"Benedetto" scores big time on all fronts

In St. Peter's Square at dusk yesterday, as he gave his first Papal Blessing, a wildly cheering crowd of more than 100,000 affectionately called him "Benedetto!" Meanwhile, sincere accolades have been pouring in from throughout the globe.

However, not even elected for 24 hours yet and already the aggressive secular modernists and radical leftists are severely criticizing, labeling and defaming His Holiness -- especially on "progressive" Internet list servers, chat rooms, news groups, etc. -- as was to be expected from such whiney malcontents...

Within His Holiness' first public Mass in the Sistine Chapel as Pontiff today, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute in accented Italian to "The Great John Paul II." Symbolic of continuity, within his hands is the same cruciform pastoral staff that his beloved predecessor of blessed memory also carried.

Preaching in Latin, he stated that his "primary task" would be to work without fail to reunify all Christians. Yet he has courageously condemned "religious pluralism" and relativism over the years, the idea that other religions can hold the way to salvation (syncretism), and has blocked radical priests who support such contrary views. During the Millennium, Cardinal Ratzinger was the driving voice of the Vatican document "Dominus Jesus" which called for a new Catholic evangelism and aptly described other faiths as lesser searches for the truth.

His election yesterday in four ballots over two days — the first of Tuesday's afternoon session — concluded one of the shortest conclaves in 100 years. He is the oldest pope elected since +Clement XII in 1730 and the first Germanic pope in almost a millennium. So get ready for some old time religion...