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| But Americans in Rome during conclaves always carry Old Glory about with them - just in case! |
The news that the new Pope comes from not just a military family but from a US Navy family really shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. His father served during the Second World War. His brother also served.
That no doubt is one of the reasons why he's been entrusted with trying to tidy up the mess of the Bergoglio papacy. Needless to say, he and Bergoglio were elected by essentially the same people.* The difference is that Bergoglio was a disaster in every possible way - including those that matter to Uncle Sam. (The Vatican's coffers, natch - and of course the institution's capacity to project its "soft power" around the world to further western interests, e.g. peace for the sake of prosperity and free trade, and "human rights" and "democracy" in the face of the world's increasingly integrated networks of dodgy dictatorships and quasi-dictatorships!)
Needless to say, they weren't expecting Bergoglio to fuck up literally everything he turned his spiteful, vindictive little mind to - including opening up splits between Catholics over things like liturgy and sexuality, which must have seemed quite baffling to any standard US foreign policy wonk. (And of course they hadn't expected Benedict XVI at all - the Michael Gove-style wild card of the 2005 Conclave. Strange but true, but back in 2013 the narrative coming out of Langley was that the new Pope was going to have to clean up Ratzinger's mess. Be careful what you wish for!)
*And no, I still don't believe in nonsense about "the St Gallen Mafia". Austen Ivereigh is Deep State, working with the Americans. James Martin SJ was at university in Chicago. He and Robert Prevost are old friends.
