“HABEMUS PAPAM”: Francisco el Pontífice o Pancho el Montonero

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Por Andrés Pascual
Qué el Señor me coja confesado por lo que diré: Si “los eruditos” no hubieran explicado la relación entre los bombardeos de Guernica y lo que refleja el cuadro de Picasso, ¿Algún mortal común y corriente, por cuenta propia, hubiera podido? No, no es juego, quiero que reflexionen sobre lo que dije, como aquellas patas flacas de Lam que denominó La Jungla. Ah, asistí a la Escuela de Letras y Arte de la Universidad de La Habana, Literatura, época de Mirtha, Adelaida… y de alguna que otra conferencia por Carpentier o Portuondo, fueron los años en que Cela dijo en ¿la Casa de Las Américas? Que: “Cuba es para nosotros como esa hija que se nos fue de puta, pero puta y todo…” puedo recordar algo todavía…
Bien, la FUMATA BLANCA confundió a la gente porque no fue blanca, tuvo que salir el encargado y decir las palabras esperadas: “habemus papam”, ¿Presagio de algo con respecto al Aparato? Si así fuera, ¿Malo o bueno?
La elección de un Pontífice argentino es signo “del cambio” y esa palabrita como que asfixia, nada que se relacione con ella resulta positivo no para la Humanidad, sino para el destino de instituciones que han hecho la diferencia entre hombres y animales, como los derechos del individuo.
Verdad que el ex Cardenal Jorge Bergoglio ha sido oponente de los Kirchner porque Cristina le declaró la guerra a la Iglesia, pero no por circunstancias dignas de considerarse a la manera tradicional tal “comunismo” u otro tipo de peligrosas nimiedades de los últimos tiempos.
Según una fuente de Newsmax, figura política norteamericana al que le han mantenido el anonimato, que conoció a Bergoglio durante años y se comunicaba frecuentemente con él, el individuo tomaba el metro hasta sus oficinas y vivía sin lujos en Buenos Aires.
También que, quizás por ser un descendiente de italianos, lo seleccionaron como figura de compromiso entre dos ítalo-argentinos disponibles; el otro, Leonardo Sandri.
Pero hay una conceptualización del hombre que, como el humo que no fue blanco, debe ser explicada y de eso se encargará el tiempo: se le considera más a la izquierda que a cualquier otro, lo que se justifica, en parte, por su simpatía velada por la Teoría de la Liberación.
Un hombre que hablaba mucho de los pobres de la tierra sin llegar, pudiera ser algo muy bueno o lo peor de todo, porque ya se sabe de lo que son capaces quienes mencionan tanto “hombre, pobreza y su entorno” cuando “agarran”.
Sin embargo, hasta tanto no sucedan cosas, como siempre, habrá que ofrecerle el beneficio de la duda, a fin de cuentas, se lo dieron a Obama, a Castro, a Chávez a… verdad que acabaron “con la 5ta y con los mangos”, pero debe dársele, para que ningún apapio salga y se lo quiera comer a uno con el sonsonete “¿Dónde están las pruebas?” o “usted esto o lo otro”, como con todo, hay que esperar para decantar la homilía de los “claros divinos”: SE LOS DIJE, A LLORAR AL PARQUE”
El tiempo dirá si este es Francisco el Pontífice o Pancho el Montonero con la encomienda de liquidar hasta la esperanza y la FE, mientras, HABEMUS PAPAM…
El hombre pidió que rezáramos por él, yo solicito una oración por nosotros mismos, porque no hayan invadido la Viña del Señor los lobos de la oscuridad con corderos envenenados.

Pope Francis I: Humble leader who takes the bus to work

 

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Pope Francis I: Argentina's Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is new Catholic leader

World News

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was named leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday after being elected pope. He will be known as Pope Francis I.

The 76-year-old, who has been a cardinal since 2001, was introduced to the world – in Latin - from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica in front of tens of thousands gathered in the square below.

Minutes earlier, white smoke rose above the Sistine Chapel and bells rang out across Rome, prompting cheers and wild applause.

The archbishop of Buenos Aires is the Argentine-born son of an Italian railway worker. Seen as a compassionate conservative, he reportedly came in second during the 2005 balloting that ultimately elected Benedict XVI.

The Jesuit prizes simplicity and humility and would encourage priests to do shoe-leather evangelization, according to his biographer.

Smoke billowed from the chimney at 7:07 p.m. (2:07 p.m. ET) on the second day of behind-closed-doors voting and marked the beginning to a new era for a church combating scandal and internal strife.

LIVE VIDEO — NBC News Special Report: Live coverage from Vatican City as white smoke pours from the Sistine Chapel, signaling a pope has been chosen.

