Pope John Paul II dies, ending 26-year reign

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Originally posted by Salimar
It seems to me that the pope is elected amongst the cardinals by the cardinals which is a rather small group of people (and they say that is god who elects the pope through them hmmmm?)

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The entire process revolves around the idea that God chooses the next Pope. If you don't accept that you really can't make the process make sense. I'm not Catholic, so I'm going out on a limb and taking a stab at this, but I'd be willing to bet that the Cardinals get together and have some sort of religious ceremony (Catholics love their ceremonies!), and then prayerfully discuss the matter. They then rely on devine guidance and inspiration to choose the next leader which involves some sort of vote to be sure enough of them were devinely inspired the same way.

As a fairly open-minded Christian I believe that God has a hand in all religions (Christian and non-Christian), so it doesn't seem a stretch to me that God inspires people to make decisions about who should be leading the largest church in the world (by the estimates I've seen anyway). Also, I'd rather leave it up to devine inspiration than let the members of the church vote. If you have faith in a religion you should shape your behavior to the teachings of that religion, not have the teachings of that religion shaped by the popular vote of the members. Leave it up to devine power to guide major decisions for the church. That's just my quirky way of looking at religion though. If you don't believe in devine guidance I guess a vote would make sense.

I fell away from the Catholic (and a handful of other protestant faiths) quite a few years ago, but I still found this whole ordeal moving. Christian, Bhuddist, Jew, Aethiest or Nazi (wqell, maybe not Nazi) most people in the world were better off because of the work that the Pope did. Maybe they didn't always agree with his politics, but Pope JP was a really good man, and there are usually only a handful of them that succeed in making a difference every century. (This last century would probably include him, Ghandi, Mother Teresa and George Carlin.)

Anyway, on a more personal note, I was actually in Rome when he went to the hospital the first time a few weeks ago. It was sunday morning March 6th, and I was in the Piazza San Pietro (Plaza in front of St. Peter's Basilica) specifically to be nodded at by the Pope from his window during the Sunday morning blessing of the crowd. I thought it was him up there... for those of you who have not been, the window in like four stories up and five hundred feet away from the closest you can get. I didn't know he had been hospitilized for (chest pains?) until I got back state side and heard it from my mom.

Being so close geographically to the actual Pope made it seem more real, and thusly I was more concerned than I otherwise think I would have been at his sickness, and have actually grieved at his death. Again I say, regardless of religious belief, Pope JP was a great man, and if there be a Heaven, surely he will have an honored seat for the love he has lived throughout his life. May he rest in whatever honor there is after life, and recieve whatever joy and happiness may exist beyond worldy things.