February 28, 2013 • 34 mins
In February 2013, Pope Benedict said he would become the first pope to retire in 600 years. Check out this episode of Stuff You Should Know to find out just what the pope does and the process of choosing a new one.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
you stuff you should know Friendhouse, Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. Uh. And you put the two of us
(00:21):
together at our new editor casey. Yeah, uh, and you
have stuff you should know. Yeah, guest editor is not
Matt this time. And we are in what looks like
the room of the serial killer. Yeah, Buffalo bills. Yeah,
this is the fourth room. Now we've been shuffled to
in this office and this is a brand new to us.
(00:43):
And it definitely very much looks like there might be
a head floating in a jar behind me somewhere. Yeah.
All of the windows are blacked out with foam. Um.
There's one single bulb light in the middle of the table.
There's stuff stacked around all over the play It's like
some horder serial killer is living here. It's not a
(01:04):
good place, Like I don't feel good right now, like
temporarily living here, Like a serial killer wouldn't even live
in here. This is just where they go to like
take evidence. This is where they keep the victim. Yeah. Um,
and that's where're recording from today. Yeah, we wanted to
set the set the mental stage, all right, you know,
I mean the mental environment has a really it's has
(01:26):
a pronounced effect on the mind, like where we are. Yes, yeah,
but no one cares. Remember that. They're always just so good.
Just put jokes, joke in the hallway and they'll they're fine.
Yeah it's um. Yeah, and apparently someone's listening to their
voicemail just outside or great. Um. So the Pope, yes,
so you know Joseph Ratzinger John Ratzenberger. No, no, no,
(01:52):
this guy is totally different. I thought that was who
the Pope was, you know, the Pope. You would be
more familiar with Pope Benedict the second. Yeah. Um, but
his birth name was Joseph ratzen Germ And following what um,
what is a very very long tradition, as we'll see, um,
he changed his name when he became pope. Well, I
don't know if you know this or not, even though
(02:13):
you selected this article, but I'm February eleven, he announced
he's going to retire. Yeah, on the I think this
is like I guess I gave two weeks because roughly
two weeks later is going to be his last day,
and I felt, I'm not Catholic, and I don't know
much about the Catholic religion, um, because I grew up
in the South, and especially you know, they're not a
(02:33):
ton of Catholics in the South compared to other parts
of the country. This is a very northeastern, Midwestern Yeah. Um.
I felt bad for the guy though, because people like
call him Pope scary and stuff, because he sort of
looked kind of creepy. Yeah, and I just remember thinking
that's not nice. He did. He was also um drafted
into the German military during World War Two, which is
(02:54):
you know, yeah, kind of something, and he abandoned, didn't
he He deserted, yes, um, sensibly before he fired a
shot at anybody. I think it was during basic training
that he was like, I'm out of here. I might
want to be Pope one day, and he's not going
to look good on my resume. Um. But yeah. Plus
also he followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul,
the second, arguably the most lovable pope of all time. Yeah.
(03:16):
I mean he was seventy eight to two thousand five.
That's a nice chunk of time in the modern era.
So he was a huge traveler. He was credited with
helping to bring about the end of the Cold War
to some degree. Um, he was beloved by all, even
people who weren't Catholic. Love Pope John Paul the Second. Yeah,
he's probably the most impersonated pope. You know, the one
guy or maybe it wasn't just one guy that that
(03:40):
naked gunn well, yeah, and others, but that's the one
I always associated looked just like him John Paul too, Yeah, JP,
And they would do that smile in like the weird
way with the hand he learned from Queen Elizabeth. Um. Okay,
so yeah, Benedict said, hey, I'm very tired. I'm I'm
going to retire, and the whole old said, I don't
(04:01):
know if you can do that. Can a pope retire?
He said, oh, yes you can. As a matter of fact,
the last pope to retire was Gregory the twelve. Just
go back six hundred years for president Yeah to be exact, Um,
where he basically retired to end what was called the
Great Schism at the time. Yeah. Apparently. Um, there was
(04:24):
a seventy year period where the papacy, which is the
governance by the pope UM left Rome and moved Averignon, France. Okay,
and um, I guess Gregory the eleven, so do you
know what, We're going to take it back to Rome.
And that created the Great Schism, which, depending on who
(04:45):
you ask, made Pope Benedict either the two hundred and
sixty five or the two hundred sixty six Pope, because
during this Great Schism there was a pope in Rome
and there was a pope in Avignon, France. So then uh,
Gregory the twelve comes to power and says, you know what,
I'm just gonna retire. It's gonna end the Great Schism.
(05:06):
He's the last Pope, and I believe the first pope
ever to retire, so Bennett, so there's only been to Benedict.
The second is the second as far as I know.
Did you see Saturday in Life this week? No, I
don't watch us. I know these days it's the had
Crystal Faults was on. Did you see the little Pope
retiring commercial? It was pretty funny. They did like the
typical like you know, financial retirement commercial spoof of the
(05:29):
pope retiring and getting every all financials in a row.
It was pretty funny. I think my favorite um SNL
commercial is the one with Sam Waterson Waterson from Law
and Order Jack McCoy, which one was where he talks about, UM,
he's selling insurance to the elderly to protect against robots
who want to come into their home and eat their
medication because that's what they that's what they're fueled by.
(05:52):
And robots are gonna come your home unless you have
this insurance Pacemaker mads. It's really great commercial that you
put him in anything, and yeah, it's going to feel
like that kind of commercial, and he managed to do
with the straight face to um, this is a guy's
a class act. Uh So okay, So Benedict the second
announces he retires and um, you choose how the papacy works.
(06:14):
And I think we should point out we're talking about
the papacy, which is this position in the world, this
world leader, figurehead, the head of the Catholic Church, Papa,
Vicar of Christ, the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.
They're all synonymous with the pope. And what the pope
does is the papacy. So that's what we're talking about,
(06:35):
is the papacy. It's like what the Pope's expected to do.
How you get a new pope. Well, there's a lot
of people questions. Yeah, and this one is especially relevant,
you know, because a lot of this is going to
deal with the really interesting I found process for selecting
and electing. And of course because it's religion A and
Catholic religion B. It's not just we get around and
(06:58):
we talk about it and we like raise our hands.
It's you know, it's like very uh. I don't know.
It's kind of a cool process. I think it is.
It's dark Kane and it's and it's happening right now.
It can't happen yet, no, no, no, it's the process
has begun. They're trying to it's fit the March of
steenth is the vote, but they're trying to get it
pushed forward. Even they are because I thought it can't
(07:21):
happen sooner than fifteen days after the pope retires. After
the pope dies. Oh really, so they're gonna push it
forward because he's retired because there's no reason not to basically,
oh yeah, because they don't have to celebrate the funeral
or have a body on their hands. It's not me,
it's people. Yeah, but you notice that detail. Yeah, people saying,
you know, if we can go ahead and push this
(07:42):
forward a little bit, but at the very we know
it's going to happen on the fifteenth or earlier. Um,
and they're already talking about maybe the first African pope.
I know, I'm excited American guy from Ghana or a
guy from Brazil. Yeah, um, yeah, I'm pretty psyched about that.
