Obligatory Benedict XVI post
Here's the thing I'm wondering about the pontiff formerly known as Cliffy from Cheers. How is it that he had his pope name ready so quickly after being elected? Did they gave him a little time to think about it before the announcement? Or is it like actors and their Oscar speeches, and every cardinal secretly spends his whole career thinking up the perfect pope name for when his big moment surely comes?
Or maybe it's just the name of his first pet and the street he grew up on.
Comments
James T. Farrell wrote an introduction to one of the H.L. Mencken anthologies. If I remember aright he quoted HLM as saying every politician at the political convention they were covering thought of themselves as the next president.
Pious as he probably is even Joe “The Rat” Ratzinger probably couldn’t the delicious feel of possible papal monikers even when he was back in seminary.
Posted by: Richard | April 20, 2005 1:26 PM
What I don't understand is how those clowns at InTrade foresaw the name. That it would be Cardinal Knuckles is, in its way, predictable, but Benedict? That's some strange power.
Posted by: TG Gibbon | April 20, 2005 2:25 PM
What I withheld from my post -- because there was a chance my colleague Remy Stern was going to write about it for the upcoming Radar web site -- was that several people registered Benedict related domain names within the past few weeks.
I mention it now, because Wired noticed it too.
Posted by: radosh | April 20, 2005 2:28 PM
"He ended up buying six in all -- including ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com and PiusXIII.com. Some domains, like JohnPaulIII.com and JohnXXIV.com, already were taken."
Posted by: Ted | April 20, 2005 10:27 PM