Habemus Papam

With those words the Roman Catholic Church announces to the world that they have selected a new pope.  It's a chance for the media to give us a mini Latin lesson and for folks who don't know Latin to attempt to decipher the rest of the phrase and learn who the new pope is before it is translated into English. 

I found myself watching the papal announcement because I had just sat down to eat lunch in front of the TV when the white smoke appeared.  Now, between the time the white smoke appears and the time the world actually gets know who he is there are quite a number of things that he needs to do which means that it can seem like an eternity before the world gets to find out the identity of the new pope. 

This gave me a little time to think and then I realized that the church had the perfect reality show before reality shows were cool.  

Just think about it:

1. There are a limited number of people participating and only one will come out as pope
2. They have nifty "costumes"
3. There are a lot of conversations that take place as they try to narrow down their choice
4. There is voting
5. There is suspense 
6. It is the only thing that everyone is talking about around the water cooler

I'm sure there are more ways but as the suspense was building this was all I could think about.  Now that the new pope has been selected it will be interesting to see how he contributes to the Roman Catholic Church and world Christianity. 

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