There miter in the in the ring. I guess apparently
it's going to be a very conservative pope still because um,
(08:06):
Pope Benedict canonized, um or elected to Cardinal of the Electorate.
Well and John Paul was the other. So um, there's
your You're going to get a pope who shares the
same views as Benedict most likely probably, But that hasn't
stopped people from writing end list op eds already saying, hey,
(08:30):
the majority of Catholics believe X, Y and Z, Now
can we get a pope that represents a modern the
modern Catholic. And they're saying it's probably not gonna happen.
We're thinking, but it's probably not gonna but maybe they'll
be from Latin America or Africa, which would be you know,
it's a pretty big jump forward. First non European and
like a thousand years. I think, yeah, well we don't
(08:52):
know yet. Well possibly, yeah, let's see, I'm excited. Let's
talk about this. How how long have we had pope? Uh,
well we have had depending on who you ask. Um. St.
Peter possibly is the first pope, even though he never like,
they didn't have the office of pope at the time.
That he's widely considered to be the first pope because
(09:14):
Jesus himself sort of handed over the reins and said,
you know what, when I ascend to Heaven, I'd like
you to kind of run the show for me, if
you don't mind. And um, Biblical scholars love, love, love
interpreting stuff that Jesus said. And he said something in
Matthew six eighteen UM that they take to say Peter
(09:38):
was the first pope. Peter was the person that Jesus said,
it's up to you to run the church. Yeah, that verses.
And I say, also, unto the thou that thou art, Peter,
and upon this rock, I will build my church, and
the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And
that is the Petrin or petron guarantee. And uh. Theologians
believe that Peter is the because Jesus spoke Aramaic and
(10:04):
Peter's original name was Simon and Christ named him Peter,
uh named him Cephas, which is Aramaic. Four rocks. So
they're saying not to be confused with or Yeah, Hank
Williams Jr. Yeah that's pretty good. Um so yeah, so
people saying theologians mainly say, you know what, that's the
(10:24):
rock that he's talking about. The rock is Peter. And
further evidence is when he also says, to Peter, feed
my sheep, but I work you have to imagine, and
he's said in a certain tone, I know, but I
word just like, hey, that's what I worry about. So
he's like, buddy, I'm going to heaven, would you mind
feeding my sheep while I'm gone, Which is funny that
(10:44):
there's sheep that actually died, because Peter was like, he means,
I know what he means, Peter, I'm not a Bible literalist.
He's got people to feed his other sheep, and then
he would never asked me to feed his sheep. He
wants to lead his people about wool. Well, okay, so
Peter's the first pope that's that's part of church dogma.
(11:06):
That's the pet try and guarantee, even though it wasn't
like the popes came after Peter right, and they came
after Peter. Well, Peter went to Rome late in his
life to say, hey, Jesus is just all right with me?
Um and uh. He was killed for it by Nero,
persecuted the early church um, which at the time was
(11:26):
basically just Peter um. And so Peter became a martyr. No,
Nero didn't fiddle. So Peter Peter becomes a martyr. He's uh.
He's buried on Vatican Hill um and the Basilica of St.
Peter is built over him and um and from that
point on to honor Peter as as the first pope,
all other popes that fell into line behind him are
(11:50):
are considered to be the direct successor of Peter. So
if you look at the papal family tree, there's Peter
at the top, and then there's one other line, and
it's all the popes coming directly from Peter. Whoever follows
on this next one isn't descended from John Ratzenburger. He's
(12:12):
descended from Peter right. He's following Peter's direct rule right,
And as such, the pope is considered to be carrying
on directly the bestowment of power conferred by Jesus onto Peter. Yeah,
and I kind of like that. I guess that sort
of signifies it's it's the office and not the person,
you know what I mean, Like it puts the importance
(12:34):
on the office itself and not like, hey, you're following
this guy right well, you know, like you're following the
the original the o G. I was gonna say that,
but now about that's disrespectful. And then I thought, I've
called the pope John Ratzenburger four times. Sorry, I think
you got that covered, okay. Um. And then so that
you've got the the the idea that the pope is
(12:55):
a direct successor Peter, which gives him tons of power. Basically,
he's one grease separated from Jesus conferring the powers onto Peter.
And then um, the the bunch of bishops got together
to create the first Vatican Council in eighteen seventy and said,
you know what, not only that we we have thought
about it were theologians, and we've decided that the pope
(13:18):
is infallible in matters of spirituality and religion. That was
a big deal because it basically means you can't question
anything that comes out of his mouth. If he lays
down some doctrine, then that's the final word. Because Jesus
conferred these powers onto Peter, and these people are direct
successors of Peter and by by proxy, have the same power.
(13:41):
Jesus was infallible ex post facto, so is the pope.
That's what they said, And everybody said, Okay, we were
listening to him anyway, but thank you for making official. Yeah, exactly. So, Um,
that's the pope. That's the power of the pope. Um.
And again this is the was powerful figurehead of any religion.
(14:02):
There at one point six billion Muslims in the world,
but there's not a living figurehead of that of the
of Islam. With Catholicism there's one point two billion, and
there's one guy who's the head of it all, and
that's the Pope. So let's say Benedict hed retired. Let's
say he stayed pope until he died. What happens. What
(14:24):
happens when the pope died? Um? Well, the there's an
an authority called the Cardinal Carma Lingo I like that name,
or Chamberlain it's another name, and that's the Secretary of
State of the Vatican, and Vatican City is the smallest
independent state in the World's and change acres. Yeah, and
(14:46):
I think I told my story at the time about
walking around it because I was trying to find the
way in and there's no way in unless you go
on the front. Are you trying to sneak in the
back door of Vatican? So I just thought like, surely
you can get in this way, like, so they'll let me.
But there was just big, tall walls, and it's a
long walk around the Vatican. A hundred acres is kind
(15:07):
of a walk. Yeah, things like one ten or one's
I think dead on a country mile as the bird flies. Um,
all right, so where were we? So that the Secretary
of State uh assumes the non theological responsibilities of the
pope immediately, and it's sort of like if the president
passes on, the vice president takes over, you know, in
(15:30):
the interim running Vatican City. Yeah, actually not interim for
the president. Their permanent um, well until the next election,
right yeah, yeah, permanent meaning it's not an interim position unfortunately. Yeah. Uh,
so they have to confirm that the pope is dead,
and they call the pope's name three times. There's no
(15:51):
by name, I think, And there's a myth that I
had a hard time tracking down that they would hit
tap the pope on the head with a silver hammer
three times. And apparently that is something that they did
until the nineteen sixties, and that went the way of
the Dodo. I can imagine, because all the popes had
little bruises. Yeah, I think it was a tap and
(16:12):
not like a post mortem bruising from a hammer. But
I think they do use that same hammer to destroy
the ring of the fishermen, which they remove once the
pope is passed. Every pope has worn this for like
eight hundred years. Yeah, some version of it's like it's
a seal with Peter on a fishing boat fishing and
(16:32):
then the name of that pope and then they destroyed
the same one. But did you see whether they used
the same gold to make a new ring, remember for
missing gold recycled. That's true, but apparently they used that
silver hammer to destroy the ring and the seals. And Um,
the body lies there and repose for nine nine days consecutive.
(16:54):
They celebrate the funeral rights. There are no photos allowed.
