Were there really no topics on the Pope's passing?

Guess thre are now... proceed.

VATICAN CITY - Clutching rosaries, medals and flowers, thousands of people filed past the simple white marble tomb of Pope John Paul II on Wednesday, as the Vatican re-opened the grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica to the public.


Some of the mourners said they had come not only to pray for John Paul, but also to pray to him. Many Roman Catholics believe John Paul, who died April 2 at age 84, was a saint.

“I’m hoping maybe for a little miracle,” said Myrna Palmer, 67, of Hagerstown, Md. “I’m praying to him that my husband gets his eyesight back.”

Her husband, Gorman Palmer, lost the sight in one eye after chemotherapy treatment.


“We are Catholics, and we had to see the pope one last time,” said Angelo de Tommaso, a 30-year-old accountant who traveled overnight by bus from the southern Italian town of Ginosa to be among the first in line.


Pilgrims knelt before the grave to pray, and many handed religious articles to an usher, who touched them to the grave before handing them back. Ushers kept the crowd moving quickly, even hurrying along some people kneeled in prayer.

The tomb sits alone in an arched alcove to the right of the main altar of the central nave, a leafy potted lily behind it and a small red candle burning at its front. A marble relief of the Madonna and Child hangs on the wall above.

A rectangular white slab of marble with gray streaks marks the grave. On one line it bears his name carved with gold in Latin script: “IOANNES PAVLVS PPII.” And on another line are the dates of his 26-year pontificate using the Roman numerals for the month: “16 X, 1978-2 IV, 2005.”

Underneath is the interlocking X and P — the monogram for Christ.

The grave lies just steps from the tomb traditionally believed to be that of the apostle Peter, the first pope.

Some of the cardinals who will sequester themselves inside Vatican City next week to choose a new pope prayed by the grave Tuesday evening in their last homage before the grottoes were reopened to the public.

Two-by-two, in crimson robes and tall white bishop’s miters, they stood at the foot of the marble slab and bowed their heads.

Let's instead talk about how a child molester can get the high honor of presiding over services honoring the deceased pontiff. As a recovering Catholic I'm more interested in that.

I'm sorry: I meant to write "a church official who allegedly protected several child molesters"

(Edited by carligula at 4:10 pm on Apr. 13, 2005)

Things will never be the same.

Will Rollum Haas be the new Pontif? pg 653

How can one be sure of the return "The One" pg 439

What color of knickers did CMPB wear to her wedding? pg 1224

Does the passing of BrianW to CarlW signify a new reign of tyranny? pg 666

Will this link stir up a hornets nest? Whoa!

All these answers and more in the hot new book, Daiglnetics. On sale now where all BS is sold.

man...i love popular genius. and id say about 4/5 of them LOVE the features so dont be hard on the guys.

So saith Daigle. Amen.

i saw the pope at dodger stadium back in 1987.

I think that's pretty cool, myself. I can't see how anyone would be anything but flattered by people wanting to put horns on one of your songs. What was the occasion/purpose of this recording? Are PG going to start playing "Blow It Out"?

By the way, it's true that there was no thread on the Pope's passing, just as there was no thread on Ron Reagan's passing. But Mitch Hedburg got one and I don't doubt a bit that if Bob Saget passed away tomorrow he would get a Features MB memorial like none has ever seen.

Bob Saget died?!?!?!!? OMG!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ha!

maybe we don't like really heavy topics.

Place your best, folks!

I've gotta go with Duke.

My money's on Ratzinger... never under estimate the steely will of a german. 6 seed? Puh-lease!

(Edited by Peace Frog at 10:10 am on Apr. 14, 2005)

Well, Mitch Hedberg was more of an influence on me than the pope.

Where's the "Britney is Pregnant" thread?

Yeah, the drugs the Pope took just weren't as fun.

Yes Carl. I LOVE me some heroin.

herion...helluva drug.

I thought cocaine was a helluva drug.




'least thats what Rick James said.

(Edited by lalalayousangtome at 7:19 pm on Apr. 14, 2005)

Britney Spears is going to make an awesome mother.

You oughta know about awesome mothers.

i agree..... i gotta go with Duke.

VATICAN CITY - Black smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel's chimney Monday evening, signaling that the cardinals sequestered inside for the first papal conclave of the new millennium failed to elect a new pope.

The black smoke emanating shortly after 8 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT) meant the 115 voting cardinal "princes" of the church would retire for the night and return to the chapel Tuesday morning for more balloting in their search for a successor to Pope John Paul II.

