Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / DDH - Conclave
Transcript
- 0:01Dominus pasta roses. History's strange, it's alien,
- 0:29and it won't give us what we would like to have.
- 0:35headline@filmic.com Bad decisions.
- 0:38Dave Bowman is with us. That's not one of the bad
- 0:40decisions, by the way, although I kind of said so earlier.
- 0:45Anyway, Dave brings us. Dave does history every Tuesday
- 0:50in this hour. By the way, if you want to
- 0:52follow us on Instagram, it's at WMNB Radio.
- 0:55And today, something I'm going to learn something about other
- 0:59than what I've seen on movies or television, I know nothing
- 1:03really about the Catholic faith. I wasn't raised Catholic.
- 1:06I was raised in a Baptist Church.
- 1:08And while there are similarities in the belief system, the the
- 1:13traditions and structure are vastly different.
- 1:17And now the Catholic Church faced with picking a Pope after
- 1:20the death of Pope Francis. So, Dave, you weren't raised
- 1:24Catholic either, but you've dug into this a little bit, huh?
- 1:26I wasn't raised Catholic and of course I've changed my faith in
- 1:31growing up. I was raised in a church that
- 1:34had a similar process for choosing a leader, which you
- 1:40know, as a kid fascinated me. The the idea of the selection of
- 1:43a Pope fascinates me. The first one, I remember 7778
- 1:50when they chose, I think it was John Pope, Pope John Paul the
- 1:55first, who then died a month later or something like that.
- 2:00And then and then we went through it all again.
- 2:02Of course, this was all on the news, which back then it was
- 2:05much different. There's this fascinating mindset
- 2:10to this. As it got older, they started
- 2:12watching things. I I love the television show The
- 2:16Borgias. Yeah.
- 2:18I have not seen conclave but but the Borgias was fascinating me,
- 2:22probably because I really like Jeremy Irons.
- 2:24And so we get this, we get this mindset that electing a Pope is
- 2:28this, I don't know, crazy conclave that that results in
- 2:37all kinds of games of throne maneuvering.
- 2:40And maybe it Once Upon a time it was, And maybe to some degree it
- 2:46still is. None of us really know, because
- 2:49none of us have actually been locked into the Sistine Chapel
- 2:54with a bunch of other Cardinals to make those decisions.
- 2:59Are they sworn to secrecy about what goes on in there?
- 3:02Yes, this whole thing is we. Don't really know other than
- 3:07leaks right? It it's a political process, it
- 3:09looks like. It is a very political process
- 3:13and and even today we're seeing the politics of it.
- 3:16I've seen multiple discussions about what are we looking for in
- 3:21this new Pope? Are we looking for a
- 3:22conservative traditionalist, a conservative modernist, a
- 3:26progressive traditionalist, a progressive?
- 3:28This what you know, people are already lobbying.
- 3:32They're our website. I've seen a website out there
- 3:34that says we want this guy as Pope.
- 3:38And of course, you know, he, that guy supports their
- 3:41political vision and those sorts of things.
- 3:43We've seen arguments about whether or not we can have a
- 3:48woman Pope. Now the answer to that is no,
- 3:51but there are people. Which ended up being, well, no,
- 3:54I'm not, I can't say that. All right, this all takes me to
- 3:57my favorite meme of the last couple of days, which is maybe
- 4:00this time they'll pick a Catholic.
- 4:03Well, there is that. I'm all about irreverent humor
- 4:06and and sorry if you don't like it, that's just where I live,
- 4:08but. We have this vision, but like I
- 4:13said, it's right out of the Borgias or Conclave.
- 4:16We, we have this idea of how this thing works, but it's it's
- 4:19not really what happens. This is a centuries old
- 4:22tradition, goes back to the 1200s where the grown men and
- 4:27silks, ashes get locked into the Sistine Chapel.
- 4:30They have no phones, no staff with them, no DoorDash delivery,
- 4:36really no contact with the outside world except for food
- 4:40that is brought into them until they choose a new Pope.