The cardinals are thought to have taken five ballots to reach the two-third majority necessary for a decision.

Natacha Pisarenko / AP

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as pope Wednesday.

Before being introduced from the balcony, the Argentine cardinal was taken from the Sistine Chapel into a side room called the “Room of Tears” to be dressed in the papal clothes.

His appearance was heralded by a Latin announcement beginning with the phrase "Habemus Papam!" meaning, "We have a pope!"

Speaking before the announcement, Edward Egan, Archbishop Emeritus of New York, said he was confident that the new pope would “give us the kind of guidance and support that we are looking for.”

Egan said the new pope needed five qualities. He should be “a man of prayer, who loves leading public prayer and privately prays with joy and fulfillment;” “a man who repeats the gospel message in an uncomplicated manner;” and “a leader who will lead on the great questions of the day,” which he said were “justice, compassion and peace.”

He should also “know how to govern” and had to be “a person who can handle criticism with calm and with total trust in God,” Egan said.

Andrew Medichini / AP

White billows from the chimney on the Sistine Chapel indicating that a new pope has been elected in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday.

The papal election follows the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 28.

Now known as Pope Emeritus, he was watching Wednesday's events from a temporary lakeside residence at Castel Gandolfo while his permanent living quarters inside Vatican City are refurbished.

The behind-the-scenes ballot process that has taken place in the Sistine Chapel should still remain a secret. Both the cardinals and staff working alongside them swore an oath of secrecy as the conclave got under way, with the threat of ex-communication for anyone breaking the church's ancient code.

Such is the importance of secrecy that Vatican officials have installed jamming devices to prevent the use of cellphones by cardinals or hidden microphones by anyone wanting to hear their deliberations.

NBC News' Peter Jeary contributed to this report.

Are cardinals electing the last pope? If you believe Nostradamus...

Alessandro Di Meo / EPA file

Lighting strikes the basilica of St.Peter's dome in Vatican City during a storm
 on Feb.11, 2013, the same day Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation.

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Slideshow: Pope Benedict XVI's departure

By Carol Grisanti, Producer, NBC News

ROME— Church bells are sounding the alarm for doomsayers and conspiracy theorists here as cardinals convene to elect a new leader for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

According to an ancient prediction, this next pope will be the last.

That theory dates back more than 900 years to when Malachy O’Morgair, the 12th century Archbishop of Ireland, had a vision.

Legend has it that St. Malachy, as he is now known, had a strange dream while on a visit to Rome. He “saw” all the names of the future popes – complete with identifying characteristics – who would rule the church until the end of time. 

Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” as his vision is called, named Benedict XVI as the 111th – and penultimate – pope. The vision ended with the 112th pope.

Clairvoyant or crazy? In his book, “Life of St. Malachy,” St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote that Malachy was respected as a clairvoyant who predicted the exact day and hour of his own death.  At least one 20th century pope, Pius X, was convinced Malachy’s vision was divine, according to Rafael Merry del Val, his biographer.

But theologians and clerics argue there was never an authentic written manuscript. Malachy’s list was curiously discovered in 1590 in the Vatican archives, hundreds of years later.

“There is no historical foundation at all to St. Malachy’s list,” said Roberto Rusconi, professor of the History of Christianity at Rome’s University. “Malachy’s gift was to make other people believe in his predictions.”

Others have taken hold of Malachy’s list and compared it with history.

The first pope, according to the list, would be “from a castle on the Tiber” – for believers, that was clearly Pope Celestine II who was born on the shores of the Tiber River.

Pope Benedict was apparently described as “glory of the olives” and doomsayers point to his choice of the name Benedict, since the founder of the Benedictine Order was also known as Olivetans.

And in Malachy’s vision, the last pope – who will soon be elected – is described this way: “in extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman…”

While none of the Italian Cardinals are called Peter, one favorite to become Pope is Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana.

If that was not enough to send shivers down a few spines, Nostradamus, the 16th century French astrologer and seer, predicted much the same as Malachy. 

Nostradamus, a mild-mannered healer, was content to mix potions until the Italian-born French queen, Catherine de Medici, raised his profile from physician to prophet. 

Nostradamus warned that the next-to-last pope would “flee Rome in December when the great comet is seen in the daytime.” 

Taking into account the calendar months were different hundreds of years ago, Nostradamus wasn’t so far off. The Comet ISON, with its 40,000 mile-long tail, has been visible the past couple months as Benedict prepared to abdicate and leave Rome for his temporary home in Castel Gandolfo.

And for those well-versed in the language of brimstone and fire, the signs could not have been more transparent when just hours after Benedict announced he would abdicate, a bolt of lightning struck St. Peter’s Basilica, the very heart of Christianity. A few days later a shower of meteorites fell and devastated a village in Russia.

