I suspect everyone reading this knows that Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the Roman Catholic church, is leaving the papal office. On February 11th he announced his resignation, which was effective today.
The process of electing a new pope is quite detailed. Any member of the College of Cardinals under the age of 80 years old is eligible to take part in a papal conclave and vote for the new leader. The Cardinals are sequestered in Vatican City so they have no contact with the outside world, and they can't leave until their job is done. If things go well, there should be a new Pope by Easter.
That sounds like a daunting job, so when a friend sent me a link to the Website Adopt a Cardinal, which lets you register to pray for a specific Cardinal as he goes through the conclave process, I had to check it out and adopt a Cardinal of my own. The process was easy-I just had to fill out my name, email address, and captcha. A few seconds later I learned I was praying for Reinhard Marx, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany.
When I first looked at the Website this morning almost 100,000 people have registered, but several hours later the number was closer to 130,000. That's a lot of prayer!
Five years ago today: New Thing #49--Belly Up To The Bar
Excellent.
ReplyDeleteLet's wait to hear who becomes our new Pope!
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see.
DeleteI may not be Catholic, but this sounds like a wonderful, fun idea.
ReplyDeleteNowhere on the Website does it say that only Catholics can pray! With all the cultural misunderstandings going on, I think the Cardinals could use prayers from EVERYONE.
DeleteI understand there is a cardinal from the US in the running. Is it Dolan? Anyway, I would love to see an American as Pope. I'm praying that direction.
ReplyDeleteYes, Timothy Dolan is the Archbishop of New York, but he's a native of St. Louis, and grew up one parish to the west of us! He's considered quite a long shot to be Pope; many don't want a leader from a superpower country.
DeleteIn a strange twist