Um because the bruising, yeah, as the bruising. But once uh,
they have put the pope in his vestments and the miter.
I guess, although I don't know, you're probably not buried
in the miter which the yeah, I don't recall seeing John. No,
(17:18):
he had his little skull cap on hich has a
specific name too. I can't take of that right now. No,
I think for them, it's different for Catholic popes. Um,
then you are allowed, if so deemed, you are allowed
to take a post mortem photo, like an official photo
for like documenting the situation. But you can't go in
(17:39):
there with your cameras. And if the pope is sick
on his deathbed, you can't go in there and film
that kind of stuff. It's untoward, it is. And then
they bury him. Yeah, they bury him in like a
little Matroshka doll in three coffins, one in case of
another encase, then another, so it's a cypress elm and
then lead. Yeah, and like who's working with lead these days?
(18:01):
I don't know, I guess Roman coffin maker. That's that's scary,
Like how do you prevent any kind of lead poisoning
when you're making a lead coffin. I don't know. I mean,
let's still use right, it's not like yeah, I think
it's fairly discontinued in in most cases. Yeah, you should
read this, Thump. There's a Mother Jones article called the
(18:23):
Real Criminal Element Lead. It is awesome, man. Yeah. Basically
they tied crime rates and the decline of crime rates
across American cities with the decline of letty gasoline. Interesting. Yeah,
it's really interesting and they do it pretty convincingly. You
should have called it, get the lead out, I thought. So, Like,
there's a bunch of different puns they could have made.
(18:44):
They chose one. So now we have to elect a
new pope. Right, whether whether Benedict was dead or not,
this is the same thing that's going to happen. And
like you said, they're trying to move it up because
he's not that they don't have to carry out the funeral, right. So, um,
And the first thing that happens is the College of Cardinals.
The guys who are going to serve as the electors,
(19:04):
not the University of Louisville, no, but the College of Cardinals. Um.
They get together and they enter what is called conclave,
which means with Key, which means that they are basically
sequestered from the rest of the world until they can
come to a two thirds agreement. Now I think that's
(19:24):
a simple majority is half plus one. This is like
straight up two thirds, I believe. So we need to
change this in um the Well, no, you can after
twelve or thirteen days go to a simple majority. Yeah,
but you want to be plus one is the first
go and then if that doesn't work, then you got
a simple majority. Well, then you're probably right because I
(19:46):
think this was Um, I don't know, man, we'll call
them out. I think it might have been Tom Harris.
We'll go with Tom. So it's probably we'll go with
two thirds plus one in this case. Um. So basically
the cardinals get to other they are sequestered. They they
basically there's I think a hundred and twenty of them tops.
(20:08):
There's one seventeen right now. They haven't picked the other
three yet. I don't think there are another three. So
there's a hundred between a hundred and seventeen and a
hundred and twenty electors cardinals who are going to vote
for pope. I think it's no more than a hundred
and twenty that's the maximum number. There's also an age limit.
If you turned eighty before the day the Pope dies
(20:31):
or retires, you're out. You're your old news um and
you can't vote. You can't be a cardinal in the electorate.
Even though the Benedict was like seventy eight when he
was elected pope. Right, Well, that doesn't cover pope. That
covers whoever is electing the pope. Yeah, no, but I
just find it interesting that two years later you you
can't even vote, yet they would put someone in, as
(20:54):
you know, the highest office. I don't know. Well, he
was the oldest pope ever elected. Yah know, these guys
can't even tweet. And you may laugh, but there are
nine active tweet twitterers in the College of Cardinals. Well,
there's the Pope has their Twitter account, pont effects. But
nine of the cardinals tweet themselves and they're there have
(21:16):
there's they have specifically been forbidden from tweeting during this
time period. I can see that. Oh, it's part of
you know, being under key in conclaff. I wonder if
they ever thought they would have to cover that though, Hey,
the world is changing, but tweeting cardinals Okay, So there's
two ballots a day, uh, for a total of four
(21:39):
to too possible in the morning too in the afternoon,
and then after twelve or thirteen days, if there's still
no pope, they can say, you know what, to heck
with this where it's going to go with a simple majority,
which I think is plus one and uh, then we'll
elect the new pope. And while they're doing this, there's
like some there's there's some details that you know, have
(22:00):
to be followed to vote for a new pope. Yeah,
it's pretty cool, Like you know, this information has always
been out there, but now in today's age, it's really
out there. So I think up until this election, a
lot of people probably didn't understand like exactly what's going on. Well,
Pope John Paul published um the guidelines. He said, Hey, everybody,
(22:22):
we're just being transparent. Here, here's what we're doing. Here,
south's done so. Uh, they're rectangular ballots and this is
all very important. Imagine they probably don't vary from this process.
I wouldn't be like, you know what, I'm gonna do
a round ballot just to mix things up. Um at
the top, yeah, at the top of the words, uh,
Latin words iligo in some of them pontiffs, Um, I
(22:44):
elect a supreme pontiff. So it's basically saying like, this
is the official ballot, and then below that the each
cardinal is going to write down the name in pen
of the pope hand in their little paper like it's
the elementary school student body. They folded twice. Now I
thought someone else. Uh oh no, they yah, they folded twice, right,
(23:05):
and then they put it on a plate and then
they used the plate to dump it into the ballot box. Yeah. Well,
and they have to say out loud, I call is
my witness, Christ, the Lord who will be my judge,
that my vote is given to the one who, before
God I think should be elected, which is saying like
I'm not I'm not bending to popularity. This in a
popularity contest. This is who I genuinely think God is
(23:27):
my witness should be pope. And they have to carry
it in the air. And I guess all of this
is just sort of like why they put it on
a plate and hold it in the air. It's just like, look,
nothing's happening. I wrote it down. This is the same
piece of paper. Well, it also makes um so so
cardinals while they're electing is a little known fact to
actually float down the aisle towards the ballot box until
(23:48):
holding the ballot up in the air makes the whole
thing look even cooler. Cool. Um, So you've got some
guys who are charged with counting the ballots and and
basically tally who's going to be pope. Of course, they're
called scrutineers. That's gonna be my next band name. And
the three scrutineers, just the scrutineers, okay, because there's four us. Well,
(24:09):
I was gonna say it would be kind of cool
if it was the three scrutineers, but there was four.
Really really freak out the crowd, man. Um. So you've
got the three scrutineers and two of them, uh they
they well, okay, so you have one sitting who takes
the ballot out of the ballot box, writes down the
name of the pope or the person voted for pope,
(24:30):
hands us to the next person the first to write
it down, and then the third um scrutineer reads the
name out loud and the other two they say, yep,
that's the one I have here that I wrote down,
and then they take it and pierce it through the
the eleigo with the needle and move it along a
line of thread, and then you have ultimately all the
(24:52):
ballots tallied. That's right. And uh, if they don't elect
the pope, they burn them, that's right. And very portant
step before that, they tie the end of it so
it's a sealed circle with the ballots hanging from it,
because if it's not tied shut, that means the vote
is still open, right yeah, Okay, So then they burn them.
(25:13):
And if it's if they haven't elected a pope through
that ballot, they added some chemical that makes the smoke
black and they blow it out of the Vatican Palace
to let everybody know no pope. Yet when they do
elect the pope, they just let it be white smoke, right, Yeah.
