You read about the new South American Pope here first!

Seems that I had a good guess that it would be a South American for the next Pope. Not a young man by any sense of the imagination, but with a birthday of 17th December 1936 he is a spritely 76, four years above the average for the College of Cardinals.

It is interesting to note, that the College of Cardinals, are allowed pick someone outside of their own number, if they so wish. Never been done, can't for my life see as to why that would be.

The other thing to note, is that South America is home to 40% of the world's Catholic's, according to Michael Hirst of the BBC and more pertitently is a place where the Catholic Church is still held in some esteem. 

Interesting to think, that in South America, men are seen to be authority figures, leaders not just in the home, but at work and in society as a whole (patriarchal societies, perhaps - ed). They really don't go for that namby pamby Western Liberal, metrosexual type of man down there (are you sure? - ed), which is why they have chosen a Pope from that region. (? - ed)

So it appears that there will be no liberalism (big or little 'l' - ed) in the Catholic Church whilst he holds the position, and 

• there will be no move on woman priests  (no change there then - ed)
• no sensible talk or action on the use of contraception, remember every sperm is sacred and is a potential tithe earning Catholic sinner (ouch - ed)
• there will be no seaching enquiries into the sexual antics of numerous priests and their associated coverups (no change there then - ed0
• there will be no enquiry into the allegations of bribery and corruption at the Vatican (no change there then - ed)

The song remains the same even though the chairs have been shuffled!

Afterthought

Sorry for going on about the Pope so much recently. The post on Government Spending is proving to have a rather difficult gestation, it is taking as long as it takes, and now matter how many extra resources I throw at it, it ain't going to appear sooner than it does.

I could argue that it is there or thereabouts, and needs some very colourful graphs as the figures readily available from 'Da Goverment' (tm) are so very interesting (aha that 'interesting' word again - ed)

For those that have not realised it, no Government, not a single one (not even Mrs Thatcher's Governments - economics ed) has reduced public expenditure when denominated in simple pounds. 

Why, mainly because you have to take into account inflation and the iniquity of fiscal drag (the Government gets more money automatically as average wages go up - as the tax bands are not automatically uprated for inflation - economics ed).

Even the so called, "massive cuts", that we are having now, are cuts to planned higher levels of spending, not actual cuts, i.e they are reducing the rate of increase to less than inflation, so your next tax pound that the Government gets will buy fewer services (unless deflation kicks in - economics ed).

The crux of the matter, is that as the economy is flat lining, the tax revenues have flat lined and so there is no 'natural' year on year growth of the Governments tax revenues, so they are having to make some tough decisions.

The real question, and one that no Government has ever faced up to, is, "What is the Government for?". Now a debate on what Government should or should not do would be thinking about. 

Anyhow, this afterthought seems to have become a pre-post to the forthcoming post and I really can't let it steal the thunder.

[David stands up and moves his hands away from the keyboard. Now breathe, deep, long slow breaths, this is not the article you are looking for, move along - ed]

Old Man to be replaced by another Old Man

It appears that the Catholic Church is having yet another restricted election on who gets to be next  Pope.

With all of the modern technology that is available, why do a bunch of generally old men, average age of around 72 need to go to the Vatican to elect a new Pope?

Note: Only Cardinals younger than 80 are allowed to vote, if the 80+'s were allowed to vote, the average age would move up to around 78.

More important than this, can the Catholic Church continue to insist that women have no place in the positions of power in the Church hierarchy?

What would be a "good" first act for the next Pope, would be to reach out to all of the people who have been sexually abused by "celibates" in position of authority in the Church; firstly by apologising unreservedly to all of those people damaged by this abuse and secondly setting up a truth and reconciliation commission to reveal and remove all abusers from the Catholic Church.

However, this would be most unlikely to happen. given that even some senior members of the Catholic Church accused of, "coverups of cases of child molestation", are at the Vatican to vote. Notwithstanding this, the Catholic Church has a history of cover-ups and inaction stretching back through recent decades and in almost every country.

So given this unflattering history, there is little or no chance that the new kid (ha - ed) on the block would want to shine a light on this particularly dark underbelly of the Catholic Church.

Pope has pacemaker

The Beeb are doing a fine job of tickling me today. So the Pope has a pacemaker. You can see the scene, the Pope and his cardinals lined up on the starting line, ready for the race. The race organisers have thoughtfully brought in a South American pacemaker to try and see if they can break the Papal World Record for the shortest time it takes to choose the next pope.

Seems that a job for life just ain't what it used to be, Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands one week and then the next week it's the Pope. Wonder who will be next? Surely not, she wouldn't would she, she takes is so so seriously (that'll be HRH QE II - ed).

Afterthought

A spokesman for Gerry and the Pacemakers declined to comment on the BBC's allegation.