From: le@lekno.ws   
      
   As we prepare for the choice of the next Pope,   
   we are faced this time with not one but two classic   
   examples of "didn't think it through",one of which   
   can be easily set aside (as it was last time) but   
   the new one is rather more difficult to square   
   with its implications.   
      
   Pope Benedict set up a situation where after 33   
   ballots of no one getting two thirds of the votes   
   the cardinals are thereafter required to vote on   
   only the top two vote-getters until one DOES get   
   two thirds of the votes,which would be a problem   
   if those two were both inalterably opposed by at   
   least a third of the electors,but no conclave has   
   gone through that many ballots in a very long time.   
      
   Pope Francis,however,when the position of Vice-Camerlengo   
   of the Holy Roman Church fell open in 2020,chose to   
   appoint the current Secretary of the College of Cardinals,   
   Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari.   
      
   He has continued to hold both jobs since.   
      
   Now,the Secretary of the College of Cardinals,who is   
   not a member of it,does the recordkeeping and vote-counting   
   and must be INSIDE the conclave throughout (there is a   
   tradition that he is then made a Cardinal and given a   
   higher job by the man whose election he certifies but   
   this is not invariable).   
      
   The Vice-Camerlengo,on the other hand,is the man who   
   turns the OUTSIDE key locking the Cardinals into the   
   conclave,while the Cardinal Camerlengo turns the INSIDE   
   key...and he then runs the Apostolic Camera for the   
   period of the conclave while the Camerlengo himself   
   is locked away inside.   
      
   I do not believe that Archbishop Montanari has the   
   super-power of being in two places at once while   
   obliged by each of the jobs he is doing to not be   
   in the other place,though with the Christian shtick   
   of Jesus being "100% God and 100% Man and don't   
   tell me I can't have 200%!" I suppose they'll think   
   of something.(I don't suppose the chapel door is   
   designed to be closed on someone cutting him in   
   half and then he couldn't use the key anyway).   
      
   -=-=-   
   The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,   
   at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)