And it used to be they used to use like
wet straw and stuff, but there was confusion at times
(25:36):
when it didn't burn like appropriately. So now they just
add a chemical that they know was gonna do the job. Um.
And so when the new pope is elected, he the
guy comes to the uh, he meets with the Cardinal Deacon,
the secretary of the College of Cardinals, the cardinal Dean,
the master of papal liturgical celebrations. Right, that's a swinging crowd,
(25:59):
it is. And um, he says, oh please, really, really,
this is great news. Thank you for for doing this,
and the the Dean, I think, asked him a couple
of questions. Yeah. I have a feeling it's way more
official than what I would say, because they say, do
you accept your canonical election? And supreme pontiff? I would say,
(26:23):
you want to be pope? Are you sure you want
to be pope? And then by what name do you
wish to be called? And that you know, that's pretty
straight up that you'd say that just like that, not
say you want to be pope? What's your name? Give
me the name? Yeah, and they say who's this guy?
We need to know what to put on your seal? Yeah, exactly,
they do. So the pope accepts, well, you know, I
(26:47):
guess the pope is supposed to accept. I'm not sure
if that's ever not happened. I can't imagine, because you
would think they would withdraw their name earlier than that,
you know, or if they had second thoughts, that probably
pretty bad too, right. They were like, look, I just
talked about it with my wife, and she's like, I
don't know if we want to go into this chapter
of our life. Let's let's just retire, okay. So each
(27:10):
cardinal at that point, once the pope has the name
and has said yes, I definitely want to be pope,
they approached them pay homage to the new pope, probably
kiss the ring, yeah, I would say, so. I wonder
if they have the ring made up already, because you're
supposed to have that thing on, like like that's basically
like check it out, I'm I'm pope. I bet they do,
I would imagine, because the only thing that could happen
(27:33):
is the pope says I don't want to be a pope, yeah,
and then they just make a new ring, you know,
and they probably make the guy feel pretty bad too, like, well,
are you sure because we made the ring and everything already.
I bet this is all spelled out in some rule book,
you know, like oft not oft used rules of the
Catholic Church, like if they refuse, yeah, you strike them
on the head with the silver hammer. Maybe so um so.
(27:57):
Then traditionally, the oldest cardinal in the conclave steps that
they're at St. Peters Square there on the balcony, which
we've all seen a million times, and says habamus. Papam
basically says, we have a new pope. And then the
Pope comes out and the crowd goes wild like the Beatles,
like it's serious stuff. Man, weeping in I know in
(28:19):
in America it's not as I guess things have just
changed a little bit. I'm sure there are people in
United States that are still that moved. But you see
people from around the world like collapsing and crying, and
it's pretty amazing to watch pope papalmania paplemania. And so
in the pope basically says, okay, let's do this. Here's
(28:40):
my papal blessing. Good to meet you all. Let's go
forth and spread Catholicism. That's right. We should do one
on the pope at some point. Just about the duties.
I mean, they have a few in here, appoints, bishops
and cardinals, obviously spreading the good word, writing the official
documents about issues like what our official stances stuff like that. Yeah,
(29:04):
and then like getting world leaders to go along with them. Yeah.
And you know, back in the day, the pope had
a lot more sway in the h in the non
religious sector, like I could. They could, I could listen
to me. They could crown new emperors and like had
military power and stuff like that. Yeah, like, um, one
(29:24):
of the pope's crowned Charlemagne and started the Holy Roman Empire. Right,
that was something that popes could do. I can't do
that anymore. Um. And we we mentioned um Benedict changing
the name, like they asked, what name do you want
to go by? And there's actually an origin to this.
Um Pope John the Second, he was elected in five
(29:47):
thirty three and he was the one that started it
because he was born his his birth name was Curious,
named after Mercury, which is a pagan Roman god. Yeah,
and he was like, I don't think I should have
a pagan name as pope, so he changed his name
to John the Second, and uh, there you have. That's
(30:09):
where the tradition began. Yeah. And I think generally now
they choose a name of a previous pope that they
admired perhaps or a favorite saint or a favorite saint,
and then they get on with the poping. Yep, I
wonder what the new one. I'm really interested, you know,
I'm pulling for the guy from Ghana. Yeah, I want
to know what his name is gonna be too? Ah,
you got anything else about the pope or the Papacy?
(30:31):
I should say? No, the Potmobile pretty awesome car. Don
you remember that? Yeah? Sure, when they came out with
the bulletproof. Ah, like a tube that he sits in.
It's pretty smart. He stands in and waits. It's a
tall tune. That's right. Okay, Well, if you want to
(30:53):
learn more about the Pokemobile, you can type the word
Papacy p A P A C Y in the search
part how stuff works dot com and um, I don't
know what that'll well, Papasi will bring that that article
if it won't bring anything up about the Popmobile. And
I'm afraid, but just try try Potmobile and see what happens.
Um my inn report walking to another universe. Since I
(31:15):
said Potmobile, it means it's time for a listener mail.
I'm gonna call this veterinaria Canadian vets. What's up? Friends?
My name is Anne Marie and I'm a super fan
veterinarian from Newfoundland, uh, Canada almost a Connecticut. I thought
you're gonna say Kentucky. I discovered you in two thousand
(31:37):
eleven when I went on maternity leave, and maternity leave
here in Canada can be up to a full year.
In addition to that, man, my daughter was born ten
weeks early, so I was off for fourteen months. Holy cow,
Creepily you both became my support system during this time.
Luckily I came up upon the podcast at the time
where they were around two episodes. I would push the
(31:58):
stroller every day for at LEAs an hour and laugh
out loud at your antics. I listened like clean cooked,
and did various baby related duties. Uh. Now that I'm
back at work, I eagerly await new episodes and have
gone back and submitted to listening to episodes I dismissed
previously as boring. I encourage people to do that. Oh yeah,
like population is constantly a good one to go back.
(32:21):
That's what she listened to. Did you know? She said?
I listened to recently and happy to report that even
how population works entertain me. I even listen at work,
particularly when I'm doing a doggy surgery. You are a
favorite while I'm doing a dental surgery. Actually, last week
I listen to why do men have nipples? While working
in the dog's mouth. Thanks for getting me through some
(32:42):
difficult tooth extractions anyway, hats off to you both. I
suffered from a mild case of hero worship. I wanted
to say thanks. I don't know if I would call it.
My daughter and I say woot Josh and Chuck and
my husband says, not that podcast again, and I guess
he slaps us for it. Yeah, so Amrie or something,
(33:05):
you get out your own little silver hammer, tap your
husband on the head and say, my daughter and I
are getting smarter. Tap him very very very lightly lightly
on think. So whoever a Marie's husband is, get get
on the train. My friend maybe get a helmet soon.
