Why Choosing a New Pope is a Big Deal

When Americans, Canadians and British citizens elect a new national leader through the democratic process, the world’s media announces the new leader, and that’s about it.

When the Catholic Church appoints it’s new leader, the world’s media gathers like geese at a feeding frenzy around the Vatican, waiting for the plumes of smoke to spill out overhead, signalling those in the know will soon tell all.

As with most things about the Catholic Church, much of the process is cloaked in mystery, hidden from the public’s right to know through secrecy and ritual.

That’s quite an accomplishment in the always on digital social media universe which usually spills all, revealing all, even the stuff no one is supposed to know.

But the real question we should be asking ourselves, especially those of us not of the Catholic faith – why should the world care who the new Pope is?

The answer, surprisingly is very social – it’s all about influence.

Billions of people around the world feed, clothe and house the citizens of Vatican City – a separate country, located in Rome, Italy – through their donations to their Catholic Church.

Religion has been declining in much of the Western world, thanks in part to modernization, and a whole new generation of people so wired into technology, they don’t require the faith instilled in oneself by believing in – well –faith.

However, as the rich get richer and the poor ever so more poor, third-world countries have been taking up the slack, and are becoming the followers of the world’s largest organized religion – the Catholic Church.

And although Vatican City is only a few acres in the middle of a small country in Europe, it receives more fiscal support than all the governments in the Western world combined.

So when the Pope asks his followers to do something, he’s got more clout than the biggest and most powerful countries on the planet.

No, the Pope doesn’t have access to “the button,” so he won’t send in his soldiers into some country and try a take-over, nor will he threaten to fire a nuclear weapon and create a new world war.

But he can influence Catholics globally from any one of the thousands of masses he holds throughout his Papal career. Through his lectures, his readings, his blessings and his teachings, he influences his global following in the ways of the Bible – with a little hint of his own personal bias, and will.

It’s also noteworthy that influence is backed by a fiscal machine generating money from every corner of the world. No other government has such a wide reaching tax –base.

And that’s why choosing a new Pope is a big deal.

Regardless of your own beliefs, the military power of the American government, or the threat of nuclear war from North Korea, the Pope has the power of influence over billions of people around the world.

And it’s that influence which makes him a real force to be reckoned with.

Which is why all the world is waiting for a little plume of smoke.