Congratulations to Pope Benedict XVI.
I know he's an avid, dedicated reader of this blog and I'm sure his new position as Pope won't change that.

I'm finding the various on-line and earshot discussions about this fairly interesting, though a little frustrating. Quite a few people who have very little to do with Roman Catholicism, and even less in common, suddenly find themselves engaged in analyzing this new Pope, who by virtue of being Catholic, is automatically not the right guy for the job, in many minds. I do get the sense that he'll fit into the role differently than he did as the leader of the Vatican group assigned to working directly with theological matters and making sure the Church stays consistent within itself. The very nature of that job is to "enforce" (perhaps a terrible word choice) and make statements that, by their very nature, are going strongly disagree with certain ideas and certain people. A person assigned to that job has to be strong and not afraid of controversy and challenges, because it's his job to face those things. A Pope, however, has a much more embracing, uniting role. I guess we'll all see if he makes the transition well, but from things he's said, it appears that he's at least trying.

Still, many people are acting as if he's a wrong choice because of his positions on certain things.It's really hard for me to expect Catholic leaders to elect someone Pope who doesn't adhere to traditional Catholic teachings, some of which have been clearly defined ever since the beginning. Sure, there's dissent within the RC Church, and particularly in non-theological matters, that's a good thing in some ways. However, being disappointed because Catholic leaders selected someone who adheres to the traditional theology is to vastly misunderstand Christianity as a whole and Roman Catholicism in particular.
I don't particularly agree with certain stances the RC Church takes, but I also understand how those stances came about theologically, why they are what they are, and what it means for them to be in place. The stance on, say, birth control, didn't just come about because they said "Oh geez, people are asking about this, we'd better come up with something!" Rather...they take a stance consistent with theology that's been in place already. The Orthodox Church has the same initial theological beginnings as RC but doesn't take the same positions on, say, birth control or marriage and the priesthood, but one must understand the reasons RC went that direction if one is to declare themselves theologically and spiritually relevant enough to make comments on these things. Many/most people are coming at this from directions where they don't agree with many of the basic tenets of Roman Catholicism in the first place...so why should it matter if they agree with smaller, less specific issues? If you don't line up with theology that the Catholic Church has had for centuries and centuries, why even comment that "well, they chose yet another Pope I don't agree with" when that's been the case all 265 times? That's like me going to the Baptist Church I grew up in and complaining that the new youth pastor is Baptist, and I was really hoping they'd get an Orthodox guy in there, or going to a steakhouse and complaining the whole time that they just don't really have a whole lot of vegetarian choices.

All that said...keep in mind that I'm Orthodox and as a result, I do take issue and disagree with certain aspects of RC theology and practice. I'm not sure I'm at the point where I could expand on that a whole lot, because most of these things are fairly complex topics with roots that wind and wind for a thousand years or more, and while I have a very rudimentary grasp on them and could rattle off a few things, engaging in any kind of detailed discussion about them would probably result in my misrepresenting one or both positions on the matter, at least to a small degree, because they don't exist in a vacuum and many different things influence each basic teaching. In an informal discussion, that's fine...for example, Jeff/Juandelacruz and I talk about these things sometimes...and in a small conversation, we can lovingly correct each other where one of us might misrepresent something -- in a more public format, I could easily mislead readers and affect their thinking through my own inaccuracies, and I really don't wish to do that.

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Jeff, if/when you're reading this, you'll be pleased to know that I DID order the new Van Ronk book and accompanying CD from Amazon.

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After a Tuesday in which I went from work to class, left halfway through class to go to a parish council meeting, and got home around 9, I'm probably not on all cylinders. Luckily tonight's class period doesn't look to be all that strenuous. Maybe I'll just leave a class halfway through 2 days in a row, depending on how the time structure falls. I don't really want to miss the part where we talk about what she wants with our presentations next week. However, the part where we discuss the last part of our textbook, something for which we aren't really accountable, anyway, but I'll read over my lunch hour just in case...I can miss that. Of course, today IS the day Stacey and I decided to carpool because her car doesn't do well the day after night-long rainstorms, so we'll see how it works.

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Last night, coming home late and tired from the aforementioned activities, I pulled up to park on the street and once again, one of the neighbor's dogs was dumping in the yard, with the other one still just thinking about it. My landlord has talked to them (the neighbors, not necessarily the dogs) about not having the dogs running around loose (unleashed) in our yard and not letting them dump on the lawn before, but it's not done much good. Note that both of these are city code infractions. Tired and wanting to cut the guy some slack, I decided not to say anything, but then one of the dogs stood between me and my front door, barking and growling, with the other one did the same, but not directly in my path. The neighbor yelled at them and got them back in his direction, but my phone was already out so I could call the landlord. This isn't the first time it's happened, and there's no reason it should be going on. Next time I'll most likely be calling the city office directly. Our neighbors do a fairly good job epitomizing the Redneck Nation, and I'm not really up for some kind of physical confrontation. We've put up with their parking foibles and other strange things, but there's something somewhat unsteady in the way this guy and his son present themselves. There's a mother and daughter and a few other regulars at the house, as well, but the women stay inside and I don't really know much about them except that they run a daycare in their home (which either isn't licensed, or was licensed by people who never actually see the daycare facilities for themselves), so I can't really comment on them. However, I get the feeling that this guy settles disagreements with blunt objects or firearms, and his behavior hasn't proven itself rational, so any actual physical confrontation isn't going to happen without witnesses. If he'd just keep the dogs in the fenced-in area, we'd all be fine.

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Fair Warning: I'm working on a Summer Reading List. Get your suggestions ready...hopefully I'll be posting the beginnings of it in the next week or so, and I'm soliciting intelligent suggestions.