- 4:45You almost, well, you almost think, how long can this take,
- 4:50right? It should be a fairly simple
- 4:52thing, but of course it's more complicated than that.
- 4:56The word conclave comes from the Latin cum clave, which means
- 5:00with a key mean the doors are literally locked to the Sistine
- 5:05Chapel. And this started back in 1274.
- 5:08We're going to talk about that in just a minute.
- 5:11This didn't used to be as simple as it is now.
- 5:15There was a time when there was a lot more intrigue to it.
- 5:20The, the presumption is that there's, you know, God is
- 5:25picking the vicar of Christ. And so there should be really
- 5:29not much, not much else involved with this.
- 5:31But as with all human endeavors, it does become a political Game
- 5:38of Thrones if you want, which of course, is how you ended up with
- 5:43a lot of the medieval popes who were, what's the word for it,
- 5:47Bill? Oh, yeah.
- 5:48Insane. These were people I was.
- 5:51Going to go with evil, but OK, we'll go with that.
- 5:53You know, it's how many, how many family members, how many
- 5:57children do they have and the likes of that.
- 6:00What we're all waiting for, though, is the smoke.
- 6:02Of course, conclave has not started yet.
- 6:04The, the funeral will be on Saturday.
- 6:07And then I, the rules are the conclave has to start.
- 6:10I believe it's within two weeks of the funeral.
- 6:14In the meantime, you've got, you know, some procedures in place,
- 6:18which by the way, do not. And if you're one of those
- 6:20people that is going to post this on Facebook, don't There is
- 6:25no Maxwell Silver Hammer. There is no Pope dead Pope
- 6:29Hammer so don't post that. That's a pure myth was
- 6:33completely made-up. There's this meme going around
- 6:35about the hit they probe in the head with the hammer three
- 6:38times, you know to see to make sure he's dead or to kill him.
- 6:42I guess is more likely, but it. And that may have happened in
- 6:45the past, but it not for the purpose stated.
- 6:48But yeah. But not since 1274.
- 6:50So don't post that meme. It's not true.
- 6:54Eventually we're going to get to the smoke, you know, white if
- 6:57you if if they've chosen a Pope, black if they don't.
- 7:00In and of itself, that whole thing is is a interesting
- 7:05sideline in history of how do you get the colors of smoke and
- 7:08what happens when it was raining and that sort of thing.
- 7:11All of those kinds of things in 19 O3.
- 7:15In case you were wondering if the politics gets involved,
- 7:18Austria Hungary Emperor Franz Joseph, we kind of talked about
- 7:21this week on what the frocks sort of he sent a message to a
- 7:27conclave saying no, that Pope, that guy cannot be Pope.
- 7:32And the other Cardinals were like, OK, we're going to make
- 7:36him Pope. And so, so even the politicians
- 7:40that try to get involved aren't, aren't always successful.
- 7:44We've seen Pope's resign Now we've we've gone through this
- 7:48process before. It's a process that we're
- 7:50vaguely familiar with, but it is ancient.
- 7:53It is a little mysterious. It's timeless.
- 7:56Does it involve the Holy Spirit? I have no idea.
- 8:00Is it a little bit of a House of Cards?
- 8:02Absolutely. But at the end of the day,
- 8:05choosing the Vicar of Christ is not just about divine guidance.
- 8:08It's about human nature, which is flawed, faithful and
- 8:12sometimes fantastically theatrical.
- 8:16And we pick it up in 60 seconds on Bill Mclaugh.
- 8:22Speaking of that app, make sure you set Bill, Mick live, WMNB
- 8:26and Dave's work as the top favorite presets there at the
- 8:29top of the app. And we're right there at your
- 8:30fingertips whenever you're ready for us.
- 8:32So only thing I know about this, Dave, is what I've seen in
- 8:37movies or television. And you know how accurate those
- 8:39tend to be. That's part of the problem,
- 8:41isn't it? I mean, yeah, when you're when
- 8:43you're doing a television show, you want to make it
- 8:46entertaining. So maybe it's accurate, maybe it
- 8:51isn't. I mean, like I said, I really
- 8:52like this TV show, Borges, But is that drama or is it really
- 8:57history? The answer is, well, a little.
