Man, this is new pope is soooo cool. As has been noted around the blogosphere, he's gotta be good because he's pissing off all the right people. My favorite reaction has to be Andrew Sullivan's, who was apparently hoping for Pope Kumbaya I who'd be totally groovy with strap-on lesbian couples as long as they did in a loving Christian environment.

So anyway, what's this all about:

For American Catholics, I foresee an accelerating exodus.

This is the kind of context-free tripe that passes for analysis among columists that's really starting to piss me off. Why are they going to leave? It seems to me that the most successful religions are the ones that are strict, that claim to speak for something eternal, not the ones pushing flavour of the week beliefs (Rowan Williamson, I'm looking at you)

And in case you haven't noticed, Catholics the world around have been quite capable of adjusting official Church theology to the needs of their personal lives. How many Catholic families do you see running around with 16 kids these days anyway?