I suppose smaller and less powerful countries can't help revelling in international exposure when it happens. Even so, overheated Canadian excitement over Cardinal Marc Ouellet's possible election as Pope has been egregiously silly and embarrassing. Ouellet was for seven years Archbishop of Québec City and is now head of the Congregation of Bishops in Rome. In early betting at Paddy Power, he had the lead, but he is now in fifth place at 10-1, with Scola, Archbishop of Milan, leading (2-1) and Turkson of Ghana second (4-1).
Fortunately, the Canadian press has started to flirt with the facts. Last week, the Globe and Mail reported that Ouellet had had at best mixed success in his role as Archbishop. And in an article today, it noted that his extreme social conservatism has been strongly derided in progressive Québec. In fact, Québec's association of bishops took him to task for saying that not even rape could justify abortion. Cardinals are, one and all, the propagators of crazy views, but one should especially beware of those who are fond of over-the-top pronouncements in public. (Ratzinger was one of these.) In the meanwhile SNAP (the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests) have named Ouellet as one of a Dirty Dozen who should not become Pope—in his case, because he was aware of the Edinburgh scandal and did nothing much, and because he refuses to meet with the Canadian abused. (Paddy Power's top two, Scola and Turkson, are also on this list.)
But, as so often, the last word should go to Stephen Colbert who points out that Canadians are uniquely unqualified to be Pope: "The pope cannot be polite. 'Sorry, but I think God might not want you to use a condom, eh,' won't work."
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