- 9:02Bit of both. But not not as accurate as you
- 9:05would necessarily like to be of. Course, what you got me to
- 9:08thinking about when you talked about being locked in and only
- 9:11thing being brought in as food is a how big's the men's room
- 9:14because they don't need a women's room.
- 9:16And what are the lines like during a break?
- 9:18Come on. I see for me, being locked in
- 9:23the Sistine Chapel, as you know, I'm an art guy, would be absent.
- 9:28See, I would be so lost in looking at the artwork and just,
- 9:31oh, it'd be. Amazing.
- 9:32And I'm not an art guy, but that would be amazing.
- 9:36So my favorite painting in all of history is in the Sistine
- 9:38Chapel. So there you go.
- 9:41The of course the Pope has died. Pope Francis has in fact died.
- 9:45I think we can be sure of that. We will take our metaphorical
- 9:48silver hammer, whack em three times in that.
- 9:50We don't really do that, but it does.
- 9:54There is something about that, that this kind of funny, I
- 9:57guess. The period in term in in term
- 10:00now is known as the Seti vacante, which means literally
- 10:05the seat is empty. That during this time, the
- 10:08Cardinal Camolingo, which you may remember from the Dan Brown
- 10:12movie, his role, he confirms the Pope's death, he smashes the
- 10:18ring, he does all those kinds of things, and he begins the the 9
- 10:23days of memorial and prayer. The God my Latin is so bad
- 10:30intergnum. This is a period between the
- 10:33death and the election of the successor.
- 10:36Now during this time, the, the Cardinal Occult College of
- 10:39Cardinals will become the temporary governing body of the
- 10:43church. They will take, they plan the,
- 10:47the funeral of the of the Pope, which they have, I believe now
- 10:50completed as of this morning. I saw on the news this morning,
- 10:54which leaves them ready for the funeral on Saturday.
- 10:59They're going to do some other things and we'll get into some
- 11:02of that coming up after the break.
- 11:05Is that Carmel lingo? Is he like in charge until they
- 11:08get a new leader? Sort of.
- 11:10He's like the administrator or something.
- 11:12Yeah, I'd, I'd make him more the administrator.
- 11:14They're not going to let him really be in charge.
- 11:16This isn't Hollywood. No, no, no, that's true because
- 11:21too many politicians in the room for that.
- 11:23We pick it up picking a Pope on Bill Mick live when we continue
- 11:26on WMMB. All the way from Silverdale, WA,
- 11:32here's Dave Bowman on Bill Mick Live.
- 11:35Richmond Transmission and Auto Service are our sponsor and it's
- 11:39Dave does history as it is on Tuesdays as it won't be next
- 11:43Tuesday, I'll be on vacation. But other than that, Dave is
- 11:46with us. And today we look at picking a
- 11:49Pope. And so they're getting ready to
- 11:51go in and no real leader for the church at this moment, Dave.
- 11:55And they've, they've got to make that decision.
- 11:58Yeah, it's, it's interesting the way they don't seem to have a
- 12:01specific leader, but of course they have this College of
- 12:04Cardinals who are spending each day meeting.
- 12:08They're they're meeting every day.
- 12:10They're reviewing the state of the global church.
- 12:12You know what, what kind of challenges lie ahead?
- 12:16They're they're talking to each other, they're sharing opinions.
- 12:19What what should we do? What are we looking for?
- 12:21Of course, they've organized the funeral and they've begun to
- 12:25organize the process of, of conclave.
- 12:29How much of this will be that way before we go into there?
- 12:32And they also build take oaths of secrecy.
- 12:34You were asking about that earlier.
- 12:36These are, these are to ensure the sacred integrity of the
- 12:40election process. Now, how much of that works out?