Cynics shrugged all this off as natural phenomena, while the doomsayers suffered from one more dose of existential angst. 

In St. Paul Outside the Walls, another major cathedral in Rome, medallions line the walls with the names of every pope and the dates of his papacy.  Legend says that when all the medallions are full, the world will finally end.  On the walls of St. Paul’s, there are still some empty spaces.

Perhaps the end isn’t so near.

Sistine mysteries revealed: How the next pope will be chosen

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Possible New Pope Shares Platform With Institute for Policy Studies Radical

Cardinal Turkson

NewZeal

The man many have picked to be the next Pope,  is set to share a platform with  a representative of one of America’s most radical left “think tanks. ”

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, radical actor/activist Martin Sheen, and Emira Woods of – the Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies, are all invited guest speakers at the leftist Africa Faith And Justice’ s 30th Anniversary, March 1, 2013 through March 3, 2013, University of Notre Dame. South Bend, Indiana.

IPS, active since the 1960s, has infiltrated every Democratic Administration since Jimmy Carter.  President Barack Obama was a trustee of an IPS “partner” organization Demos, as was his communist  “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones. Both outgoing US Secretary of defense Leon Panetta, and incoming Sec. Chuck Hagel also have IPS ties.

IPS was once notorious for its ties to the Soviet KGB, and Castro’s intelligence services. The organization has been a major player in moving America leftward,  for almost 50 years now.

Any Papal candidate who would even consider sharing a platform with an IPS representative, should be viewed with grave suspicion.

From the IPS website

Portrayed as a conservative by some, for his controversial linking of homosexuality and pedophilia, Cardinal Turkson is, on wealth re-distribution issues at least, a man of the Left.

For example, in response to the global economic crisis of  2008, Cardinal Turkson, put forward  a proposal to reform the international financial system by creating a “Global Public Authority” and a Global Bank that “consider the interest of all developing countries”.

In 2008 Americans voted with their hearts, for their first black president,  and got a red one instead.

The Catholic College of Cardinals need to weigh their votes for the next Pope very carefully. If they vote with their hearts, rather than their heads, the next Pope may end up doing to the Catholic Church, what Barack Obama has done to America.

That would be a disaster for all of us. Catholic, and non-Catholic alike.

Pope: Only my successor and I will see results of Vatican probe

 

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Boston’s sandal-wearing Cardinal O’Malley getting papal buzz

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By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley is generating buzz in Rome as a possible contender to be the next pope, even though Vatican watchers have long said an American pontiff is a longshot.

John L. Allen, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, took note this week of the growing number of Italian newspapers and commentators who have mentioned O'Malley as a candidate or written favorably about his cleanup of the archdiocese's sex-abuse scandal.

"Right now, it's tough for an American journalist to walk into the Vatican Press Office without fielding questions from colleagues about him," Allen wrote.

O'Malley -- a distinctive figure in the monkish brown cassock of the Capuchin religious order -- isn't entertaining questions about his chances of succeeding Pope Benedict XVI when the College of Cardinals convenes.

"As the Cardinal said last week at his press conference, he has a round trip ticket to return home and will rely on the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit as the College of Cardinals enter the conclave in March," spokeswoman Kellyanne Dignan said.

O'Malley, 68, was named archbishop of Boston in 2003, after Cardinal Bernard Law stepped down amid allegations he covered up sex abuse by priests. He was elevated to cardinal three years later. 

Thomas Groome, a theology professor at Boston College, said that of all the American bishops who've had to deal with the abuse crisis, O'Malley "has come closest to satisfying the victims." He sold the archdiocese's palatial headquarters and used the money for victim settlements.

A low-key personality who prizes simplicity and "isn't a hardened idealogue," O'Malley would bring a starkly different style to the papacy, Groome said.

"We'd go from Prada booties to sandals and no socks," he said. "He wouldn't be a blustering public personality like John Paul. You'd have to go back to John XXIII to find someone analogous."

Groome said that when O'Malley's name surfaced he initially laughed it off but now thinks he could emerge as the next pope from a brokered conclave where the cardinals from the northern and southern hemispheres square off.

Franco Origlia / Getty Images file

Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, attends a concistory held by 
Pope Benedict at Saint Peter's Basilica on November 24, 2012, in Vatican City, Vatican.

"There are 117 cardinals and probably 116 of them would love to be pope," he said. "The one who wouldn't is O'Malley and that could be why he gets it."

Rocco Palmo, who writes the popular Whispers in the Loggia blog, noted that O'Malley heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' high-profile pro-life committee, giving him exposure outside his Boston archdiocese.

But he said it's way too soon to say he's on a short-list.