And she says awkward hugs and and thanks to Canada,
(33:25):
thanks from or thanks to Canada too. I guess for
that fourteen month paid leave to can't you see her
like she's putting a dog under and she's like one
for you, one for you, one for me with the
gas all right, So thanks Amrie, and thanks to Canada
for some reason. Uh, if you want to send us
an oddly worded homage or thanks or whatever, we love
(33:49):
those those the best kind um and uh we want
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our very own website with forty two inch rooms. It's
(34:11):
called Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff
works dot Com. Brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places,
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
you stuff you should know Friendhouse, Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. Uh. And you put the two of us
(00:21):
together at our new editor casey. Yeah, uh, and you
have stuff you should know. Yeah, guest editor is not
Matt this time. And we are in what looks like
the room of the serial killer. Yeah, Buffalo bills. Yeah,
this is the fourth room. Now we've been shuffled to
in this office and this is a brand new to us.
(00:43):
And it definitely very much looks like there might be
a head floating in a jar behind me somewhere. Yeah.
All of the windows are blacked out with foam. Um.
There's one single bulb light in the middle of the table.
There's stuff stacked around all over the play It's like
some horder serial killer is living here. It's not a
(01:04):
good place, Like I don't feel good right now, like
temporarily living here, Like a serial killer wouldn't even live
in here. This is just where they go to like
take evidence. This is where they keep the victim. Yeah. Um,
and that's where're recording from today. Yeah, we wanted to
set the set the mental stage, all right, you know,
I mean the mental environment has a really it's has
(01:26):
a pronounced effect on the mind, like where we are. Yes, yeah,
but no one cares. Remember that. They're always just so good.
Just put jokes, joke in the hallway and they'll they're fine.
Yeah it's um. Yeah, and apparently someone's listening to their
voicemail just outside or great. Um. So the Pope, yes,
so you know Joseph Ratzinger John Ratzenberger. No, no, no,
(01:52):
this guy is totally different. I thought that was who
the Pope was, you know, the Pope. You would be
more familiar with Pope Benedict the second. Yeah. Um, but
his birth name was Joseph ratzen Germ And following what um,
what is a very very long tradition, as we'll see, um,
he changed his name when he became pope. Well, I
don't know if you know this or not, even though
(02:13):
you selected this article, but I'm February eleven, he announced
he's going to retire. Yeah, on the I think this
is like I guess I gave two weeks because roughly
two weeks later is going to be his last day,
and I felt, I'm not Catholic, and I don't know
much about the Catholic religion, um, because I grew up
in the South, and especially you know, they're not a
(02:33):
ton of Catholics in the South compared to other parts
of the country. This is a very northeastern, Midwestern Yeah. Um.
I felt bad for the guy though, because people like
call him Pope scary and stuff, because he sort of
looked kind of creepy. Yeah, and I just remember thinking
that's not nice. He did. He was also um drafted
into the German military during World War Two, which is
(02:54):
you know, yeah, kind of something, and he abandoned, didn't
he He deserted, yes, um, sensibly before he fired a
shot at anybody. I think it was during basic training
that he was like, I'm out of here. I might
want to be Pope one day, and he's not going
to look good on my resume. Um. But yeah. Plus
also he followed in the footsteps of Pope John Paul,
the second, arguably the most lovable pope of all time. Yeah.
(03:16):
I mean he was seventy eight to two thousand five.
That's a nice chunk of time in the modern era.
So he was a huge traveler. He was credited with
helping to bring about the end of the Cold War
to some degree. Um, he was beloved by all, even
people who weren't Catholic. Love Pope John Paul the Second. Yeah,
he's probably the most impersonated pope. You know, the one
guy or maybe it wasn't just one guy that that
(03:40):
naked gunn well, yeah, and others, but that's the one
I always associated looked just like him John Paul too, Yeah, JP,
And they would do that smile in like the weird
way with the hand he learned from Queen Elizabeth. Um. Okay,
so yeah, Benedict said, hey, I'm very tired. I'm I'm
going to retire, and the whole old said, I don't
(04:01):
know if you can do that. Can a pope retire?
He said, oh, yes you can. As a matter of fact,
the last pope to retire was Gregory the twelve. Just
go back six hundred years for president Yeah to be exact, Um,
where he basically retired to end what was called the
Great Schism at the time. Yeah. Apparently. Um, there was
(04:24):
a seventy year period where the papacy, which is the
governance by the pope UM left Rome and moved Averignon, France. Okay,
and um, I guess Gregory the eleven, so do you
know what, We're going to take it back to Rome.
And that created the Great Schism, which, depending on who
(04:45):
you ask, made Pope Benedict either the two hundred and
sixty five or the two hundred sixty six Pope, because
during this Great Schism there was a pope in Rome
and there was a pope in Avignon, France. So then uh,
Gregory the twelve comes to power and says, you know what,
I'm just gonna retire. It's gonna end the Great Schism.
(05:06):
He's the last Pope, and I believe the first pope
ever to retire, so Bennett, so there's only been to Benedict.
The second is the second as far as I know.
Did you see Saturday in Life this week? No, I
don't watch us. I know these days it's the had
Crystal Faults was on. Did you see the little Pope
retiring commercial? It was pretty funny. They did like the
typical like you know, financial retirement commercial spoof of the
(05:29):
pope retiring and getting every all financials in a row.
It was pretty funny. I think my favorite um SNL
commercial is the one with Sam Waterson Waterson from Law
and Order Jack McCoy, which one was where he talks about, UM,
he's selling insurance to the elderly to protect against robots
who want to come into their home and eat their
medication because that's what they that's what they're fueled by.
(05:52):
And robots are gonna come your home unless you have
this insurance Pacemaker mads. It's really great commercial that you
put him in anything, and yeah, it's going to feel
like that kind of commercial, and he managed to do
with the straight face to um, this is a guy's
a class act. Uh So okay, So Benedict the second
announces he retires and um, you choose how the papacy works.
(06:14):
And I think we should point out we're talking about
the papacy, which is this position in the world, this
world leader, figurehead, the head of the Catholic Church, Papa,
Vicar of Christ, the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.
They're all synonymous with the pope. And what the pope
does is the papacy. So that's what we're talking about,
(06:35):
is the papacy. It's like what the Pope's expected to do.
How you get a new pope. Well, there's a lot
of people questions. Yeah, and this one is especially relevant,
you know, because a lot of this is going to
deal with the really interesting I found process for selecting
and electing. And of course because it's religion A and
Catholic religion B. It's not just we get around and
(06:58):
we talk about it and we like raise our hands.
It's you know, it's like very uh. I don't know.
It's kind of a cool process. I think it is.
It's dark Kane and it's and it's happening right now.
It can't happen yet, no, no, no, it's the process
has begun. They're trying to it's fit the March of
steenth is the vote, but they're trying to get it
pushed forward. Even they are because I thought it can't
(07:21):
happen sooner than fifteen days after the pope retires. After
the pope dies. Oh really, so they're gonna push it
forward because he's retired because there's no reason not to basically,
oh yeah, because they don't have to celebrate the funeral
or have a body on their hands. It's not me,
it's people. Yeah, but you notice that detail. Yeah, people saying,
you know, if we can go ahead and push this
(07:42):
forward a little bit, but at the very we know
it's going to happen on the fifteenth or earlier. Um,
and they're already talking about maybe the first African pope.
I know, I'm excited American guy from Ghana or a
guy from Brazil. Yeah, um, yeah, I'm pretty psyched about that.
There miter in the in the ring. I guess apparently
it's going to be a very conservative pope still because um,
(08:06):
Pope Benedict canonized, um or elected to Cardinal of the Electorate.
