Luxembourg is not a Star Wars planet and "ass" is a respectable verb there but that's not the language I was expecting to see first thing in the morning.
I'm sure he's a longshot, but if they choose Pizzaballa it would be great for several reasons.
I think that was Space Balls, not Star Wars.
If this were Conclave, JD Vance would try to crash the conclave, saying it was Francis's dying wish that he be a Cardinal.
NPR said this morning that two-thirds of the cardinals who will appoint Francis's successor were appointed by Francis. I think that's a hopeful sign.
I wonder who Marc McGwire is going to vote for.
8: Hopeful in that they might re-appoint him?
8: Hopeful in that they might re-appoint him?
Moby!
Brad!
Janet!
Rocky!
One time I got into an accident while drag racing against the Popemobile. I lost traction on a wet spot in the road and then we collided and both spun out into a ditch, and after that, Francis got out and gave me a blessing. Then he gave me a beer from his cooler while we waited for the tow truck. Great guy.
Apparently out of 252 cardinals, 117 are over 80 and thereby disqualified for the Conclave. I'm fine with that disqualification, it's just, man, that's a lot of ancient cardinals.
They could always run for Senate
15: well, if you have an office that you enter after a long career at lower ranks, and that has no retirement age, then a lot of the people in it will be very old. At least the older ones don't have any actual power.
7: a rare failure of research by Harris. Appointments in pectore expire with the appointing pope unless he publicises them before dying.
One of the papabili closest to Francis is Jean-Marc Aveline, who everyone agrees is from a family of pieds noirs who left Algeria in 1958, but Reuters adds, and I find confirmed nowhere else except reprints, that that family was originally Spanish. (It's on French Wikipedia with "[réf. nécessaire]".)
https://x.com/organizermemes/status/1914436767651873261?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
20: is there something significant to his family possibly being Spanish? (This may be one of many holes in my Algerian history knowledge.)
373.Zombie vape juice contains hidden dangers
I'm kind of rooting for the Congolese guy, just on the off chance he preaches a crusade against the imperialists.
And that is why the Church, in its wisdom, doesn't give me a vote.
25: Not particularly. I vaguely wondered if they were refugees from Franco or what brought them to Algeria.
I was hoping for either a deadicated pope thread or a dessicated pope thread.
I find a dedicated pope thread very disappointing.
https://www.modernghana.com/news/1394359/pope-francis-special-sometimes-conflictual-rela.html
"We only see important people here when they're looking for votes. So for the pope to come to Kangemi, to see how we live and be part of our community, even for just an hour, it was an honour. We felt human."
His first trip outside Rome in 2013 was to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to meet with newly arrived migrants. He denounced the "globalisation of indifference" shown to would-be refugees.
We're probably not heading into a golden age of compassion for refugees.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/21/conclave-francis-new-pope-death-vatican/
Palmer identifies Robert Sarah, a 79-year-old cardinal from Guinea, as a papabile.
[...]
A traditionalist heavyweight who doesn't pull his punches, Sarah has echoed the white-nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Europe, he said in 2019, is at risk of being "invaded by foreigners, just as Rome has been invaded by barbarians." As he sees it, the continent is locked in an existential battle with the Islamic faith. "If Europe disappears, and with it the priceless value of the Old Continent, Islam will invade the world, and we will completely change culture, anthropology, and moral vision."
Is he the Italian one in the movie then?
In the father's house there is neither Italian nor Guinean.
It would be very funny indeed to see a boilerplate statement from some foreign ministry or other about how they hope the change in leadership will begin a peaceful transition to democracy.