"It's a wide open field, and anything is possible," Palmo said. "But there are 117 voting cardinals and in the next 25 days, I expect to hear every one of those cardinals' names mentioned."

O'Malley is no Vatican insider and some will question whether he has the managerial mettle to accomplish a much-needed overhaul of its sprawling bureaucracy. And there's never been a pope from the Capuchin order of friars, who are noted for their service to the poor. 

It's been conventional wisdom that American cardinals have little chance of being the pope because of a global phobia of a U.S.-dominated Vatican. Allen says that may have changed because the country's superpower status has dimmed over the decades.

"The Americans have the second-largest voting bloc -- 11 -- after the Italians," Palmo said. "It's only natural an American name is going to appear at some point."

Previously, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was mentioned by many as America's top papal possibility. He says those predictions are off-base.

“Those are only from people smoking marijuana,” Dolan said Sunday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Polls: Cigar-chomping former communist will be Italy’s next leader

Pier Luigi Bersani/ Reuters

worldnews

By Frances D'Emilio, The Associated Press

ROME -- If opinion polls are right, he's the man headed to win Italy's elections this month.

No, not Silvio Berlusconi, the flamboyant media mogul chased out of office by Europe's debt crisis and attempting a comeback. Nor Mario Monti, the star economist-turned-premier credited by financial circles with saving Italy from ruin.

Grabbing fewer headlines but a greater share of support: Pier Luigi Bersani — a cigar-chomping former communist with a resume thick with unglamorous posts and almost zero name recognition outside Italy.

His high forehead burrowed in a frown, Bersani came across as looking so stern in early campaign posters that aides had to scramble to replace them with ones showing him smiling. Still, he handily beat the easy-going, rakishly handsome young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, in a primary last fall of their Democratic Party to become the center-left candidate for premier.

'The opposite of Berlusconi'And that might point to his appeal: Italians seem to find his complete lack of glamour refreshing after the rambunctious Berlusconi years.

"His strongest point is he's the opposite of Berlusconi," said Jonathan Hopkin, a political scientist at the London School of Economics. "Berlusconi is a showman. He (Bersani) is not entertaining."

The ascent of Bersani — whose camp in late January enjoyed roughly 33 percent support against some 27 percent for the Berlusconi side — also has much to do with his ability to draw on the former Communist Party's entrenched network of activists, funding and economic connections, such as business cooperatives. The publication of poll results is banned in the last two weeks before elections in Italy.

But in the counterintuitive world of Italian politics, Bersani has long embraced economic liberalization in several stints in government.

As industry minister, Bersani waged an uphill battle to free up such areas of the economy as energy, insurance and banking services.

Even the smallest reform efforts brought resistance. Operators of Italy's gasoline retail network called a strike in 2007 when the government decided to allow supermarkets to sell gasoline. Similar protests frustrated plans to auction off taxi licenses and to allow supermarkets to sell nonprescription drugs such as aspirin. Years later, even Monti had no luck trying to persuade the powerful lobby of pharmacists to surrender their hold on nonprescription drugs.

As transport minister, Bersani branded unions "irresponsible" when an airport ground workers' strike combined with an air traffic controllers' strike on the same weekend train workers walked off the job.

He also worked to undo the center-left's image as supportive of a sprawling state economy, especially in the energy sector. He championed legislation that ended a 37-year-old monopoly by then state-controlled electric utility ENEL.

Born in 1951 — 15 years to the day after Berlusconi — Bersani grew up in Emilia Romagna, the affluent north-central region at the heart of Italy's so-called "red belt." There, citizens in cities like Bologna voted for decades for Italy's communists, and later, for the communists' post-Soviet heirs.

Bersani's website shows him posing in a childhood photo with his parents against a backdrop of Esso gas pumps. His father, a car mechanic, ran a gas station.

In his autobiography, Bersani recounts an episode from his childhood that points to what might drive him as a leader.

He once organized a strike of fellow altar boys after the church pastor refused to divvy out to the tips that families left for them after weddings or baptisms. "The pastor would seize the money and buy sweets and nougat bars for us at Easter and Christmas. That didn't seem fair to me."

So during one ceremony, the altar boys took off their cassocks and walked out of the church. "The next Christmas, the pastor gave the boys an equal share of the tips of that year, stipulating one condition: that our mothers knew the exact figure we got."

Fairness is a quality Bersani promises to promote if elected premier: "At the first Cabinet meeting, we have to think about those who have nothing to eat," he told a campaign rally.

Can the Cardinal who couldn't save his Quebec church save the Vatican?

INGRID PERITZ/

Vandeville Eric /ABACA/Newscom

Cardinal Marc Ouellet is a man of the cloth and a deep theological thinker, but he is not above using e-mail. And this week, amid feverish betting reminiscent of the lead-up to the Super Bowl, the Cardinal sent a message to his family back in La Motte, Que.

