"Habemos Popa."

After a week of deathwatch for John Paul II, a week of funeral ceremonies, and a couple of days of conclave, a new pope has been named. The word is Pope Benedict XVI is conservative, hardline and a blast from the 18th Century. Same old same old.

Our entire media has been "All Pope, All The Time" for weeks now -- which is all out of proportion to the amount of Catholics in the U.S., in the world, etc. Why all the attention? Have we all become religious? Have Catholic values become "common sense"?

Nope. It's all about power. The old guy had power and the new guy will have power. How that power is translated into the world is of concern to world leaders. But is it going to make any difference in your life or mine? Not hardly.

I've spent the last few days reading Cynthia Enloe. She's terrific at questioning assumptions and examining power relations. Reading about feminist analysis of world events while watching this uber-masculine Vatican spectacle has been a curious experience. When you look at the amazing Catholic clergy who have made a profound difference in the world: people like Archbishop Oscar Romero, you can see that not one of them was represented at the College of Cardinals. A bunch of bureacrats picking the head bureacrat. And we have to see this on the news day after day.

Forecast is for another week of this obsession, until Benedict is formerly installed, and then the media can go back to its regularly scheduled spectacles. Praise be.