New Pope Hullabaloo

The hardly democratic "election" of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be the next pope is rubbing me the wrong way.  For one, I was watching CNN's coverage of the news and was dismayed to find them completely abandoning any appearance whatsoever of objectivity, with excessive praise, even to the point of fawning, being the order of business.  That there might be some serious, controversial issues concerning this man and his past actions in Argentina has been completely glossed over.  And of course, completely forget about Fox"News" being objective, either.  But even on MSNBC, only Rachel Maddow, from what I can gather, has made any attempt to bring up some problematic points about the new Roman Catholic pope.  Chris Matthews, for example, was almost downright giddy about this selection.

It is an established feature of Judeo/Christian/Islamic dogma (in general) that homosexuality is "bad" and those such named deserve either second-class citizenship (in the more "civilized" parts where these religions predominate), banishment, or (in the more savage zones) even death.  And those promoting these views will always tell you that it isn't them...it's God (or Yahweh or Allah) saying this stuff within their scriptures.  Which were written down, of course, by PEOPLE with their own prejudices and agendas to promote.  Sorry, but I'm not buying into that bigotry.  Still, the incoming pope only recently engaged in a large-scale media blitz to prevent Argentina's president from being able to pass through their legislature a law allowing same-sex marriage in that country.  In other words, he robustly involved the Roman Catholic Church in the politics on an issue that said church wanted to impose on EVERYONE.  He has also clearly stated that, anywhere in the world where Catholic politicians hold office, if any of these politicians don't vote according to the positions on issues that the Church deems important, then priests are entitled to withhold giving Communion to them as a punishment.  Talk about interference in the affairs of other countries!

So I am quite a bit cynical about all the phony hullabaloo being generated about this "humble" pope, who took on the name of a venerated Catholic saint with the obvious intention, as I see it, of deceiving popular opinion as to his true intentions...which border on megalomania.  At least until someone shows me otherwise, that's going to be how I see this edition of the papacy...