With all the talk that he is a contender to succeed the resigning Pope Benedict XVI, the 68-year-old Cardinal told those closest to him that the best response was no response. “The coming month will be rather tough, given the novelty of the situation, and speculation is rife,” he wrote to his siblings and 90-year-old mother.

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Vatican Raises Possibility of Early Conclave

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How a New Pope is Elected

TimeMagazine

Pope’s Possible Successor Promotes Marxist for Sainthood

trevorloudon

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

American Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, reported to be in the running to replace Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is usually described as a “conservative” because he has strongly criticized President Obama’s attacks on religious liberty and federal intrusions into church affairs. But Dolan is also the leader of the campaign to promote Marxist Dorothy Day for Sainthood.

One report asks, “Could Timothy Dolan Become The First American Pope?” Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB,) is considered the voice of U.S. Catholicism.

But Carol Byrne, author of The Catholic Worker Movement (1933-1980): A Critical Analysis, says Dolan manipulated a vote by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops last November to move forward with the canonization of Dorothy Day, even though The New York Times itself noted that some of the Bishops said “she had an abortion as a young woman and at one point flirted with joining the Communist Party.”

The Times story was headlined, “In Hero of the Catholic Left, a Conservative Cardinal Sees a Saint.” Day, a major figure in the “Catholic Worker” movement, died in 1980.

In a letter obtained by this journalist, Virginia State Senator Richard H. “Dick” Black was so disgusted by the push for sainthood for Dorothy Day that he told the Pope on January 7, 2013, that he was “appalled” that “a woman of such loathsome character” would be considered for sainthood.

Black, a retired Marine Corps colonel, noted that “Vatican archives are filled with reports of Christians martyred under the regimes that Dorothy Day supported. I am revolted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ support for the canonization of a woman whose views supported the violent extermination of Christians throughout the world. I ask that these matters be carefully weighed so that the Holy See will not be inadvertently misled when considering the canonization of Dorothy Day.”

As a Marine pilot, Black fought the communists. He flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam and was wounded during fierce ground fighting with the 1st Marine Regiment.

“I am particularly concerned about her support for Ho Chi Minh,” Black said in his letter. He said that he had recently hosted a group of 12 Vietnamese men, each of whom served as senior officials in the Free Republic of Vietnam during the time when the North Vietnamese Communists overwhelmed Saigon in 1975. “Six of them were imprisoned in concentration camps no less severe than those of the Nazis in Germany,” he explained.

Regarding Dorothy Day’s “flirtation” with the Communist Party, as the Times put it, Carol Byrne told this journalist, “…I have provided proof, drawn from archival evidence and other authentic sources, that even after her conversion to Catholicism, Day became a member of several socialist organizations and was actively involved in political groups (including trade unions) whose founders and leaders were predominantly Communist Party members. She also supported the causes of individual Communists who were in the pay of the Soviet Union.”

Byrne went on, “This must be considered against the background of successive Popes who condemned communism as ‘intrinsically evil.’ They forbade Catholics from supporting Communists, and in July 1949 Pope Pius XII issued a decree of excommunication against anyone who collaborated with Communists or joined their associations. There is evidence to show that Day simply shrugged off the papal ban: she did not see communism as a real problem, or experience any moral quandary for a Catholic working in coalition with such groups professedly dedicated to ‘Justice and Peace.’”

State Senator Black said he was extremely concerned that, for almost 50 years, Day was the editor of a pro-communist newspaper, the Catholic Worker. He noted that the 58l-page FBI file on Day “contains a recommendation that Dorothy Day be considered for custodial detention in the event of a national emergency.”

His letter to the Pope went on to say that he was particularly concerned about Day’s “favorable writings regarding Lenin, Castro, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. As you well know, each of the above dictators ordered the execution of Catholic priests among the millions of other Christians murdered by these regimes.”

Carol Byrne confirmed that Day “supported the policies of hostile foreign powers operating from Moscow, Havana, Peking and Hanoi against her own country, the USA. She also wrote favorably about such socialist dictators as Lenin, Castro, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, even though they had all violently persecuted the Church in their respective countries. Nor could she in principle bring herself to condemn the social and economic ideals of Marxism.”

Nevertheless, The New York Times reported, “Cardinal Dolan has embraced her cause with striking zeal: speaking on the anniversaries of her birth and death, distributing Dorothy Day prayer cards to parishes and even buying roughly 100 copies of her biography to give out last year as Christmas gifts to civic officials including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.”

--------------

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism

As Vatican leader Pope Benedict never had a chance

foxnews

By John Moody 

He never had a chance.

