The prevailing wisdom has been proven wrong on this occasion. He is very much a continuation of Francis's school of thought in spite of the "fat Pope thin Pope" wisdom, and he is an American who has been elected Pope, which was almost unthinkable because of America's economic, political, and mass media domination of the western world.
Very unexpected
This (continuing Francis' school of thought) should be rather predictable - Pope Francis appointed the majority of voting cardinals, so it's not a stretch to think this is generally his intended outcome.
It's not as straightforward. Francis was voted by cardinals who were appointed by the much more conservative JPII and Benedict XVI, so it's not that easy to control or direct the outcome of a conclave.
1. If the pope were of median age for a Cardinal when selected, then about half the popes would still be around when he died. I don't have numbers, but my instinct would be that more senior Cardinals are more likely to be selected pope, which would mean a minority would be appointed by the previous pope at the time of the Conclave.
2. It was only in 1970 that an age-cap was put on Cardinals in the conclave, which significantly increases the power of the previous pope has on his successor; this disqualifies 117 out of 251 Cardinals today.
3. There are certain positions that customarily come along with a cardinality; following this custom diluted the pope's power a bit. Francis did not follow this custom[1]
If you want a discussion of the papal selection, you could do worse than this substack post[2] from a week ago.
I'm so sick of prevailing wisdom with people just making shit up just to fill time on 24/7 news coverage and people can have their talking head shows with diverse "views".
If he's on the same positions as Pope Francis but he's American, then this is a great move by the Catholic Church. Many Americans will naturally root for "their" Pope, and this will lead them away from the positions of Trump and the Evangelicals.
I doubt so, Christian Republicans conveniently ignore the parts of the Bible that directly contradict their ideology. How else could J.D. Vance consider himself a Catholic when his actions so directly go against the teachings of Christ?
More generally, I think religion doesn't really inform your political views. It can certainly reinforce them post-hoc, but it certainly isn't the basis of one's morality.
Well then, if organised religion has no sway on people's beliefs and actions, we can as well close the whole show and send home all those priests, bishops and cardinals, imams and mullahs, rabbis and brahmins, etc. etc.
The Pope, like most leaders, is not someone who has absolute power on what others should think and do; but is someone who can exercise a force of attraction in a specific direction. And he is very likely to have a stronger ability to attract and influence Americans because of his origins.
I agree that your statement about religion not informing political views is true of many people. I would argue that the "standard" positions of both major parties in America have components which seriously contradict standard Christian teachings. If one wanted to find a party that more accurately reflected Christian positions they'd have to do something like vote for the American Solidary Party, which is arguably completely ineffective (I still did it).
As a practicing Southern Baptist, I don’t find Vance’s political ideology contradicts Christ’s teachings.
Could you provide some good exemplar backed by scripture please? Preferably not cherry picked lines that tacitly support your earthly ideology, please.
Okay, yes, we get it. But the United States as a name even is not unique to western hemisphere countries - the name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos" - or United Mexican States.
We were the first country from the to be recognized by the Western Europeans, and the people at the time didn't anticipate the current situation, so forgive us for having a name in English that is a bit ambiguous, but how many people complain that there's no common name for Europe and Africa combined? Why is everyone so interested in lumping two continents together whose commonality stops with being the result of European colonialism and the consensus of a few mapmakers?
I'd argue that, Vikings aside, it is a bit weird to use the term "America" to describe lands that neither Christopher Columbus nor Americo Vespucci visited in their lifetime.
The USA may have been the first recognized country, but the term "America" was coined much earlier. But I'm a reasonable person - if we really want to keep it as two separate continents, "America" and "North America" works for me.
>TIL. That’s funny because afaik Mexicans refer to the USA as “estados unidos”.
Just as bad is that norteamericanos is the popular term for Americans (in the American sense), despite the existence of Canada and Mexico itself on the continent.
