Chimney Cam

Pope Watch. Gull Cam. (Yes there was a seagull on top of the chimney for a while.) Everyone has a catchy name to signify the election of a new Pope.

Whenever the new Pope is elected, you will hear it here. Probably not first, but eventually I will report on it.

Here's one article, and I'm sure there are hundreds more, about what's happening over in Vatican City. Scroll through all seven photos at the top of the article. In the first one, I see that although the Cardinals seem to dress alike, there are subtle differences. Some outfits have more lace to them, some have a bit more of an ivory color rather than white. The red seems to all be exactly like in the robes so that makes me wonder if there is a huge bolt of red fabric in Rome that only is used for Cardinal gear. It would just look wrong to have a photo of all the Cardinals and some of the robes are sort of maroon while others tend to be a bit red-orange. Luckily that problem is taken care of. Whew.

In photo number five you can see the vestments in Small, Medium and Large. It also looks like there are seven, maybe eight different sizes of shoes to pick from.

What would it be like to be sitting there voting on the next Pope and wondering, "Will it be me?" And what about that thing where any Catholic male can be chosen. What if they pick someone who is currently in, say, New York, or maybe South Carolina? The white smoke would come out the chimney, the bells would start ringing and then we would have to wait for that person to get an airplane ticket, pack a suitcase, probably submit a resignation at work, and high tail it over to Rome to appear on that balcony.

While part of me thinks that Stephen Colbert would make a wonderful Pope, if he was elected, I would hope that he would still broadcast The Colbert Report live from the Vatican.