The Papal conclave has elected Pope Francis. He’s from Argentina, and since 217 of the previous 265 pontiffs have been Italian, this is a big deal, right?
Not as much as you might think. The new Holy Father, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the son of Italian immigrants. He is italo-argentino, like 60 percent of Argentina’s population.
More:
“Pope Francis feted in Italian ancestral village,” Antonella Ciancio, Reuters
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Attention job seekers: There is a vacancy in Vatican City. Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will leave office on February XXVIII. While rare, Papal resignation is allowed under Article 1 Canon 332 §2 of the Code of Canon Law. Catholic scholars are unclear about the pension and health insurance benefits.
Blessed are the Bushmasters, according to David French. His column on sacred smiting in National Review asserts that “gun control represents not merely a limitation on a constitutional right but a limitation on a God-given right of man that has existed throughout the history of civil society.”
– “Top Conservative Publication: God Wants You To Have An Assault Rifle,” Zack Beauchamp, Think Progress
In 623 BC Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in Lumbini, southern Nepal. A holy site, it has long been a place of pilgrimage, and Emperor Ashoka built a commemorative pillar there in 249 BC. In 2013 AD, an international consortium has plans to make Lumbini an amusement park, Buddhaland.
Pope Benedict XVI is on Twitter, tweeting encyclicals in 140 CXL letters. Actually, His Holiness was on the Twitter last year, about the same time he went on Facebook, but this is his very own personal account, and his handle is @Pontifex. Twitter Followers: 1,104,394, Following: 0. That’s your Vatican table of organization right there.
But Twitter works in mysterious ways. The Pope invited questions to the hashtag #askpontifex, unleashing a flood of tweeted inquiries about faith, sex, scandal and lunch. More queries of the curia curious can be found here and here.
More:
“To Tweet the Infallible Tweet,” Steven Mazie, Big Think
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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“For Apple fans still recovering from Steve Jobs’ untimely death last year, there is some hope yet. According to Phra Thepyanmahamuni, the abbot of the Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Thailand, Jobs was reincarnated into a divinity “of middle rank – half a Witthayathorn, half yak.”
“Jobs has long been compared to a religious leader himself, and Apple has been variously described as magical and religious. In 2011 the BBC went so far as to claim that Apple products evoked religious experiences in their fans.”
“Steve Jobs Reincarnated as Divine Half-Yak,” Andrew Aghapour, Religion Dispatches