Well and John Paul was the other. So um, there's
your You're going to get a pope who shares the
same views as Benedict most likely probably, But that hasn't
stopped people from writing end list op eds already saying, hey,
(08:30):
the majority of Catholics believe X, Y and Z, Now
can we get a pope that represents a modern the
modern Catholic. And they're saying it's probably not gonna happen.
We're thinking, but it's probably not gonna but maybe they'll
be from Latin America or Africa, which would be you know,
it's a pretty big jump forward. First non European and
like a thousand years. I think, yeah, well we don't
(08:52):
know yet. Well possibly, yeah, let's see, I'm excited. Let's
talk about this. How how long have we had pope? Uh,
well we have had depending on who you ask. Um. St.
Peter possibly is the first pope, even though he never like,
they didn't have the office of pope at the time.
That he's widely considered to be the first pope because
(09:14):
Jesus himself sort of handed over the reins and said,
you know what, when I ascend to Heaven, I'd like
you to kind of run the show for me, if
you don't mind. And um, Biblical scholars love, love, love
interpreting stuff that Jesus said. And he said something in
Matthew six eighteen UM that they take to say Peter
(09:38):
was the first pope. Peter was the person that Jesus said,
it's up to you to run the church. Yeah, that verses.
And I say, also, unto the thou that thou art, Peter,
and upon this rock, I will build my church, and
the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And
that is the Petrin or petron guarantee. And uh. Theologians
believe that Peter is the because Jesus spoke Aramaic and
(10:04):
Peter's original name was Simon and Christ named him Peter,
uh named him Cephas, which is Aramaic. Four rocks. So
they're saying not to be confused with or Yeah, Hank
Williams Jr. Yeah that's pretty good. Um so yeah, so
people saying theologians mainly say, you know what, that's the
(10:24):
rock that he's talking about. The rock is Peter. And
further evidence is when he also says, to Peter, feed
my sheep, but I work you have to imagine, and
he's said in a certain tone, I know, but I
word just like, hey, that's what I worry about. So
he's like, buddy, I'm going to heaven, would you mind
feeding my sheep while I'm gone, Which is funny that
(10:44):
there's sheep that actually died, because Peter was like, he means,
I know what he means, Peter, I'm not a Bible literalist.
He's got people to feed his other sheep, and then
he would never asked me to feed his sheep. He
wants to lead his people about wool. Well, okay, so
Peter's the first pope that's that's part of church dogma.
(11:06):
That's the pet try and guarantee, even though it wasn't
like the popes came after Peter right, and they came
after Peter. Well, Peter went to Rome late in his
life to say, hey, Jesus is just all right with me?
Um and uh. He was killed for it by Nero,
persecuted the early church um, which at the time was
(11:26):
basically just Peter um. And so Peter became a martyr. No,
Nero didn't fiddle. So Peter Peter becomes a martyr. He's uh.
He's buried on Vatican Hill um and the Basilica of St.
Peter is built over him and um and from that
point on to honor Peter as as the first pope,
all other popes that fell into line behind him are
(11:50):
are considered to be the direct successor of Peter. So
if you look at the papal family tree, there's Peter
at the top, and then there's one other line, and
it's all the popes coming directly from Peter. Whoever follows
on this next one isn't descended from John Ratzenburger. He's
(12:12):
descended from Peter right. He's following Peter's direct rule right,
And as such, the pope is considered to be carrying
on directly the bestowment of power conferred by Jesus onto Peter. Yeah,
and I kind of like that. I guess that sort
of signifies it's it's the office and not the person,
you know what I mean, Like it puts the importance
(12:34):
on the office itself and not like, hey, you're following
this guy right well, you know, like you're following the
the original the o G. I was gonna say that,
but now about that's disrespectful. And then I thought, I've
called the pope John Ratzenburger four times. Sorry, I think
you got that covered, okay. Um. And then so that
you've got the the the idea that the pope is
(12:55):
a direct successor Peter, which gives him tons of power. Basically,
he's one grease separated from Jesus conferring the powers onto Peter.
And then um, the the bunch of bishops got together
to create the first Vatican Council in eighteen seventy and said,
you know what, not only that we we have thought
about it were theologians, and we've decided that the pope
(13:18):
is infallible in matters of spirituality and religion. That was
a big deal because it basically means you can't question
anything that comes out of his mouth. If he lays
down some doctrine, then that's the final word. Because Jesus
conferred these powers onto Peter, and these people are direct
successors of Peter and by by proxy, have the same power.
(13:41):
Jesus was infallible ex post facto, so is the pope.
That's what they said, And everybody said, Okay, we were
listening to him anyway, but thank you for making official. Yeah, exactly. So, Um,
that's the pope. That's the power of the pope. Um.
And again this is the was powerful figurehead of any religion.
(14:02):
There at one point six billion Muslims in the world,
but there's not a living figurehead of that of the
of Islam. With Catholicism there's one point two billion, and
there's one guy who's the head of it all, and
that's the Pope. So let's say Benedict hed retired. Let's
say he stayed pope until he died. What happens. What
(14:24):
happens when the pope died? Um? Well, the there's an
an authority called the Cardinal Carma Lingo I like that name,
or Chamberlain it's another name, and that's the Secretary of
State of the Vatican, and Vatican City is the smallest
independent state in the World's and change acres. Yeah, and
(14:46):
I think I told my story at the time about
walking around it because I was trying to find the
way in and there's no way in unless you go
on the front. Are you trying to sneak in the
back door of Vatican? So I just thought like, surely
you can get in this way, like, so they'll let me.
But there was just big, tall walls, and it's a
long walk around the Vatican. A hundred acres is kind
(15:07):
of a walk. Yeah, things like one ten or one's
I think dead on a country mile as the bird flies. Um,
all right, so where were we? So that the Secretary
of State uh assumes the non theological responsibilities of the
pope immediately, and it's sort of like if the president
passes on, the vice president takes over, you know, in
(15:30):
the interim running Vatican City. Yeah, actually not interim for
the president. Their permanent um, well until the next election,
right yeah, yeah, permanent meaning it's not an interim position unfortunately. Yeah. Uh,
so they have to confirm that the pope is dead,
and they call the pope's name three times. There's no
(15:51):
by name, I think, And there's a myth that I
had a hard time tracking down that they would hit
tap the pope on the head with a silver hammer
three times. And apparently that is something that they did
until the nineteen sixties, and that went the way of
the Dodo. I can imagine, because all the popes had
little bruises. Yeah, I think it was a tap and
(16:12):
not like a post mortem bruising from a hammer. But
I think they do use that same hammer to destroy
the ring of the fishermen, which they remove once the
pope is passed. Every pope has worn this for like
eight hundred years. Yeah, some version of it's like it's
a seal with Peter on a fishing boat fishing and
(16:32):
then the name of that pope and then they destroyed
the same one. But did you see whether they used
the same gold to make a new ring, remember for
missing gold recycled. That's true, but apparently they used that
silver hammer to destroy the ring and the seals. And Um,
the body lies there and repose for nine nine days consecutive.
(16:54):
They celebrate the funeral rights. There are no photos allowed.
