Apparently the pope is dead.

     News to me.

     Not really.

     But here is an interesting pope fact: You do not need to be a Cardinal to be elected pope. You just need to be a baptized catholic male. Can you imagine the reaction if the conclave picked some lapsed Catholic lathe operator from Rhode Island? Or how about a devout Mexican strawberry picker living illegally in a California basement? OR ANYBODY BUT AN OLD-ASS WHITE GUY?

     No, I can’t either.

     I must say that I am not catholic. I have no intrinsic interest in who they pick. It makes no difference to me. But the Catholics in Latin America might, as they make up 42% of the Catholics on the planet. Between them and the Catholic population Africa, at 12 %, and Asia  who come in at 10% that makes, lets see, AT LEAST 64 % of Catholics who are not white old men. Maybe God will say something to the collected Cardinals about that. Probably not though.

(Statistics from 'Global Catholicism: Portrait of a World Church' by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. A full world map is available here. Used with without permission., so go F@#& yourself.)