The Pope has resigned

The end is near

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes

I am sure Fox News will somehow find a way to blame Obama for this.

Ali* wrote:

I am sure Fox News will somehow find a way to blame Obama for this.

And CNN and msnbc will somehow give credit to Obama for it and name him the next Pope in line if he wasn't Oresident.

Ali* wrote:

I am sure Fox News will somehow find a way to blame Obama for this.

what do you care?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276884/Pope-Benedict-XVI-resigns-First-Pontiff-600-years-stand-longer-strength-carry-on.html

A signal from above? Lightning hits St Peter's hours after Pope Benedict stuns cardinals with first resignation in 600 years

Photoshop

maybe, maybe not

who wants to bet the next pope is black?

oggy420 wrote:

maybe, maybe not

who wants to bet the next pope is black?

Why does it matter? While I'm not Catholic, I want the best candidate regardless of race.

im just joking around. A lot of religous nuts believe the whole ST. MALACHY prophecy or whatever.

Personally i think the wealth that the Vatican hoards is pretty hypocritical. I was baptised, had communion and confirmation and literally feel no connection to the Catholic church. I could really care less about who the next pope is.

i've a feeling the shit is about to hit the fan about the vatican covering up child abuse by members of the clergy.

the pope may have resigned but i suspect he won't escape scrutiny that easily.

I keep hearing about odds on certain people being the Pope. I guess that is pretty big right now. Betting Odds on The Pope. I think the most likely American was at like 50:1 and the closest black guy was like 300:1.

Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Bertone A.K.A. Peter the Roman is my bet for next pope... just because

Did a Cross-Dressing Priest Sex Ring Bring Down Benedict XVI?

http://news.yahoo.com/did-cross-dressing-priest-sex-ring-bring-down-174300640--politics.html

Of all the rumors floating around about just why Pope Benedict XVI is hanging up his camauro, one has taken on a life of its own. According to several well-placed vaticanisti—or Vatican experts—in Rome, Benedict is resigning after being handed a secret red-covered dossier that included details about a network of gay priests who work inside the Vatican, but who play in secular Rome. The priests, it seems, are allegedly being blackmailed by a network of male prostitutes who worked at a sauna in Rome’s Quarto Miglio district, a health spa in the city center, and a private residence once entrusted to a prominent archbishop. The evidence reportedly includes compromising photos and videos of the prelates—sometimes caught on film in drag, and, in some cases, caught “in the act.”

Revelations about the alleged network are the basis of a 300-page report supposedly delivered to Benedict on December 17 by Cardinals Julian Herranz, Joseph Tomko, and Salvatore De Giorgi. According to the press reports, it was on that day that Benedict XVI decided once and for all to retire, after toying with the idea for months. He reportedly closed the dossier and locked it away in the pontifical apartment safe to be handed to his successor to deal with. According to reports originally printed by La Repubblica newspaper and the newsweekly Panorama (and followed up across the gamut of the Italian media), the crimes the cardinals uncovered involved breaking the commandments “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” the latter of which has been used in Vatican-speak to also refer to homosexual relations instead of the traditional reference to infidelity.

The trio of cardinals who authored the report, known in the Italian press as the “007 Priests,” were commissioned by Benedict to dig into the Vatileaks scandal that rocked the Holy See last fall when the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted of stealing secret papal documents and leaking them to the press. The sleuthing cardinals ran a parallel investigation to the Vatican tribunal’s criminal case against the butler, but theirs was far more covert and focused not on the mechanics of the leaks, but on who within the Roman Curia might be the brains behind them. And, according to the leaked reports, what the “007 Priests” found went far beyond the pope’s private desk. “What’s coming out is very detailed X-ray of the Roman Curia that does not spare even the closest collaborators of the Pope,” wrote respected Vatican expert Ignazio Ingrao in Panorama. “The Pope was no stranger to the intrigues, but he probably did not know that under his pontificate there was such a complex network and such intricate chains of personal interests and unmentionable relationships.”

The existence of a gay-priest network outside the fortified walls of Vatican City is hardly news, and many are wondering if it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of sex scandals. In 2010, investigative journalist Carmello Abbate went undercover with a hidden camera to write a shocking exposé called “Good Nights Out for Gay Priests”.

Abbate caught the priests on hidden camera dirty dancing at private parties and engaging in sex acts with male escorts on church property. He also caught them emerging from dark bedrooms just in time to celebrate mass. In one postcoital scene, a priest parades around seminaked, wearing only his clerical vestments. “This is not about homosexuality,” Abbate told The Daily Beast when he published the exposé. “This is about private vices and public virtues. This is about serious hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.”