From the moment he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s on April 19, 2005, to greet the faithful, Benedict XVI faced an insurmountable problem: He was not John Paul II.

Benedict’s decision to resign the papacy is being blamed on his age – nearly 86 – and his health – never robust. He might just as well have been diagnosed with a broken papal heart.

Because his nearly eight years on the Throne of the Fisherman never really produced the results he hoped for. He did not unite the conservative and progressive wings of the Catholic Church. He did not re-establish its place in Europe, the work of a previous Pope Benedict and the reason he took that name. Nor did he expand its foothold in Asia, cement its dominance in Latin America, or make serious inroads in Africa. And he did not bring to fruition the ecumenical understanding with other major faiths that he hoped would bloom during his reign.

Benedict faced nearly impossible odds, even before he was elected. Joseph Ratzinger -- his given name -- was already white-haired and stooped when he became pope. He was a German of the World War II generation, and as a boy had served, involuntarily, as a member of the Hitler Youth. His last job in Rome as Cardinal Ratzinger was to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the branch of the Vatican charged with enforcing dogma and rooting out dissent. For that, he was dubbed The Chief Inquisitor and The Rottweiler. His idea of a wild night was a single glass of Riesling and an hour of playing his piano – he was an accomplished interpreter of Beethoven and Mozart.

That’s who he is. But what stymied him was who he isn’t.

His Polish predecessor as Pope, Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, exploded into worldwide prominence and popularity in 1978 as a strong, smiling face for a church that had not elected a non-Italian for nearly 500 years. In combining as his papal name both John and Paul, Wojtyla suggested to the Church that he would follow the prudent style of rule set forth by John XXIII and Paul VI – neither of them firebrands.

Then, John Paul revealed his true nature: a brilliant, conservative theologian, a master politician and historian, a nonpareil philosopher, a polished performer thanks to his youthful acting career, an unapologetic anti-communist, and an inveterate traveler. He also didn’t mind showing off. He skied. He hiked. He canoed. He sported sneakers. He watched bare-breasted African women do traditional dances. And he never stopped talking, in any of the seven or eight languages he spoke fluently, about how God loves us.

By contrast, Benedict’s meek initial outings were public relations meltdowns. His smile, though genuine, looked somehow sinister, as if he were about to bite his audience. Determined to restore the Church’s luster in Europe, where it is often treated like a dotty old aunt, Benedict gave a lecture in Regensburg, Germany, in 2006 that appeared to denigrate Islam. The non-Catholic world howled; the Vatican cringed and apologized.

On his first visit to the U.S. as pope, Benedict offered contrite apologies for the Church’s ham-handed treatment of the U.S. church’s sex scandal involving its priests. Even the pope’s humble mien did not satisfy some, who pronounced him cold and unfeeling toward the plight of victims of clergy abuse. He joined the Twitterati, but his first attempt was a sterile: “I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. I bless all of you from my heart.” At least he stayed under 140 characters.

In nearly eight years, Benedict issued three encyclicals – direct messages to the faithful that often reveal a pope’s enthusiasms and interests. Benedict’s first – entitled “God is Love” -- is a caressing, simply worded, logic-based reassurance that our Lord loves us. Yet even his writing about love suffers in comparison with John Paul’s towering, intellectual yet intimate canon of work.

None of which lessens Benedict’s place in the line of Vicars of Christ. His decision to resign was a brave one, based on personal humility, in keeping with his message to the faithful that the things of Earth are transient, but the promise of heaven lasting and infinite.  For that he should be remembered.

John Moody is Executive Vice President, Executive Editor at Fox News. A former Vatican correspondent and Rome bureau chief for Time magazine, he is the author of four books, including "Pope John Paul II : Biography."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/11/as-vatican-leader-pope-benedict-never-had-chance/#ixzz2Kd0OMVbY

Who'll be next pope? Here are 8 frontrunners

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Zeman wins first round of Czech presidential vote

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Gerard Kennedy campaigns in Toronto

Video: http://www.cp24.com/video?clipId=837734&binId=1.814368

Hagel, Obama and the Israeli Elections

frontpagemag/ Caroline Glick 

thejerusalemconnection.us

The National Journal recently reported that Obama is reconsidering his decision to appoint Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense. As I wrote in my previous post, there is no chance that Obama will appoint a supporter of a strong Israel to any senior foreign policy post because he wouldn’t appoint someone who doesn’t share his basic animosity towards Israel. But in Hagel, he chose someone even more outspoken in his animus towards the Jewish state than Obama.

