A possibly interesting, bizarre element to this story.
I have mentioned here and elsewhere demagogue/comedian Beppe Grillo who has taken Italy by storm by becoming a political force at the last elections with a political party with no infrastructure and allegedly internet-based.
This political movement has one of his founders in a technocrat named Gianroberto Casaleggio, who owns a internet prediction & survey company spawned off the italian main telecom company (here an old manifest:
http://www.casaleggio.it/thefutureofpol ... leggio.php), and who apparently has many official and unofficial contacts with american entities (in italian here:
http://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-3/polit ... -52456.htm)
Gianroberto Casaleggio from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ja ... t-internet
Now I read that in a pamphlet jointly written with Grillo and communist Nobel prize winner Dario Fo, "Il Grillo canta sempre al tramonto" (The cricket always sings at sunset,
here on amazon and
here on Beppe Grillo's website) he happened to say:
Non deve essere un caso che non esista un papa che si sia fatto chiamare Francesco. Noi abbiamo scelto appositamente la data di San Francesco per la creazione del MoVimento. Politica senza soldi. Rispetto degli animali e dell’ambiente. Siamo i pazzi della democrazia, forse molti non ci capiscono proprio per questo e continuano a chiedersi chi c’è dietro.
It is not by chance that there never was a Pope named Francesco. We have chosen on purpose the date of Saint Francesco [October 4th] for the creation of our movement. Politics without money. Respect for animals and the environment. We are crazy for democracy, many perhaps do not understand this and keep wondering who's behind it.
From http://www.corriere.it/politica/13_marz ... 1d4a.shtml
The book came out in
February 2013. Anyone is free to believe in coincidences. I am rather seeing a joint action here. Possibly of american origin.
Sounds stupid, but I cannot here forget that the captain who ran the Concordia ship aground was named
Francesco. The wrecking of the European Union via the taking over of Italy is no small feat and would deserve a Pope.
(Perhaps it is not useless to note that the words and the thoughts behind all this can be rightful and even beautiful. Here's how the new pope explained why he took such a name:
"And when the votes reached two thirds, there was the usual applause, because the Pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss, and said: “Don't forget the poor!” And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. For me, he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation; these days we do not have a very good relationship with creation, do we? He is the man who gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!" From
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/franc ... ia_en.html
This account is obviously false, since it is clear that he must have expected the result long in advance and had all the time to pick a name and for precise reasons. However, "poor" is a beautiful word indeed, that many have been expecting for long, in the hope for a poor church. Not that I especially care, but I wonder if here the words don't also promise a "weak" church, one that doesn't get in the way of "progress" even if only because of self-perpetuation of the powerful, obtuse and reactionary.)