Because so much of the secret lives of gay priests is actually not so secret thanks to Abbate’s exposé and subsequent book, Sex and the Vatican, many are wondering what else could be hidden in the alleged red-covered dossier. Vatican elite have also been loosely tied to a number of other secular scandals during Benedict’s tenure, including the ultra-tawdry affair between former Lazio governor Piero Marrazzo and several transvestite prostitutes, including one named “Brenda” who was found burned to death in 2009. At the time that Marrazzo’s relationships with the transvestites were discovered, his driver reportedly told investigators that several high-ranking priests and even cardinals were customers of Rome’s elite transsexual circuit, though no proof was ever provided and no one has ever been arrested tied to the transsexual prostitution circuit. Nor has anyone mentioned whether reference to these crimes might also be in the dossier. But Marrazzo was whisked off to the Vatican-owned Monte Cassino abbey south of Rome to do his penance, and he even wrote a letter to Vatican Secretary of State Tarciso Bertone asking for Pope Benedict XVI’s forgiveness.

READ MORE Protesters: Send Morsi to the Moon

Whatever secrets the red binders supposedly hold will have to remain just that until the next pope is elected. But Ingrao believes its contents are so important that the dossier will be like the 118th cardinal in the conclave. “Many new skeletons from the closets of the cardinals could come out until the beginning of the conclave,” says Ingrao. “Many voters know or claim to know the secrets of their brothers, but it is already clear that the new pope who leaves the Sistine Chapel will have to be scandal-free in order to proceed with cleaning up [what] Ratzinger has left for his successor."

Peter Turkson of Ghana appears to be the front runner though

oggy420 wrote:

Peter Turkson of Ghana appears to be the front runner though

What are the betting odds?
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/novelty-betting/current-affairs/pope-betting

Cardinal Peter Turkson (Ghana) 11/4

Cardinal Claudio Hummes (Brazil) 50/1

Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe (Italy) 100/1
Archbishop Angelo Scola (Italy) 7/2

CardinalGiovanni Battista Re (Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin (France) 100/1
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (Italy) 4/1

Archbishop Vincent Nichols (England) 66/1

Cardinal Ivan Dias (India) 100/1
Cardinal Marc Ouellet (Canada) 7/1

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera (Mexico) 66/1

Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino (Cuba) 100/1
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (Italy) 9/1

Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz (Brazil) 66/1

Archbishop Pietro Parolin (Italy) 100/1
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri (Argentina) 14/1

Archbishop Piero Marini (Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier (South Africa) 100/1
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (Italy) 14/1

Cardinal Agnostino Vallini (Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Donald Wuerl (United States) 125/1
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (Austria) 16/1

Archbishop Pier Luiga Celata(Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli (Italy) 125/1
Cardinal Peter Erdo (Hungary) 16/1

Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera (Spain) 66/1

Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo (Brazil) 125/1
Cardinal Odilo Scherer (Brazil) 20/1

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi (Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Julian Herranz Casado (Spain) 125/1
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras) 20/1

Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois (France) 66/1

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi (Italy) 150/1
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Argentina) 25/1

Archbishop Pier Luiga Celata (Italy) 66/1

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (UK) 150/1
Cardinal Francis Arinze (Nigeria) 25/1

Cardinal Angelo Amato (Italy) 80/1

Cardinal John Njue (Kenya) 150/1
Cardinal Timothy Dolan (United States) 33/1

Cardinal William Levada (United States) 80/1

Cardinal Walter Kasper (Germany) 150/1
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle (Philippines) 33/1

Cardinal Raymond Burke (United States) 80/1

Archbishop Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez (Dominican Republic) 150/1
Patriarch Bechara Peter Rai (Lebanon) 40/1

Cardinal Attilio Nicora (Italy) 80/1

Cardinal Francis George (USA) 200/1
Cardinal Sean O'Malley (United States) 40/1

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne (Peru) 80/1

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller (Germany) 200/1
Cardinal Paolo Sardi(Italy) 50/1

Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela (Spain) 100/1

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (USA) 200/1
Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith (Sri Lanka) 50/1

Cardinal Karl Lehmann (Germany) 100/1

Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Italy) 200/1
Cardinal George Pell (Australia) 50/1

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin 100/1

Richard Dawkins (UK) 666/1
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza (Italy) 50/1

Cardinal Thomas Collins (Canada) 100/1

Father Dougal Maguire (Craggy Island) 1000/1
Cardinal Robert Sarah (French Guinea) 50/1

Cardinal Jose Da Cruz Policarpo (Portugal) 100/1

Bono (Ireland) 1000/1

They failed to reach a decision today.

Out of all the candidates the Asian guy is the only one I'd like to see picked.

Ali* wrote:

They failed to reach a decision today.

Out of all the candidates the Asian guy is the only one I'd like to see picked.

Aren't you an atheist? why would you care?

White smoke, we have a new Pope.

Quote :

The Lede is tracking developments in the Vatican, where white smoke issued from a chimney, indicating that the conclave of 115 Cardinals gathered there elected a new pope on Wednesday evening in Rome.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/live-updates-on-election-of-a-new-pope/

He just walked out.

I think he is Italian.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, Pope Francis

If I find any spare fucks around, I'll think about what might happen if I thought about giving them. I got a lot of cans though, and not the weak aluminum kind either, real tin cans.

GDPofDRC wrote:

If I find any spare fucks around, I'll think about what might happen if I thought about giving them. I got a lot of cans though, and not the weak aluminum kind either, real tin cans.

It's crazy how many people were out there waiting for the old geezer to walk out in his little white hat in his white robe with the gangsta style cross.