Hagel’s looming appointment provoked angry responses from many leading Jewish voices in the US. Whether this opposition made a difference in driving Obama to reconsider his choice is unclear. Plenty of other influential groups – including senators, members of the military and lobbyists for homosexual rights – expressed their discomfort and opposition to the prospect of having Hagel serve as Defense Secretary. Still it is notable that Hagel’s possible appointment sparked an outcry among prominent American Jews and that this outcry had some unknown impact on Obama’s possible decision to cancel Hagel’s appointment.

If Obama indeed scuttles Hagel’s elevation to Defense Secretary, it shows that it is possible to fight Obama on foreign policy even in his second term, and win, at least sometimes. This is important information for Republicans, American Jews, and the Israeli government.

Obama will have multiple, massive domestic challenges to contend with in his second term. If he wishes to focus on advancing his domestic agenda, he may well punt on foreign affairs.

The US President’s inbox is always overflowing. One of the hardest things for a president to do is take control over his own agenda.

Just consider the issue of gun control. Certainly, as a liberal Democrat, Obama is for it. But Obama has never made the issue of restricting gun ownership  a priority during his presidency. Now in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, he is suddenly spending a lot of time on the issue and going into a head to head battle with the National Rifle Association.

Maybe Obama will win this battle. Maybe he’ll lose it. But he will be focusing on it a lot in the coming weeks. Again, this is not an issue that was ever central to his agenda. But due to an unforeseen event, it has become an issue that he is now forced to spend time on.

There are of course, many more foreseeable issues Obama will have to devote his presidential time, energy and capital to. The biggest among them is Obamacare. Budgetary and tax woes are not far behind. With only 24 hours in the day, Obama will not be able to focus on Israel or foreign policy on a daily basis. And in order to make time for other things, which are more important to him, or more immediately pressing, Obama may be willing to back down.

As I was working on my book this morning, I came across an article I wrote before the 2006 elections in Israel. In it, I argued that the reason the Sharon government had such good relations with the US was because it bowed to every US demand, no matter how antithetical it was to Israel’s national interests. At that time, I mentioned Sharon’s decision to set aside his concerns and bow to US pressure to permit Hamas to participate in the Palestinian Authority’s legislative elections in January 2006.

For bending to Washington’s will, Israel got plaudits from Rice and Bush. But we also got Hamas in charge, an even more radicalized Fatah racing to prove its own terror bona fides to measure up to Hamas, and increased international isolation for Israel as nation after nation began softening to the idea of Hamas being a legitimate organization.

In retrospect, it would certainly have been better for Israel – and for America – if Sharon had stood up to Rice and simply refused to permit Hamas to participate in the elections. It would have been better to have had a public fight with Washington and kept Hamas out of power than maintain warm relations with the Bush administration while empowering a terror group that openly seeks the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.

This brings us to Obama, his apparent decision to stand down on Hagel,  US relations with Israel in Obama’s second term in office, and finally to how the Israeli election campaign plays into all of these things.

Here in Israel, the Left’s basic diplomatic attack on Netanyahu involves accusing him of having wrecked  Israel’s relations with the US by standing up to Obama. But whereas by not standing up to Bush and Rice, Israel got Hamas in power and missiles on Jerusalem, by standing up to Obama, Israel is still in control of Judea and Samaria and the two-state delusion has been increasingly discredited in Israel, and to a lesser degree in the US.

Moreover on Iran, Israel has coaxed a reluctant US administration into passing serious sanctions against Iran, and while the economic pressure hasn’t made any dent in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Israeli pressure has made it harder for Obama to simply accept Iranian nuclear weapons. Vocally expressing Israeli concerns has certainly helped Republicans maintain pressure on Obama to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and publicly support a potential Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.

It is understandable that Netanyahu is keeping mum on his diplomatic achievements. He can’t risk even worse relations with Obama by mentioning his success in keeping the US President at bay in his quest to diminish Israel’s strategic options.

What makes less sense is his decision to adopt the Left’s talking points against the Right in his assault on the Jewish Home Party and its leader Naftali Bennett.

Last Thursday Bennett was conned by television personality Nissim Mishal into discussing what his  personal response as a soldier would be to the completely hypothetical issue of IDF expulsions of Jews in Judea and Samaria. The issue is artificial is because no one is proposing a mass expulsions of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria today. The Palestinians are uninterested in negotiating with Israel. Netanyahu is uninterested in surrendering land. And the Left, which would like to cut and run, has no chance of winning next month’s elections.

So Mishal manipulated Bennett into an irrelevant policy discussion in order to embarrass him.  Bennett said that he would personally object to fulfilling an order to expel Jews from their homes, and if necessary, bear the personal consequences.

Netanyahu himself is quite familiar with Nissim Mishal’s manipulations of political theater to embarrass candidates on the Right. In 1999, during a televised candidates’ debate when Netanyahu ran for reelection as Prime Minister, Mishal repeatedly interjected himself into the debate to support rival candidate Yitzhak Mordechai’s character attacks on Netanyahu.