- 12:44Who knows? Now they cannot make any major
- 12:45decisions. There are no bishops appointed,
- 12:48no doctrinal decisions, no policy shifts, no change in the
- 12:53liturgy while the while the Pope is empty.
- 12:57It's not a power vacuum per SE, but it is kind of a power pause.
- 13:03So we're just kind of waiting for the next, you know,
- 13:05spiritual father to come along. And in the meantime, we just
- 13:08sort of put a hold on everything.
- 13:10Now, it wasn't always done this way.
- 13:12The, the conclave that we have today is a it's an invention of
- 13:19the, the medieval period. In 1270, I'm sorry, 1268, they
- 13:25held a papal election. They did not hold it in Rome.
- 13:29They held it in a little city off to the north there and this
- 13:35thing went on for three years. They couldn't make a call.
- 13:42They wouldn't make a call because there was so much
- 13:45political intrigue in this whole thing.
- 13:48And the city, of course, was expected to pay for all this.
- 13:52And these Cardinals were used to dining with the the best food
- 13:56and living the the high life. And they weren't exactly doing
- 14:01the Lord's work every day. As if you get my drift.
- 14:04But they were, they were dragging this on.
- 14:08In fact, several of the Cardinals died during this.
- 14:11One of them resigned. And this went on and on and on.
- 14:14And finally the people of the city where they were doing this
- 14:16got fed up with it. They, they were tired of paying
- 14:19for it. They were tired of this.
- 14:20And so the mayor of the town LED a little bit of a revolt.
- 14:24They went over to the building where the where the Cardinals
- 14:26were meeting and they tore the roof off the building and
- 14:30basically told them, OK, you're in here until you make a
- 14:34decision under the hot sun, rain, whatever happens, the
- 14:38doors are locked. You're not leaving until you
- 14:41pick a Pope. And three years after they
- 14:44started, they picked the Pope. This guy decided that what we
- 14:49need now is we need some rules for this.
- 14:51And so this is where the idea of conclave is going to come from
- 14:55out of this 12741274 Second Council of Lyon, where they are
- 15:01going to sit down and go, OK, now we need to figure out
- 15:05exactly how this is supposed to work.
- 15:09So Dave, this thing was set up back in the late 1200s and I'm
- 15:16sure it's had some changes since then.
- 15:18So what's the idea now? So in 1234, Pope Gregory the
- 15:2110th holds the second Count Council of Lyon, at which they
- 15:26they address 5 issues. It doesn't really matter.
- 15:28All five of them. Church reform trying to reunify
- 15:31with the Greek Orthodox Church? Clerical discipline because they
- 15:34were having a problem with priests not behaving the way
- 15:38they were supposed to? Huh.
- 15:40No how? Does that work?
- 15:42And of course, they wanted to fix the papal election disaster
- 15:45that they'd just gone through. Oh, and by the way, for good
- 15:48nature, we should probably invade the Holy Land again.
- 15:52So let's plan a new crusade. Wow.
- 15:55Out of all of this, really what comes out of this is the con,
- 15:58what we know today as the Conclave.
- 16:00The idea here is Gregory the 10th says we're not.
- 16:06We're not doing that again. We we just can't.
- 16:09So from now on, the Cardinals will be locked up in conclave.
- 16:13They will have no external communication.
- 16:15Of course, we know how well that worked out.
- 16:18They will not have any luxuries. Now think about that.
- 16:22One of the big deals with Pope Francis is that he is humble and
- 16:27that he's, you know, he's being buried in a plain coffin.
- 16:30He lived in a he didn't live in the fancy apartment.
- 16:34You kind of assume this, you know, with, with Cardinals, but
- 16:37but they had to be reminded you, you don't get to live in luxury
- 16:41during all this. So that's kind of an incentive
- 16:44to get it done. If you want to get back to your
- 16:47regular question mark lifestyle, get a Pope elected and get out
- 16:51of here anyway. No wine, no fancy food, none of
- 16:55that stuff. You get a Oh, and by the way, he
- 16:59said every day you have to vote for a new Pope.
