Well people could choose to stop with the religion thing in response.

stuff that matters

The same people who hated Benedict XVI and John Paul II will hate Pope Francis. How dare he believe in 2000 years worth of teachings about the sanctity of life and marriage being between a man and a woman when it's all so unfashionable?

Why did liberal atheist's care so much what the Pope thinks. No one is holding a gun to your head to force you to be a Catholic. Why do so many liberals feel threatened by any source of power outside of government?

Best keep that straw and chimney handy.

Please explain how they are not compatible?

Now will he renounce the current Catholic stance on condoms, so that perhaps we can save, oh, hundres of thousands or even millions of lives?

Will he: Disawow the insane and puerile dogma of original sin?

(Etc.)

Who would have thought that nerds might not unanimously believe that an old man voted in by some other old men might not be Gods representative on earth?

No, this is A Website for Advertisers, and one of the easiest ways to get a lot of page views is to post an article where all the angry atheists can come argue about who is the most bitter toward religion.

Being humble, but also believing that your views on how other people should live their lives are so righteous that others shouldn't even be able to decide for themselves, are mutually exclusive.

Guess he'll continue the long, proud tradition of covering for child molesters too.

Presuming to know what's good for homosexuals, inadvertently pregnant women and people who want to have sex without getting pregnant and then forcing those views upon them through a large, well organized, well resourced church is not exhibiting humility. An approach imbued with humility would go alone the lines of - I think these things are true, but I might be wrong, so I'll exercise caution and be mindful of contrary opinions. Depending on context, 'pride', 'egotism' or 'arrogance' would serve as opposites to 'humility'. This chap appears to exhibit at least two of the three. I've never met him though, so I'm not sure about the first one.

Will he: Disawow the insane and puerile dogma of original sin?

. . . and espouse the good news of salvation by grace which was promised by the one they claim to follow?

Of course not. That would end Catholic guilt, and eliminate the need for indulgences.

Because it has a substantial impact on the world.

Because being a prideful prick damning the world from his ivory tower based on the superstitions from a book emboldening bronze age morality is the opposite of humility?

Just because something is 2000 years old doesn't make it right. Should we bring back old testament style animal sacrifices as well?

I have no problem with catholics being anti-gay and excluding gays from their church - if god is not the compassionate and forgiving god that they are always talking about it, well, it's their god and they can believe what they want.

But where I do have a problem is when the members of the church try to deprive the rights of homosexuals outside of church.

Know thine enemy.

He might make statements that are held to be authoritative by 1.2billion people?

When have our views on contraception, abortion and homosexuality modernized? In the last 30, 20 and 10 years. Same-sex marriage is still a huge debate. The pope is 76. The pope with a modern view is 20 today, and will become pope in 40-60 years.
This is not a democracy where you can replace people every 4 years, this is a rigid hierarchical structure of with no balances and 1 billion people. And it is supposed to not change much.

The problem isn't people believing different things. The problem is the bit where their believes are forced onto others from a moralistic high ground that has no demonstrable basis in reality.

And people could choose to stop with software with DRM in response.

But some folks have to have their games, just as some will have their religion.

John Paul II was elected pope at and earlier age and some would say electing a younger pope, means having a pope for a long time. Now the younger pope may be more of a reformist... However he will stay in power for so long, that his reforms will become old, and backwards. Having older popes with a gradual changes could be more productive.

The big issues is that us Western Cultures have in terms of Sex Rights. (Woman's Rights, Abortion, Gay Marriage, Contraceptives) Are fairly new (40 or so years old) A younger pope may address these issues... However The way he addresses these issue will stay the same for the next 40-50 years. By that point culture would have changes where that method would seem unheard of. Having an older pope who will last 5-15 years means every new pope will gradually put in new changes.
In some ways is like having continual obsoleteness in your policy. However sometimes a popular idea at the time turns out to be be a bad idea.

For example in the United States Bill Clinton Signed the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy. This at the time was actually considered to be pro-Gay bill. Where it prevent the military from trying to find gay people to kick out. However over time and culture has changed further, the Don't Ask Don't Tell was considered to be anti-Gay and needed to be repealed.
If we get a young Pope, he may come up with an appropriate compromise solution at the time, then by the time he dies or resigns, the policy is completely outside the change in our values.

"Our views" (depending a lot on who "us" is; assuming the general European populace from which the uppermost Catholic hierarchy is mainly drawn) on contraception modernized in the 1960s, when the pope was (barely) a 20-something. Since that time, there have only been very small ultra-conservative enclaves (the Papacy among them) in which birth control --- even for married couples waiting for a better time to start their family --- is considered an abomination. The Catholic hierarchy lags much farther behind on these issues than your simple chronological estimates (though not the general Catholic population, which statistically employs birth control as frequently as everyone else).

Good stuff, and good on ya for not feeling compelled to be a dick about it.

The world really is a much more tolerable place, when people can disagree without the vitriol and anger.

Believe it or not there are many Catholics that see no conflict between science and our faith. We start from the definition of God being the creator of the universe. Therefore anything you learn about science teaches you about God. There can be no conflict.

Really Slashdot? I get the whole Libertarian "take away marriage benefits from everyone" argument, but did you have to mod up the guy that just reduced gay relationships to the "selfish desires of people in a relationship that is destined to be sterile"?

I know this place has been going downhill for a while, but I didn't think we'd stooped THAT low. How about we make our arguments without implying that LGBT people should just suck it up, stop being "selfish" and be heteronormative for the sake of the children?