Keep reading on frontpagemag >>

Egyptian Judges Investigate Morsi Vote Fraud In Constitution Referendum

patdollard

President Mohamed Mursi sees the basic law, drawn up mostly by Islamists, as a vital step in Egypt’s transition to democracy almost two years after the fall of military-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

The opposition, a loose alliance of liberals, moderate Muslims and Christians, says the document is too Islamist, ignores the rights of minorities and represents a recipe for more trouble in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Critics have also said the vote, conducted over two stages in a process that ended on Saturday, was marred by a litany of irregularities, and have demanded a full inquiry.

“The committee is currently compiling results from the first and second phase and votes from Egyptians abroad, and is investigating complaints,” Judge Mahmoud Abu Shousha, a member of the committee, told Reuters.

He said no time had been set for an announcement of the final outcome, but it appeared unlikely to be on Monday.

A tally by the Muslim Brotherhood, which lifted Mursi into the presidency, indicated a 64 percent “yes” vote, although only a third of the 51 million eligible Egyptians took part. An opposition count was similar, but they said the ballot had been marred by abuses in both rounds.

By forcing the pace on the constitution, Mursi risks squandering the opportunity to build consensus for the austerity measures desperately needed to kickstart an ailing economy.

Highlighting investor concerns, Standard and Poor’s cut Egypt’s long-term credit rating on Monday and said another cut was possible if political turbulence worsened.

The low turnout also prompted some independent newspapers to question how much support the charter really had, with opponents saying Mursi had lost the vote in much of the capital.

“The referendum battle has ended, and the war over the constitution’s legitimacy has begun,” the newspaper Al-Shorouk wrote in a headline, while a headline in Al-Masry Al-Youm read: “Constitution of the minority”.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

If the “yes” vote is confirmed, a parliamentary election will follow in about two months, setting the stage for Islamists and their opponents to renew their battle.

Under the new constitution, legislative powers that have been temporarily held by Mursi move to the Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament until a new lower house is elected.

The make-up of the Supreme Constitutional Court, which Islamists say is filled with Mubarak-era appointees bent on throwing up legal challenges to Mursi’s rule, will also change as its membership is cut to 11 from 18.

Those expected to leave include Tahani al-Gebali, who has described Mursi as an “illegitimate president”.

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Saad al-Katatni, wrote on Facebook that the group’s members were “extending our hands to all political parties and all national forces”, adding: “We will all start a new page”.

But the opposition National Salvation Front says the new basic law deepens a rift between the liberals and Islamists who combined to overthrow Mubarak, and will extend the turbulence that has taken a heavy toll on society and economy.

The opposition said they would continue to challenge the charter through protests and other democratic means.

“We do not consider this constitution legitimate,” liberal politician Amr Hamzawy said on Sunday, arguing that it violated personal freedoms. “We will continue to attempt to bring down the constitution peacefully and democratically.”

The run-up to the referendum was marred by protests, originally sparked when Mursi awarded himself broad powers on November 22. At least eight people were killed when rivals clashed in protests outside Mursi’s official palace in Cairo. Violence also flared in the second city, Alexandria.

Egyptians narrowly back Islamist-shaped constitution, say rival camps

Mahmoud Khaled / AFP - Getty Images

Polling station officials count ballots in Cairo on Friday at the end of the first day of vote in a referendum on a new constitution.

By Reuters

CAIRO - Egyptians appeared to have voted narrowly in favor of a constitution shaped by Islamists, officials in rival camps said on Sunday after the first round of a two-stage referendum.

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The result based on unofficial tallies, if confirmed for this round and repeated in Saturday's second stage, may give Islamist President Mohamed Morsi limited cause for celebration as it shows the wide rift in Egypt at a time when he needs to build consensus on tough measures to heal a fragile economy.

Official results are not expected till after the next round.

Morsi and his backers say the constitution is vital to move Egypt's democratic transition forward. Opponents say the basic law is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights, including those of Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.

The build-up to Saturday's vote was marred by deadly protests. Demonstrations erupted last month when Morsi awarded himself sweeping powers and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies.

The vote passed off peacefully with long queues forming in Cairo and other cities and towns where this round of voting was held. The vote was staggered because many judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott to voice their opposition.

But late on Saturday, as polls were closing, Islamists attacked the offices of the liberal opposition Wafd party newspaper, a party that was part of the National Salvation Front coalition that pushed for a "no" vote.

"The referendum was 56.5 percent for the 'yes' vote," a senior official in the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party operations room set up to monitor voting told Reuters. More >>

Also 

ANALYSIS: As Egypt votes, what is at stake? >>