I love this article

Written on 4:32 PM by Jack B.

This is a must read op-ed piece by 17 year-old Lori Janeski:
New pope appeals to young Catholics, too

Excerpt:

For days, all we heard about was "transitional pope, transitional pope, transitional pope," yadda yadda yadda. "He's too old, he's just a transition from the archconservative menace of John Paul II. When Benedict dies (which will be soon, don't worry about that), then we'll see those changes we've been hoping for."

Yeah, right.

What is commonly misunderstood is that even though there is a new pope sitting in St. Peter's chair, that doesn't mean that things will suddenly change in favor of heresy. How many of us know which of the hot-button issues can change and which can't? And how many of us know why some things simply cannot change no matter who sits in Peter's chair?

Of the 1 billion Catholics in the world, only 6 percent of us live in the United States, and it's an even smaller percentage of those people who want these drastic changes. So who are the dissenters?

I remember waiting and watching for the new pope to appear and make his address to the 1 billion members of the Universal Church. I had been looking forward to seeing that all day. To think that I will be able to tell my children that I saw the pope's opening words and even received the blessing he sent out to the world! But I saw one thing that moved me even more than the fact that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the new pope.

Before he even appeared on the balcony, after the white smoke drifted over the horizon, when the bells in the city began to toll announcing that there was a new pope, there were hundreds of people, perhaps even thousands, running - no, sprinting - into St. Peter's Square, excited beyond belief. And who were those Olympic-class sprinters?

The young people.

They're also the ones who spent days sleeping on the pavement in St. Peter's Square waiting for the conclave's decision, using the street curbs for pillows. When they announced that Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected, those young people were laughing and crying, hugging each other and dancing in the street. They love him. I know, I'm one of them.

Pope John Paul II was, in a sense, the mapmaker for our times. He was a philosopher who explained the church teachings as they apply to a modern world. He was a thinker. Benedict XVI is steering the ship. He's the one who can take the maps John Paul left us and teach us how to steer the ship through troubled waters without getting thrown off and drowned in the modern culture. He's the action man.

Long live Benedict XVI!