading the whole of human society. All then must combine to get rid of them by again bringing Christian principles into honour, if We have any real desire for the peace and harmony of human society. (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, no. 5)
I highly recommend a thorough reading of this brilliant encyclical, for Benedict XV's words are as trenchant today as they were when he set them to paper 91 years ago. If we were to take this letter to heart and implement it in our own lives, we would be doing the world, and ourselves, a favor. And that truly would be a gadium magnam.