- 17:03You can't say, well, we're not voting today.
- 17:04You must vote every day. And they can vote up to four
- 17:07times a day until that 2/3 majority is reached.
- 17:11And once you reach that conclave is done.
- 17:14And we'll be on our way that way.
- 17:16We, you know, we, we, this is the conclave in general as we
- 17:20know it today. For the record, the
- 17:24reunification with the Greek Orthodox Church didn't really
- 17:28work and they did increase papal authority and discipline, but it
- 17:33really became the key moment in organizing the Church after the
- 17:37chaos of of the 12701268 to 1271 conclave.
- 17:42So that was good. Right Now we're headed in the
- 17:45right direction with this whole thing.
- 17:48Now, again, you could go back to, isn't the Holy Spirit
- 17:51supposed to be running this? But it's a human endeavor, so,
- 17:56and we could get into the argument about God's will, but
- 18:00anytime you've got human beings involved, things are going to
- 18:03get crazy. So here we are now the rules are
- 18:07set. Cardinals have to be under 80
- 18:10years of age. I've always found that one
- 18:13interesting because the Catholic Church kind of has a a term
- 18:20limit built into this thing. If you're over 80, you can't.
- 18:23You don't. Even if you are a cardinal, you
- 18:25don't get to vote, you don't get any of that choice.
- 18:28There's a maximum of 120 electable electors That was set
- 18:32later by Pope Paul the 6th and the, the the conclave now is
- 18:37held in the Sistine Chapel with the fresco of the Last
- 18:40Judgement, High secrecy, no phones, no contact with the
- 18:44outside world. And you're staring up this
- 18:45painting the whole time of, you know, essentially the end of
- 18:50humanity, the final judgement, where if you screw up and you
- 18:54don't do what God says, you're going to hell, right?
- 19:00Is it a motivating factor? I don't know.
- 19:03When they yell out everyone out, extra ominous, everybody has to
- 19:07leave. They seal it up.
- 19:09And then each cardinal starts voting.
- 19:10They start writing a name. They walk up to the altar.
- 19:13They cast their ballot. And they had can can vote up to
- 19:15four times per day. Soon as someone gets 2/3 of the
- 19:19majority, they have chosen a Pope.
- 19:24And that's when the smoke comes in.
- 19:25The smoke, The smoke is, of course, black is no decision.
- 19:29White is a decision. They had a lot of problems with
- 19:32this smoke through the years. It's only been in the last
- 19:34probably 50 years that they got that naked out because they
- 19:37could. They could use certain chemicals
- 19:39to make the smoke a right color. Before then, if the straw was
- 19:42wet or something wasn't right, the smoke might have come out
- 19:47the wrong color and you'd have problems then.
- 19:50But for now, they've got that worked out.
- 19:53So there's the good part. The bad parts, of course, are
- 19:58there's a lot of history involved in this whole thing and
- 20:00it doesn't always go the way it's intent.
- 20:04I wonder what kind of campaign has been going on already and
- 20:07and probably for years, right? I mean, the Pope was not a young
- 20:10guy. It's been happening.
- 20:13You don't have to. Have that to be interesting and
- 20:15we'll take your calls relating to this as well when we continue
- 20:19on Bill Mick live. Call Bill at 321-768-1240 or use
- 20:25the Talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.
- 20:29Richmond transmission and auto service bringing us this hour
- 20:32which is Dave does history on bill make live as we look at
- 20:35selecting a Pope Dave getting ready to dive into the politics
- 20:39of this thing and as with any human venture, I don't care if
- 20:43it's business. I don't care if it's being a
- 20:46sports official or in a coaches associate, there's politics
- 20:50around it all. You better know how they're
- 20:52played. Yeah, it's an, it's an amazing
- 20:55thing. And I even, you know, having
- 21:00grown up in a church and, and being something of a, of a
- 21:04theologian and a man of faith myself, I, it's fascinating to
- 21:07me the politics that goes into stuff, even even in choosing A
- 21:12rabbi for a synagogue, the politics that gets involved is,
- 21:16is pretty remarkable. So it's not all that surprising
- 21:19then that conclaves have been, well, entertaining, I guess in a
- 21:27very games of Thronian kind of way.