Um because the bruising, yeah, as the bruising. But once uh,
they have put the pope in his vestments and the miter.
I guess, although I don't know, you're probably not buried
in the miter which the yeah, I don't recall seeing John. No,
(17:18):
he had his little skull cap on hich has a
specific name too. I can't take of that right now. No,
I think for them, it's different for Catholic popes. Um,
then you are allowed, if so deemed, you are allowed
to take a post mortem photo, like an official photo
for like documenting the situation. But you can't go in
(17:39):
there with your cameras. And if the pope is sick
on his deathbed, you can't go in there and film
that kind of stuff. It's untoward, it is. And then
they bury him. Yeah, they bury him in like a
little Matroshka doll in three coffins, one in case of
another encase, then another, so it's a cypress elm and
then lead. Yeah, and like who's working with lead these days?
(18:01):
I don't know, I guess Roman coffin maker. That's that's scary,
Like how do you prevent any kind of lead poisoning
when you're making a lead coffin. I don't know. I mean,
let's still use right, it's not like yeah, I think
it's fairly discontinued in in most cases. Yeah, you should
read this, Thump. There's a Mother Jones article called the
(18:23):
Real Criminal Element Lead. It is awesome, man. Yeah. Basically
they tied crime rates and the decline of crime rates
across American cities with the decline of letty gasoline. Interesting. Yeah,
it's really interesting and they do it pretty convincingly. You
should have called it, get the lead out, I thought. So, Like,
there's a bunch of different puns they could have made.
(18:44):
They chose one. So now we have to elect a
new pope. Right, whether whether Benedict was dead or not,
this is the same thing that's going to happen. And
like you said, they're trying to move it up because
he's not that they don't have to carry out the funeral, right. So, um,
And the first thing that happens is the College of Cardinals.
The guys who are going to serve as the electors,
(19:04):
not the University of Louisville, no, but the College of Cardinals. Um.
They get together and they enter what is called conclave,
which means with Key, which means that they are basically
sequestered from the rest of the world until they can
come to a two thirds agreement. Now I think that's
(19:24):
a simple majority is half plus one. This is like
straight up two thirds, I believe. So we need to
change this in um the Well, no, you can after
twelve or thirteen days go to a simple majority. Yeah,
but you want to be plus one is the first
go and then if that doesn't work, then you got
a simple majority. Well, then you're probably right because I
(19:46):
think this was Um, I don't know, man, we'll call
them out. I think it might have been Tom Harris.
We'll go with Tom. So it's probably we'll go with
two thirds plus one in this case. Um. So basically
the cardinals get to other they are sequestered. They they
basically there's I think a hundred and twenty of them tops.
(20:08):
There's one seventeen right now. They haven't picked the other
three yet. I don't think there are another three. So
there's a hundred between a hundred and seventeen and a
hundred and twenty electors cardinals who are going to vote
for pope. I think it's no more than a hundred
and twenty that's the maximum number. There's also an age limit.
If you turned eighty before the day the Pope dies
(20:31):
or retires, you're out. You're your old news um and
you can't vote. You can't be a cardinal in the electorate.
Even though the Benedict was like seventy eight when he
was elected pope. Right, Well, that doesn't cover pope. That
covers whoever is electing the pope. Yeah, no, but I
just find it interesting that two years later you you
can't even vote, yet they would put someone in, as
(20:54):
you know, the highest office. I don't know. Well, he
was the oldest pope ever elected. Yah know, these guys
can't even tweet. And you may laugh, but there are
nine active tweet twitterers in the College of Cardinals. Well,
there's the Pope has their Twitter account, pont effects. But
nine of the cardinals tweet themselves and they're there have
(21:16):
there's they have specifically been forbidden from tweeting during this
time period. I can see that. Oh, it's part of
you know, being under key in conclaff. I wonder if
they ever thought they would have to cover that though, Hey,
the world is changing, but tweeting cardinals Okay, So there's
two ballots a day, uh, for a total of four
(21:39):
to too possible in the morning too in the afternoon,
and then after twelve or thirteen days, if there's still
no pope, they can say, you know what, to heck
with this where it's going to go with a simple majority,
which I think is plus one and uh, then we'll
elect the new pope. And while they're doing this, there's
like some there's there's some details that you know, have
(22:00):
to be followed to vote for a new pope. Yeah,
it's pretty cool, Like you know, this information has always
been out there, but now in today's age, it's really
out there. So I think up until this election, a
lot of people probably didn't understand like exactly what's going on. Well,
Pope John Paul published um the guidelines. He said, Hey, everybody,
(22:22):
we're just being transparent. Here, here's what we're doing. Here,
south's done so. Uh, they're rectangular ballots and this is
all very important. Imagine they probably don't vary from this process.
I wouldn't be like, you know what, I'm gonna do
a round ballot just to mix things up. Um at
the top, yeah, at the top of the words, uh,
Latin words iligo in some of them pontiffs, Um, I
(22:44):
elect a supreme pontiff. So it's basically saying like, this
is the official ballot, and then below that the each
cardinal is going to write down the name in pen
of the pope hand in their little paper like it's
the elementary school student body. They folded twice. Now I
thought someone else. Uh oh no, they yah, they folded twice, right,
(23:05):
and then they put it on a plate and then
they used the plate to dump it into the ballot box. Yeah. Well,
and they have to say out loud, I call is
my witness, Christ, the Lord who will be my judge,
that my vote is given to the one who, before
God I think should be elected, which is saying like
I'm not I'm not bending to popularity. This in a
popularity contest. This is who I genuinely think God is
(23:27):
my witness should be pope. And they have to carry
it in the air. And I guess all of this
is just sort of like why they put it on
a plate and hold it in the air. It's just like, look,
nothing's happening. I wrote it down. This is the same
piece of paper. Well, it also makes um so so
cardinals while they're electing is a little known fact to
actually float down the aisle towards the ballot box until
(23:48):
holding the ballot up in the air makes the whole
thing look even cooler. Cool. Um, So you've got some
guys who are charged with counting the ballots and and
basically tally who's going to be pope. Of course, they're
called scrutineers. That's gonna be my next band name. And
the three scrutineers, just the scrutineers, okay, because there's four us. Well,
(24:09):
I was gonna say it would be kind of cool
if it was the three scrutineers, but there was four.
Really really freak out the crowd, man. Um. So you've
got the three scrutineers and two of them, uh they
they well, okay, so you have one sitting who takes
the ballot out of the ballot box, writes down the
name of the pope or the person voted for pope,
(24:30):
hands us to the next person the first to write
it down, and then the third um scrutineer reads the
name out loud and the other two they say, yep,
that's the one I have here that I wrote down,
and then they take it and pierce it through the
the eleigo with the needle and move it along a
line of thread, and then you have ultimately all the
(24:52):
ballots tallied. That's right. And uh, if they don't elect
the pope, they burn them, that's right. And very portant
step before that, they tie the end of it so
it's a sealed circle with the ballots hanging from it,
because if it's not tied shut, that means the vote
is still open, right yeah, Okay, So then they burn them.
(25:13):
And if it's if they haven't elected a pope through
that ballot, they added some chemical that makes the smoke
black and they blow it out of the Vatican Palace
to let everybody know no pope. Yet when they do
elect the pope, they just let it be white smoke, right, Yeah.
