Updates

Just keepin' track of my life. . .

Son Numero Uno is studying architecture this summer.  He came home for the Arlo concert and might come home this week-end, too.  It's nice to have him close by for a change.

(School of Architecture Oculus)

Other Son Numero Uno is in Barcelona for two more weeks.  He went to the Salvadore Dali Museum last Sunday but did not get to Montserrat as he was supposed to on Saturday because -- ahem -- he was out partying till 6:30 a.m. and slept through his train.  Hope he gets there this week-end; it's the one place I wanted him to go.  He and his newfound friends from all over Europe are not too thrilled with the Spanish club scene, but they've found an Irish pub they enjoy.

Delightful Daughter has two weeks to go at her animal shelter summer job.  She has grown and toughened up considerably, and become quite the expert on animal abuse, neglect and welfare.  She heard from her college yesterday and, like another journaler's daughter, was dismayed to discover she has been assigned to a women's dorm.  (It looks beautiful.)  Once her job is over, she and I are off to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, which means. . .

I did it; I splurged on a new camera.  I can't even begin to afford what I want, but I decided that I didn't want to spend a whole week on the edge of Canada regretting that I had not upped the ante just a bit.  I'm going to settle down and start to learn it in a little while. 

I've finished my paper on papal elections.  Just in case you were waiting breathlessly on the edge of your seat, I can report as follows:

Stephen IV, the first pope who attempted to regulate papal elections, called a synod in 769  which determined that the pope should be elected from among the cardinals.  Stephen IV’s rule was revoked under Pope Eugene II upon the insistence of Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, who additionally insisted that the Pope take an oath of loyalty to the emperor .  After several decades of chaos, Pope Gregory VII appeared on the scene, at first in the influential person of Cardinal Hildebrand, advisor to several of his predecessors as pope. He was behind Pope Nicholas II’s decree that the popes would be elected by the six cardinal-bishops of Rome, which set off major debates among the clergy and royalty, and was never truly effective. As Gregory VII, Hildebrand was elected pope  because the people of Rome insisted upon it.  By the time Alexander III became pope 75 years later, it was apparent that papal elections had to become standardized according to written decree.   Pursuant to the Third Lateran Council over which he presided, the 1179 rule under which the church still operates today was issued:  the pope, the Bishop of Rome, was to be elected by a two-thirds vote of the cardinals:

 

 

See, I knew you all wanted to know that the tradition via which the new pope has come to us is only 825 years old and obviously could be amended.