General Discussion

There are 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. America accounts for roughly 4% of them.

The new Pope is considered fairly young in modern papal terms, and the Conclave knew they were electing someone who could serve 15-20 years.

And they were like, "You know what? We should base our entire decision on a politician who will be in office for maybe three years. If that, given his age and health. Yes, let's hold the entire Catholic faith hostage and ignore parishioners around the world so we can deal with American Catholics who barely go to church as it is."

This seems . . . unlikely to me.

Oh, I don't doubt a rebuke of Trump might be a nice incidental cherry on top of their pope sundae, but believing that was a core motivation of that institution is extremely Amerocentric.

Our belly buttons aren't that fascinating.