The Wrong Stuff: Pope Benedict XVI

Some facts, wild suppositions, and articles re: Il Poppa: Pope Benedict XVI (a/k/s Cardinal Georg Ratzinger).

• This Pope is teetering on the brink of death? The College of Cardinals wanted a short term Pope, who would not have a long papacy. In the past 227 years there have been 14 popes, with an average age at death of 78.8 years. The Pope was born on April 16, 1927, and should last about nine months, if he conforms to the statistical bell curve.

• We can safely bet The Pope will not be among the 1.5% of all Catholic Popes who died during sex: Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of a woman he was "ministering" to, John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by an angry husband, and Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.
  
  
• Joseph Ratzinger, served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory, according to his autobiography. Ratzinger's wartime experiences have been a source of controversy in some newspapers when he became a frontrunner for the pontiff's seat. His biographers say he was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime. BERLIN, April 19 (Reuters). But it still sticks, you know? Just a little.

• In a Good Friday Mass this year he said: "How much filth there is in the Church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to Him." I guess he is referring both to Priests and lay sinners. Watch out.

• In choosing Joseph Ratzinger, the cardinals picked the most polarizing figure in the Catholic Church. No one was respected more as a student of theology. But, as CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports, no one was more feared as a chief enforcer of Vatican orthodoxy. "He has the most appalling reputation around the world as someone who has squashed theology, persecuted theologians - the chief of the thought police, the master of the inquisition," says Catholic journalist and feminist writer Margaret Hebblethwaite. (CBS) In short, I don't think women will make many strides in the church, if they're not actually propelled backwards. I also suspect we won't see the celibacy doctrine lifted from the priesthood on this turn on the merry-go-around. Therefore the numbers of brothers, sisters, and priests will continue to decline.

• The brother of Pope Benedict XVI Georg Ratzinger, 81, said he was "very concerned" and "shocked" upon hearing that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been elected as head of the Roman Catholic Church because of his age and frail health."I am very concerned. I would have thought his advanced age and his health which is not very stable would have been reason enough for the cardinals to pick someone else," said the visibly moved sibling in an interview on German television after the election of his 78-year-old brother. (AFP)