- 21:29Of course, we're all somewhat familiar from the television
- 21:32show with the Borgia, with Rodrigo Borgia and becoming Pope
- 21:35Alexander the 6th. There is a lot of accuracy in
- 21:39the description of that in his in the TV show where there's a
- 21:42lot of bribery going on. There is probably, and I use
- 21:48that word very advisedly, probably some homicide going on,
- 21:54some murder. There's certainly a lot of that
- 21:58kind of intrigue going into a man who really had none of the
- 22:03qualifications that you would be looking for in the vicar of
- 22:06Christ, you know, actually believing those kinds of things
- 22:10that that are in the Scriptures, in the New Testament, keeping
- 22:13the vows, those sorts of things. So it was.
- 22:16Just more of another medieval Kingdom who happened to have
- 22:19control of the church while they're.
- 22:20At it's, it's very political because the church in the middle
- 22:23medieval period is a political body.
- 22:26You're right. I mean, you didn't get to be
- 22:28king of a country unless you had the Pope's blessing.
- 22:32So there was a lot of those kinds of things going into it.
- 22:34There was a lot of conflict between kings and churches and
- 22:39some kings supported it. Of course.
- 22:40We talked about Henry the eighth during the during the break,
- 22:44those chords of things, as we mentioned in 19 O3 Emperor Franz
- 22:49Joseph of the Austria Hungary Empire.
- 22:53That matters even though he was Austrian, because you know,
- 22:57listen to the WTF, you'll get it.
- 23:00Hungarians love podcast and Dave played to him this weekend and
- 23:03they. They hate Austrians.
- 23:05So at any rate, he he took it upon himself to explain to the
- 23:09College of Cardinals that there's one cardinal there that
- 23:12will not be chosen as Pope. So of course the Cardinals chose
- 23:16that cardinal as Pope because they're not going to be pushed
- 23:19around by some 2 bed emperor in in Hungary or Austria.
- 23:24In 1978. Of course, we saw John Paul the
- 23:26second, the first non Italian Pope in 455 years.
- 23:31It's a lot of discussion this year about will we see that
- 23:35again or will they go back to vests, those kinds of things.
- 23:37And of course, in 2013, we had the selection of Pope Francis.
- 23:42This was fascinating for me because at the time I was on the
- 23:44air bill. And as you know, the station in
- 23:47Modesto sits right next to Saint St.
- 23:51Stanislaw Catholic Church. Well, it rents its facilities
- 23:55from that church, yes. And we were absolutely able to
- 23:58have the, the, the father from there come over and be on the
- 24:01air and talk about this whole thing.
- 24:03And going through that on the day that Francis was chosen, it
- 24:06was, it was fascinating. It was interesting.
- 24:08And of course, as an outsider watching this, you know,
- 24:14sometimes you make assumptions, sometimes you make all these,
- 24:18these kind of, you're not certain about things.
- 24:20I mean, people come to synagogue, they're not sure how
- 24:23to react. I've been to a Catholic Church.
- 24:26I'm not sure when I'm supposed to stand up, when I'm supposed
- 24:28to sit down. I've seen people come to a
- 24:31Methodist Church. They're not sure, you know, what
- 24:33page of the hymnal they're supposed to use.
- 24:35It is kind of confusing. But at the same time, if it's
- 24:37something you're very familiar with, there's a comfort to it
- 24:40that that is there. There of course, been oddities
- 24:43and conclaves. You've had conclaves to be moved
- 24:46right in the middle of the vote. Like I said, the one had three
- 24:50years. In 1978, we had a conclave that
- 24:53chose a new Pope, and then he turned around and died 26 days
- 24:57later. So, you know, it's things happen
- 25:01and you got to be ready for it. But it is comforting to know
- 25:03that the traditions are there. Now the questions become really
- 25:09for those in the audience that are Catholic because neither
- 25:14Bill nor I are. What are you looking for in this
- 25:17new Pope? Are you looking for a
- 25:19politically powerful Pope that's, you know, in the vein of
- 25:23Alexander the 6th or Gregory the 10th, someone who is looking to
- 25:27establish those kinds of things? Are you looking for somebody
- 25:28more like Francis, who comes across as much more humble?
