Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Pope Name Meme

We've all played the game where you pick the name you'd have if you were a stripper, porn star, or soap-opera star. How much do you want to bet that all the cardinals have played the pope name game? I don't know how the game works (that's all part of the secret conclave business), but I'm guessing that first they pick their favorite Roman numeral, and then they find a papal name that will go with that number. Maybe Ratzinger loves the concept of "sweet XVI," and he looked through the list of past popes and saw that the last Benedict was numbered XV, so voila, he is Benedict XVI. Or maybe he loves eggs Benedict. (If he had more of a sweet tooth, he'd have gone with Pius.)

All those other disappointed also-rans probably picked out their pope names too, only to lose the election to Ratzinger. You'll start seeing those would-be pope names mentioned on the cardinals' blogs, mark my words.

And they should totally retire pope names when they've had an all-star. Who's gonna have the balls to be the next Pope John Paul?

6 comments:

Charlie said...

Sweet XVI!!! I actually did laugh out loud at that.

As for who will have the balls to be the next John Paul, I was thinking the opposite: after such a well loved and respected pope, who would have the balls not to honor him by picking JP3? But now I know. It's Ratzinger. Excuse me, Pope Benedict XVI.

It's going to take me awhile to get used to that. We wee ones have never had a different pope before.

Charlie said...

Since you hate having 1 comments, and I forgot something I meant to say, here's something else I've been dying to ask,: Do we get to follow in the tradition of "JP2" and call him B16?

thenutfantastic said...

ohhh, B16. It sounds like he should start firing bullets or something. Or perhaps fly around in the air for a bit.

Sergei C. said...

Orange - check yer email. And my vote is for Pope Ciotola Eccellente XLI.

Orange said...

Sergei, I was hoping to learn the Latin translation for Super Bowl XLI, but I'll gladly settle for Italian. You're stealing my thoughts now?

Sergei C. said...

I had to settle as well - dead language and all that. :)