If two morning ballots fail to produce a pope, the cardinals could hold two more votes Tuesday afternoon.

Some 40,000 people who packed St. Peter's Square to stare at the stovepipe jutting from the chapel roof shouted, "It's black! It's black!" and snapped photos with their cell phones.

White smoke will tell the world that the church's 265th pontiff has been chosen to succeed John Paul, who died April 2 at age 84.

The cardinals, from six continents and representing 52 countries, began their secret deliberations late in the afternoon after the ceremonial closing of the massive doors of the chapel, which is decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo and wired with electronic jamming devices to thwart eavesdropping.

The excitement built as darkness set in and pilgrims watched close-ups of the chimney on giant video screens in the square.

As the smoke began pouring from the chimney, shouts of "e bianco! e bianco!" - "It's white! It's white!" - rippled through the crowd. But the cries quickly gave way to sighs of disappointment as the smoke blackened.

"At first it seemed that we had a new pope, so I had a lot of emotions. But of course we didn't really expect to have a pope on the first day," said Alessia Di Caro, a 23-year-old university student.

There was initial confusion when a Vatican Radio commentator said, "It seems white," as the first puffs emerged from the chimney. But as thick, darker smoke followed, the station proclaimed it black.

"It looks like the stove wasn't working well at first," an announcer joked a few minutes later.

Before shutting themselves inside, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led his fellow cardinals in reading aloud an oath of secrecy. One by one, they then filed up to a Book of the Gospels, placed their right hands on it and pronounced a second oath to keep their sessions secret.

Ratzinger's admonition read, in part: "In a particular way, we promise and swear to observe with the greatest fidelity and with all persons, clerical or lay, secrecy regarding everything that in any way relates to the election of the Roman Pontiff and regarding what occurs in the place of the election, directly or indirectly related to the results of the voting; we promise and swear not to break this secret in any way ..."

Ratzinger - a powerful Vatican official often mentioned as a leading candidate for pope - began by reciting a prayer at the palace. The cardinals chanted the Litany of the Saints as they made the short walk to the chapel, led by altar servers carrying two long, lit white candles and a metal crucifix.

In a stately and colorful procession carried live on television, they walked past a pair of Swiss Guards in red plumed hats standing at attention at the entrance to the chapel and took two steps into the voting area, where special devices were installed beneath a false floor to block cell phone calls or bugs in an unprecedented effort to secure the proceedings.

Most of the cardinals were clad in crimson vestments and hats except for two Eastern Rite prelates - Lubomyr Husar of Ukraine and Ignace Moussa I Daoud of Syria - who wore black. Ratzinger entered the chapel last - an honor bestowed upon the dean of the College of Cardinals.

Before the procession, Ratzinger asked for prayers from the church that a pastor fit to lead all of Christ's flock would be elected.

"May the Lord lead our steps on the path of truth, so that through the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and of all the saints, we may always do that which is pleasing to him," he said in Latin.

With Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" as a backdrop behind the altar, depicting a muscular Jesus amid masses of people ascending to heaven and falling to hell, the cardinals took their assigned places behind their name placards, with a copy of the conclave ritual on their desks.

They then placed their red, three-cornered square birettas on the tables, leaving only their crimson skullcaps on their heads.

"I slept well, and now my ideas are clear," French Cardinal Paul Poupard said as he headed into a special pre-conclave Mass held earlier Monday at St. Peter's Basilica. "I have realized the seriousness of the election. The Holy Spirit will do the rest."

In his homily at the Mass, Ratzinger, who presided from the main altar usually reserved for a pope, generated applause from fellow cardinals as he asked God to give the church "a pastor according to his own heart, a pastor who guides us to knowledge in Christ, to his love and to true joy."

But in unusually blunt terms, he made clear what type of pastor that should be: one who should not allow "a dictatorship of relativism" - the ideology that there are no absolute truths - to take deeper root.

Outside the basilica, the faithful thronged the square, eager to bear witness to history in the making.

"I'm excited just to be here," said Sister Maria Grazia, an Italian nun from the order of St. Joseph of the Mountain. It was the fourth time she had come to the square to witness a papal election.

"I feel really cool being here," said Kathy Mullen, 49, of Beverly, Mass. "The last pope was very special, so I don't know how they're going to pick another one. I will be here in the square because it's so historic."

The cardinals will hold up to four rounds of voting - two in the morning, two in the afternoon - a day until a candidate gets two-thirds support: 77 votes. If no one is elected after three days, voting pauses for up to one day.

