Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 5/12/25
The odds were better for the biggest longshot in the Kentucky Derby. An American has become Pope.
It was said that no American could become Pope because the church wouldn’t vest its power in someone from a Super Power. I would think, however, that there is no greater Super Power than God, so we shouldn’t worry.
Many people are pointing out that he spent twenty years in Peru so he’s actually Peruvian. No, he’s American, born here, but with a dual citizenship. Others, especially non-Catholics, panic when he’s called a “missionary,” thinking of the Colonialist/Imperialist times when the clergy were sent as missionaries to convert any non-Christian in sight. Today, missionary work is about caring for the poor, providing for the less fortunate, helping after natural disasters.
The clergy as a whole are highly educated and learned men. There is no theological justification for a celibate, male clergy. Jesus never spoke of it, God never mentioned it. This was created by the church in the 12th Century because of the wealth of local churches passing on the priest’s death to his wife. With celibacy, the wealth remained for the priest’s successors and for the Vatican.
For the record, about 4% of priests have been found guilty in the US of sexual misconduct over the last 60 years of a total of about 3,500. Of 3,200,000 teachers over that period, between 11 and 14% were found guilty of sexual misconduct over the period (depending on the source you consult).
Today, one of five humans is Catholic with varying degrees of commitment, and about 33% of all humans are Christian. It’s often occurred to me that the loudest atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens and the current Richard Dawkins, are “religious zealots” in their attacks on religion!
If you think about it, sooner or later everyone says a prayer when they are overcome with grief, or hope, or uncertainty.
Let’s give this new guy a chance. God knows, apparently, we need someone to bring us together in an angry world.
It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope. —Pope John XXIII
Secularism has no central goal, it's just promoting endless relativism. That's why there is a huge moral drift in the country. Everybody is infallible except the Pope, if you like. —Ann Widdecombe
I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a Pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! —Oriana Fallaci
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