- 25:33What are you looking for in this?
- 25:35What? How much of this should be
- 25:37secret? How much of it should be open?
- 25:40And you know, what do you know and what are you?
- 25:43What are your favorite memories of kind of anybody actually been
- 25:46in the Vatican when this happens?
- 25:50If so, we'd love to hear from you. 321-768-1240 or the
- 25:56Talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.
- 25:58We pick it up in a minute on WMMB.
- 26:02You mentioned the church that our stations in Modesto rented
- 26:06from Dave. I had been to a Catholic funeral
- 26:09once, had a friend I refereed basketball with.
- 26:12He died in a car wreck very tragically.
- 26:14And I went to that Catholic funeral, probably more exercise
- 26:18than I'd had in a week, up and down and everything that went
- 26:20on. And then went to one Catholic
- 26:23service in my life, the the Christmas Eve Mass at that
- 26:27church in Modesto. And it was a great service,
- 26:29enjoyed everything that went on. They just did a great job with
- 26:32it so. I'm a.
- 26:35Things to learn here today. I'm a very liturgical person
- 26:38myself. It's one of the reasons why I
- 26:40appreciate Judaism so much is because of the liturgy.
- 26:44And the Catholic liturgy is beautiful, the music is
- 26:46fantastic. Don't always understand
- 26:48everything that's going on, but sure, enjoy it.
- 26:51Yeah. And and hey, this is a learning
- 26:52experience for me and I've watched these things through the
- 26:54years when they've happened, but it was curiosity and like you
- 26:58said, it's secret, not a lot of detail.
- 27:00Line one. You're up on Bill Mick live.
- 27:02Good morning. Morning, Bill, Ed Melbourne.
- 27:04Yeah, Ed, what do you think, man?
- 27:06I believe my thoughts are the Pope was a socialist and a
- 27:12communist from Argentina. Totally off topic of where we're
- 27:16going here, but what do you want to see in a Pope, Ed?
- 27:19Are you Catholic #1? Ed, not.
- 27:22OK, again, kind of irrelevant to the discussion then let's move
- 27:27forward. We're talking about, yeah, Dave
- 27:30gets bingo on his bingo card. Thanks, Dave.
- 27:38Not being Catholic, I have a curiosity of I would like to see
- 27:43this process. Being a politically minded
- 27:46person and liking to watch the interaction between people and
- 27:50the political interplay, I would like to see that go on.
- 27:53I think that's what makes some of the TV and some of the movies
- 27:55so interesting. Yeah.
- 27:56And of course it's it is intriguing because we do want to
- 28:00know these these inside secrets. We all want to know the secrets.
- 28:04As I was telling Bill during the break, I grew up in the church,
- 28:07the Salvation Army, which actually, surprisingly to
- 28:10people, has a similar process for selecting its new leader,
- 28:15the general. The difference is the general,
- 28:17the previous general doesn't have to die.
- 28:19They just serve a fixed term and then they elect a new general or
- 28:24they re elect the old general. Anyway, a very similar process.
- 28:28And they call it the high council, where it's very
- 28:29secretive. And you know, growing up as a
- 28:32kid with high councils going on, there was always this, this
- 28:36eager anticipation, I guess about it.
- 28:39You know, who's going to, who's going to be, who's it going to
- 28:41be? What, what are we looking for?
- 28:42And of course, there are a lot of discussions right now about
- 28:46what we're looking for. I've seen a breakdown of the
- 28:48College of Cardinals, you know, hyper conservative,
- 28:52conservative, moderate, moderate, left, whatever.