If the cardinals remain deadlocked late in the second week of voting, they can vote to change the rules so a winner can be elected with a simple majority: 58 votes.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said smoke from burned ballot papers enhanced by special chemicals likely could be seen at about noon (6 a.m. EDT) and about 7 p.m. (1 p.m. EDT) on each day of voting by the cardinal electors, all of whom are under age 80. At some point soon after the new pope is chosen, the Vatican also will ring bells.

The cardinals spent their first night in the super-secure Domus Sanctae Marthae, a $20 million hotel that John Paul had constructed inside Vatican City so they could rest in comfort in private rooms between voting sessions.

Conspicuously missing from their quarters were cell phones, newspapers, radios, TVs and Internet connections - all banned by John Paul to minimize the chances of news influencing their secret deliberations and to prevent leaks to the outside world. The Vatican's security squad swept the chapel for listening devices, and cooks, maids, elevator operators and drivers were sworn to secrecy, with excommunication the punishment for any indiscretions.

No conclave in the past century has lasted more than five days, and the election that made Cardinal Karol Wojtyla pope in October 1978 took eight ballots over three days.

Cardinals faced a choice that boiled down to two options: an older, skilled administrator who could serve as a "transitional" pope while the church absorbs John Paul's 26-year legacy, or a younger dynamic pastor and communicator - perhaps from Latin America or elsewhere in the developing world where the church is growing - who could build on the late pontiff's popularity over a quarter-century of globe-trotting.

The issues sure to figure prominently in the conclave include containing the priest sex-abuse scandals that have cost the church millions in settlements in the United States; coping with a chronic shortage of priests and nuns in the West; halting the stream of people leaving a church whose teachings they no longer find relevant; and improving dialogue with the Islamic world.

"We are praying together with the church for everything to get better," said Sister Annonciata, 42, a Rwandan nun from the Little Sisters of Jesus order who was on the square Monday.

---

Associated Press reporters Nicole Winfield, Daniela Petroff and Niko Price contributed to this report.

Who's bob saget? I know the name, but i honestly don't know the face. but I'm also a huge space cadet.

Try google.com. Type in the keyword and click on the tab that says images. You'll find great pics like this one:


Pretty appropriate for this thread, don't you think?

By the way, I think this is really sad:

Kenneth Schermerhorn died today.

And Again.....

Yes, I was sorry to hear about that. He seemed like a good man, and he did so much for the classical music scene in Nashville.

I can't wait til that new symphony hall is finished!

Can I just say that I think that this whole Pope replacement process is so fascinating. All of the colorful outfits, the people being sequestered, the smoke signals...it's so retro.

Presbyterian protocol is not nearly as cool.

So do these guys just sit in a room all day fighting over which one of them gets to be the mouthpiece for God?

Yeah, what do they do if like 10 of them come in and say that God told them to be the next Pope?

Seriously, I just don't feel like typing a true response.

is the smoke black? is the smoke white?

are those the right bells that are ringing or do those bells just mean is 6 o'clock?

is the chad dimpled?


sheesh.

I dunno.. ask my wife.

Pay up bitches... Ratzy my man beat Duke....

I get what you mean. I was going to pop in my "Bob Newhart Show" DVD and watch it whilst eating my lunch, but I saw this and I had to watch. It's history in the making and I got to watch it while eating homemade General Tso's chicken.

But Pope Benedict XVI is 78 years old. 78! That's crazy! I hope he's in good health.

They do that intentionally. They get a young one to serve a long time. When he dies, they get an old one who will die soon. During that time, they think seriously about who they can get for next long-serving Pope. The thinking is that the older Pope won't shake things up while everyone is preparing for the next heavy hitter to come through.

During this century, this method has been put to the test since people are living longer, and another old Pope who they didn't think would do much ended up rocking the church more than anyone in the last 500 or so years.

-John XXIII (1958-1963)

I think the new pope is a sad choice for the church as a whole as he is known to be a very conservative thinker. I had hoped a more modern thinker would come into power. I am not a Catholic, I was, but I got better.

We need to uphold standards of decency, but move forward to include the world. Specific issues that Ratzinger have been involved in have included acceptance of other religion's view (he does not accept them) as a society we must try to be inclusive.

on a different note, The Features are too great to believe and I can't wait to get an import of the new album as it is released abroad. Good luck to the band and ALL their fans!

Turn the volume up and BLOW IT OUT!!!!

back to the skank


if britney names her baby nevaeh i will fly to her house and pistol whip her myself.

Starve much? I'm sorry, but this is just nasty!

I blame Bob Saget.