And it used to be they used to use like
wet straw and stuff, but there was confusion at times
(25:36):
when it didn't burn like appropriately. So now they just
add a chemical that they know was gonna do the job. Um.
And so when the new pope is elected, he the
guy comes to the uh, he meets with the Cardinal Deacon,
the secretary of the College of Cardinals, the cardinal Dean,
the master of papal liturgical celebrations. Right, that's a swinging crowd,
(25:59):
it is. And um, he says, oh please, really, really,
this is great news. Thank you for for doing this,
and the the Dean, I think, asked him a couple
of questions. Yeah. I have a feeling it's way more
official than what I would say, because they say, do
you accept your canonical election? And supreme pontiff? I would say,
(26:23):
you want to be pope? Are you sure you want
to be pope? And then by what name do you
wish to be called? And that you know, that's pretty
straight up that you'd say that just like that, not
say you want to be pope? What's your name? Give
me the name? Yeah, and they say who's this guy?
We need to know what to put on your seal? Yeah, exactly,
they do. So the pope accepts, well, you know, I
(26:47):
guess the pope is supposed to accept. I'm not sure
if that's ever not happened. I can't imagine, because you
would think they would withdraw their name earlier than that,
you know, or if they had second thoughts, that probably
pretty bad too, right. They were like, look, I just
talked about it with my wife, and she's like, I
don't know if we want to go into this chapter
of our life. Let's let's just retire, okay. So each
(27:10):
cardinal at that point, once the pope has the name
and has said yes, I definitely want to be pope,
they approached them pay homage to the new pope, probably
kiss the ring, yeah, I would say, so. I wonder
if they have the ring made up already, because you're
supposed to have that thing on, like like that's basically
like check it out, I'm I'm pope. I bet they do,
I would imagine, because the only thing that could happen
(27:33):
is the pope says I don't want to be a pope, yeah,
and then they just make a new ring, you know,
and they probably make the guy feel pretty bad too, like, well,
are you sure because we made the ring and everything already.
I bet this is all spelled out in some rule book,
you know, like oft not oft used rules of the
Catholic Church, like if they refuse, yeah, you strike them
on the head with the silver hammer. Maybe so um so.
(27:57):
Then traditionally, the oldest cardinal in the conclave steps that
they're at St. Peters Square there on the balcony, which
we've all seen a million times, and says habamus. Papam
basically says, we have a new pope. And then the
Pope comes out and the crowd goes wild like the Beatles,
like it's serious stuff. Man, weeping in I know in
(28:19):
in America it's not as I guess things have just
changed a little bit. I'm sure there are people in
United States that are still that moved. But you see
people from around the world like collapsing and crying, and
it's pretty amazing to watch pope papalmania paplemania. And so
in the pope basically says, okay, let's do this. Here's
(28:40):
my papal blessing. Good to meet you all. Let's go
forth and spread Catholicism. That's right. We should do one
on the pope at some point. Just about the duties.
I mean, they have a few in here, appoints, bishops
and cardinals, obviously spreading the good word, writing the official
documents about issues like what our official stances stuff like that. Yeah,
(29:04):
and then like getting world leaders to go along with them. Yeah.
And you know, back in the day, the pope had
a lot more sway in the h in the non
religious sector, like I could. They could, I could listen
to me. They could crown new emperors and like had
military power and stuff like that. Yeah, like, um, one
(29:24):
of the pope's crowned Charlemagne and started the Holy Roman Empire. Right,
that was something that popes could do. I can't do
that anymore. Um. And we we mentioned um Benedict changing
the name, like they asked, what name do you want
to go by? And there's actually an origin to this.
Um Pope John the Second, he was elected in five
(29:47):
thirty three and he was the one that started it
because he was born his his birth name was Curious,
named after Mercury, which is a pagan Roman god. Yeah,
and he was like, I don't think I should have
a pagan name as pope, so he changed his name
to John the Second, and uh, there you have. That's
(30:09):
where the tradition began. Yeah. And I think generally now
they choose a name of a previous pope that they
admired perhaps or a favorite saint or a favorite saint,
and then they get on with the poping. Yep, I
wonder what the new one. I'm really interested, you know,
I'm pulling for the guy from Ghana. Yeah, I want
to know what his name is gonna be too? Ah,
you got anything else about the pope or the Papacy?
(30:31):
I should say? No, the Potmobile pretty awesome car. Don
you remember that? Yeah? Sure, when they came out with
the bulletproof. Ah, like a tube that he sits in.
It's pretty smart. He stands in and waits. It's a
tall tune. That's right. Okay, Well, if you want to
(30:53):
learn more about the Pokemobile, you can type the word
Papacy p A P A C Y in the search
part how stuff works dot com and um, I don't
know what that'll well, Papasi will bring that that article
if it won't bring anything up about the Popmobile. And
I'm afraid, but just try try Potmobile and see what happens.
Um my inn report walking to another universe. Since I
(31:15):
said Potmobile, it means it's time for a listener mail.
I'm gonna call this veterinaria Canadian vets. What's up? Friends?
My name is Anne Marie and I'm a super fan
veterinarian from Newfoundland, uh, Canada almost a Connecticut. I thought
you're gonna say Kentucky. I discovered you in two thousand
(31:37):
eleven when I went on maternity leave, and maternity leave
here in Canada can be up to a full year.
In addition to that, man, my daughter was born ten
weeks early, so I was off for fourteen months. Holy cow,
Creepily you both became my support system during this time.
Luckily I came up upon the podcast at the time
where they were around two episodes. I would push the
(31:58):
stroller every day for at LEAs an hour and laugh
out loud at your antics. I listened like clean cooked,
and did various baby related duties. Uh. Now that I'm
back at work, I eagerly await new episodes and have
gone back and submitted to listening to episodes I dismissed
previously as boring. I encourage people to do that. Oh yeah,
like population is constantly a good one to go back.
(32:21):
That's what she listened to. Did you know? She said?
I listened to recently and happy to report that even
how population works entertain me. I even listen at work,
particularly when I'm doing a doggy surgery. You are a
favorite while I'm doing a dental surgery. Actually, last week
I listen to why do men have nipples? While working
in the dog's mouth. Thanks for getting me through some
(32:42):
difficult tooth extractions anyway, hats off to you both. I
suffered from a mild case of hero worship. I wanted
to say thanks. I don't know if I would call it.
My daughter and I say woot Josh and Chuck and
my husband says, not that podcast again, and I guess
he slaps us for it. Yeah, so Amrie or something,
(33:05):
you get out your own little silver hammer, tap your
husband on the head and say, my daughter and I
are getting smarter. Tap him very very very lightly lightly
on think. So whoever a Marie's husband is, get get
on the train. My friend maybe get a helmet soon.
And she says awkward hugs and and thanks to Canada,
(33:25):
thanks from or thanks to Canada too. I guess for
that fourteen month paid leave to can't you see her
like she's putting a dog under and she's like one
for you, one for you, one for me with the
gas all right, So thanks Amrie, and thanks to Canada
for some reason. Uh, if you want to send us
an oddly worded homage or thanks or whatever, we love
(33:49):
those those the best kind um and uh we want
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(34:11):
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