Habemus Papam!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Papacy
Habemus Papam.

Yesterday, during his homily preceding the conclave, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said:

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

I have to admit that I am strangely comforted by those words. All my adult life I've sided with (most) of the positions taken by such groups as We Are Church and now I appreciate the discipline and rigour of Catholicism like never before.
Who knows what changes (if any) Pope Benedict XVI will bring, but I feel excited and hopeful. Viva il Papa!

Brief Detour...
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Papacy
Blogger has been down all weekend so the climb up the mountain has taken a slight detour...

His Holiness John Paul II died this month. His death hit me like a ton of bricks. My mother and I were glued to the television set, watching the same images over and over again. Crying. The Boy, bless his heart, didn't get it at all.

But since the funeral (which we did watch live) I've settled in with all more - my heart never grieved for him, he's in a much better place now; my heart grieved for us, left behind. Especially those with Polish blood running through the veins. This man was everything to us and its hard to believe that he'll never recall his favorite kremowki again or never lead the Angelus...

The day he died, I felt something shift inside me. I've been reading a lot about JPII's papacy and legacy, but also about Fatima and Garbandal and Sr. Faustina. And right now I trying to sort out my thoughts regarding my faith - the authority of the Church, the value of ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue, the need for collegiality.

Rigt now, the College of Cardinals is locked in the Sistine Chapel. Within days the Catholic flock will have a new shepherd. And only time will tell if the next pope will be able to fill JPII's shoes...