[tomder55]

Yesterday the Vatican released global warming atmospheric polluting black smoke into the air .

Black smoke signals end of first day of conclave - Vatican News

This means that the 133 Cardinals that are sequestered in the Sistine Chapel could not agree who will be the next Pope. A 2/3 majority is needed for a Cardinal to become a Pope.

This seems like a very inefficient way to handle a vote. More modern and progressive minded reformers think they should adopt rank choice voting .

Recent Conclaves have lasted 2-3 days as the Cardinals horse trade
Francis 2 days
Benedict XVI 2 days
John Paul II 3 days
John Paul 2 days


One piece of disturbing news that came out prior to the conclave was that Francis made a deal with the dictators in China for them to have veto power over who became a Cardinal in China. Given the regimes religious persecutions of Tibet ;the Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims this decision was disgraceful .
China and the Vatican agree to extend an agreement on appointing bishops | AP News


The question is; will this policy remain ? It is reported that if one of the front runners ;Cardinal Pietro Parolin; who managed the Vatican finances for Francis , and brokered the deal ,will continue this outrageous policy.

This policy is as infamous as the 1933 Reichskonkordat treaty between Hitler and Pope Pius XI. In exchange for being left alone by Hitler ,he agreed to not speak out against Nazi persecutions .
CATHOLIC LIBRARY: Concordat with the German Reich (1933)


So while the world awaits a new Pope ,the Chicoms have preempted the process by voting last week to elect new bishops from a list of Beijing-approved candidates for the dioceses of Shanghai and Xinxiang . This even as the Catholic rules say that no new Bishops can be appointed between Papacies .

2 priests ‘elected’ as Catholic bishops in China after death of Pope Francis

Xinxiang diocese already has a bishop, Joseph Zhang Weizhu who has refused to submit to Bejing . So the Chicoms had him arrested and thrown into jail as he was being treated for cancer. He continues to be held without trial.

Persecution of 10 Catholic bishops in China intensified after Vatican-China deal, report says – Catholic World Report

Their replacement select is Father Li Jianlin who has a history of sucking up the the Chicoms.

Pope Francis overlooked even instances when China violated the accord between the Vatican and China . No doubt that if Parolin is elevated to the Pope ,the church's appeasement will continue .

[tomder55]

About those Vatican financial books . They are a mess. There is a lot of misconceptions about the wealth of the state. Yes the Vatican is a state . It was declared so in 1929 ;all 0.2 sq miles of it. It used to have tons of money and power in Europe and the world . But over time power was transferred to nations.

They are a classic case of asset rich and cash poor. They have very nice buildings to maintain ;staff to pay ;pensions to fund. Unlike other nations ;cities ,they collect no taxes to support them.
The misconception is that they get a slice of the pie from the collection plates on Sunday. That is false . All those funds support the local dioceses and churches.

The only revenue they get it fees from tourism.

To get around this the Vatican established a bank . And that is where charges of corruption stem from. They became a laundry service .

The Vatican Bank is rocked by scandal again - BBC News

Francis was confronted with the reality and did his best .
Pope Francis Vatican Bank reforms: Pope Francis battled centuries of corruption in $6 billion Vatican Bank plagued by mafia ties, bad bets, and hidden secrets - The Economic Times

But the Vatican is still facing a $ 769 million deficit and the pension fund faces 2 billion euros in liabilities. Unlike the US ;they can't print monopoly bucks to cover it ;and the days of offering indulgences for cash is over .

[tomder55]

Cardinal Robert Prevost from the South Side of Chicago is now Pope Leo XIV . A Pope from America making the Papacy Great Again He spent much of his life in ministry in Peru . This tells me he may be shaped by the social activist movement sometimes called liberation theology that shaped Pope Francis . But that is just my guess.On the compliant press they suggest he is a mysterious maybe centrist . Hard to tell . They spent more time talking about him being a Cubs fan and asking such probing questions if he likes Rome's pizza or Chi-town deep dish pizza.

[jlisenbe]

[tomder55]

But Trump will likely tariff Communion wine . He really wanted the gig .

[jlisenbe]

Pope Trump the first.