Oh. My. God.

The far right of the Catholic heirarchy got its man elected today. Joseph Ratzinger of Germany is now Benedict XVI. I said that age would be crucial, but even I underestimated the desire of the cardinals to have the next papacy be short: at 78, Benedict is the oldest newly elected Pope in almost 300 years. In fact, our best hope may be that the conclave is just stalling a bit—that the conservatives got him in by saying, "Let's have someone who can represent the old order for just a little while, someone who won't be around so long that the transition to the new Church is put off very far." New Popes choose their names in order to communicate what kind of style or focus they'll have, but I think this breaks that tradition; I very much doubt Benedict will be a caretaker, transition, or any other form of moderate.

Edited: I especially should know that "pontificate" and "papacy" are not synonymous.