What IS it about Catholics and our Papal election that just whips the rest of the world into a chimney watching, odds laying, history spewing media frenzy?  I’m not complaining, I just think it’s kind of funny.  All of a sudden everybody seems to be an honorary Catholic and the media talking heads are experts on Catholicism and waiting with bated breath as we wait to see the white smoke. Makes me wanna slap ’em, since they don’t have much respect for us the week prior and the week after.  Next week it will be back to Catholic bashing.  OK, maybe I am complaining.  I just feel like now that we’re having a big party everyone wants to be on the A-list.  Bug off…

When I was a kid it seemed like the Pope was God.   Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council which rocked the Catholic Church long after his death – it was only reading up on it today that I realized he was only Pope for four and a half years.  He left quite a legacy and had you asked me, I would have said he was Pope for 30 years.

I had actually forgotten who was Pope after his short time, and it was Paul VI, who was Pope from 1963 (I was in third grade) until 1978 (I was two years out of college.)  No wonder I thought Popes were Popes forever and ever.  Then came John Paul I who freaked us all out by dying a month after his election, (puhleese, conspiracy theorists, even if it was, you will never know, so let it go already) and then our beloved John Paul II, pretty much everybody loved him not because he was Pope but, I think, because he was himself.  Church politics were really irrelevant in the “how much do I like him” department.  I realize in retrospect he was Pope for most of what has been my adult life thus far – from 1978-2005.  And then of course came Benedict XVI.  How long was he Pope?  Oh, a couple of years, I guess.

Well actually it was eight years.  EIGHT YEARS?  I’m still complaining that he was elected for heaven’s sake.  Time is doing that thing that an old lady once told me when I was in my twenties – when you get really old, the years fly by like months.   Oh well, Benedict, enjoy your retirement, thanks for stepping aside, just goes to show we always do end up getting the right guy, and in this case it was a guy who had enough sense to know that perhaps someone else would be better equipped to lead us through the dark woods that we are wandering through right now.

So, we got a new Pope today.  I’m liking that he took the name Francis, of course, who doesn’t?  The best part? He’s a Jesuit.  As in Jacques Marquette, SJ.  As in good omen for Marquette University Golden Eagles in the NCAA Tournament coming up.

Oh man, that’s probably not right, huh.  Three Hail Mary’s and an Our Father for that one…

Anyway, it is truly pretty cool to go to the Catholic Encyclopedia and look at the list of Popes and have the first Pope really  be St. Peter.   It is also somewhat comforting to note that everybody in the Catholic Church started fighting with each other as early as the year 217 when “Callistus and the following three popes were opposed by Hippolytus.”  So see, we have a grand tradition of arguing and grousing with each other and yet, in 2013, we still are here, connected once again all over the world, watching for that white smoke.

Blessings to you, Pope Francis I  – you have your work cut out for you, but if what we hear about you is any indication, you have what it takes.  Habemus Papam.