- 28:56You got to have 2/3 and no particular group, at least as
- 29:00defined, has that 2/3 right now. But with a.
- 29:06With AI, wonder what the deals are.
- 29:08Yeah, what are the deals to make my guy?
- 29:11The guy, right? What do you have to what do you
- 29:13have to exchange? What do you have to going to
- 29:15tolerate to get your guy in there, to get that guy in there?
- 29:20And and you never know what might happen.
- 29:22There might be some random event that that ends up, you know, Dan
- 29:27Browning, the whole thing, who knows?
- 29:29But it it is fascinating to watch.
- 29:30And of course, we we all do want to know the.
- 29:32Secrets. Yeah, that's true.
- 29:36And then there is you want it because it becomes a political
- 29:43body, because it's the Congress, if you will.
- 29:47You'll wonder about those who've gone in truly, dutifully,
- 29:54prayerfully considering what their vote is going to be to
- 30:01project God's will on this thing.
- 30:03And how frustrated do they get with the politicians around him
- 30:06trying to play games to get the. Job, right?
- 30:08That's what you hope. You hope that this whole thing
- 30:10is very religious. You hope that it's very focused
- 30:15on, you know. Circumspect, right?
- 30:18But of course it's human nature. And there's a there's a famous
- 30:20saying about this whole thing, which of course, you know, these
- 30:23Cardinals show up politicking. But the famous saying goes this
- 30:29way. He who enters conclave as a Pope
- 30:34exits as a cardinal. So don't walk in there thinking
- 30:38you're going to be elected. Don't walk in there thinking
- 30:41you're the leading guy because you're going to get your, your,
- 30:44your ambitions are going to get smashed is what's going to
- 30:46happen. I, I think there's something to
- 30:49that. And as we watch over the next
- 30:50few days, like I said, the funeral is going to be on
- 30:52Saturday. Conclave has to start.
- 30:55I believe it's within 16 days of the death.
- 30:58I don't when they start the conclave, then you're going to
- 31:02see a lot of that folks in the, in the, the in front of the
- 31:06basilica there. You're going to see them waiting
- 31:07for the smoke. You know, I, I kind of got a
- 31:09feeling, Bill, that this is actually not going to be that
- 31:11long of a conclave. That's just my gut feeling.
- 31:16I don't know what. Interesting to think about.
- 31:18Yeah, I don't know what makes. Me wonder as well is like
- 31:21Congress, do you have the never Francis's guys?
- 31:26I mean, you know, the, the, the Never Trumpers who are going to
- 31:29be against whatever's going on and what, what quality qualities
- 31:32do you look for? Do you look for political
- 31:34leadership, administrative leadership?
- 31:36Do you, are you looking for spiritual leadership, which is
- 31:40what you would think this would be about?
- 31:42But look at this massive organization that will run every
- 31:45day without a Pope. Only there are certain things
- 31:48they can't do. The business of of the Catholic
- 31:50Church is going to go on today and.
- 31:52Do you really want to be the guy that follows the really humble
- 31:54guy who set an example of, you know, living like, like he was
- 31:59supposed to? We're going to put in play Pope
- 32:02Jimmy, the arrogant bastard. No, that's not the guy you want
- 32:05to have. No.
- 32:07We'll see what happens. We'll keep an eye on.
- 32:09Holy cow, I probably shouldn't have said that.
- 32:14Wrong country, Bill, Wrong country.
- 32:16We've got face, we've got things to learn, lessons to pick up and
- 32:23I hope they do well with this. I really do.
- 32:25I'd like to see a big quick 1 and I don't know, not for me to
- 32:30impose, but I have what I think would be good for them and
- 32:34everybody. And of course that's what we do
- 32:36here every day is tell everybody what we think is right and good.
- 32:40And that's what you do tomorrow on a wide open Wednesday.
- 32:42Richmond Transmission and Auto Service brought you the hour.
- 32:45Thank you, Dave. See you in two weeks.
- 32:46We'll see you then.