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This is an excerpt from Karl Keating's E-Letter:

Let me share some with you, taken from the letters-to-the-editor department of the "National Catholic Reporter":

1. Mike Coverdale of Nevada, Iowa:

"I turned the TV on just before noon, at the very moment Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was announced as Pope Benedict XVI. 'No!' I screamed from the depths of my soul. I hit the speed dial to my wife's cell phone. 'They not only shut the doors with this guy, they locked them!' I shouted. 'I don't know what to do now,' I cried, feeling physically ill."

2. Mark Summit of Portland, Oregon:

"I am deeply saddened and distressed by the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy, so much so that I sat outside the Portland cathedral the afternoon of the 'Mass of the Holy Spirit,' holding a sign that said 'The Spirit Was Asleep.'"

3. Michaeleen Swanson of Lakeville, Minnesota:

"The morning headlines may as well have read instead: 'Cardinals to Catholic Women: Go to Hell.' We Catholic women have been told for so many years, just hang in there, we are only one death away from change. Well, some of us have hung in there, but every day the handhold is slipping."

4. Pierre LaPlante of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

"Since Cardinal Ratzinger has been elected pope, I guess I won't be returning to the Catholic Church too soon. This man is the most undesirable of all the candidates and a reinforcement of all I would have hoped could have been modified."

My take to these letters:

1. I was watching television at the same moment as Mr. Coverdale. My shouted reaction differed somewhat from his: "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

2. No matter who might have been elected, some Catholics would be disappointed. I can understand that, but something is amiss internally if a man such as Mr. Summit feels a need to march down to a cathedral and hold up a sign that calls into question the competence of the Third Person of the Trinity.

3. Who told Ms. Swanson to "hang in there" and that her feminist aspirations would be realized as soon as that frail Pole left the stage? The poor woman was done a disservice by the leftwing lectures she attended and by the dissentient publications she read.

Had the heterodox cared a whit for her mental equilibrium, they would have been honest with her: Not even the most liberal of the papabile, had he been elected, would have instituted a female priesthood or would have authorized the use of contraceptives. The Holy Spirit that Mr. Summit is so disappointed in would see to that.

4. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger is said to have opined that, for the good of the Church and of the world, it might be necessary that the Church shrink. A Church abandoned by the heterodox would be more unified and could act as a "creative minority," in the new pope's words.

One side of me says that we should struggle to keep every Catholic in the Church because the Church is everyone's true home. The other side of me says that it would be good for the Church and for those irreconcilably unhappy with her if such folks packed their bags. As years go by, I lean more and more toward this side. I suppose my patience has worn thin.

There has been plenty of time for people such as Mr. LaPlante to come to terms with the truths of the faith. The Church has a fresh start with a new pope, and maybe Mr. LaPlante and others like him should have a fresh start by resolving to live no longer in a charade. Let them join some other religious body. It would be better for us and, probably, even for them, on the principle that some people need to leave home in order to appreciate it.

PAPABILE NEXT TIME AROUND

I hope Pope Benedict lives as long as Bob Hope or George Burns, but let's assume he ends up having an average-length reign of 7.5 years--call it eight years. What does that suggest regarding those considered papabile at this year's conclave?

Some cardinals who were thought to have a chance to be elected pope will be too old to vote if the next conclave is eight years off: Dario Castrillon Hoyos (Colombia), Francis Arinze (Nigeria), Lubomyr Husar (Ukraine), Walter Kasper (Germany).

I suspect the next man who is elected will be younger than 78-year-old Joseph Ratzinger. Somewhat arbitrarily, let's say the effective age limit will be 72.

If so, then, eight years from now, that would eliminate Ennio Antonelli (Italy), Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Italy), Godfried Daneels (Belgium), Ivan Dias (India), Claudio Hummes (Brazil), Nicolas de Jesus Lopes Rodriguez (Dominican Republic), Wilfrid Fox Napier (South Africa), and Giovanni Battista Re (Italy). You will notice that this list includes most of those who had been favored by liberal pundits.

Still in the running, from this year's papabile, would be Christoph Sch�nborn (Austria), George Pell (Australia), Marc Ouellet (Canada), Norberto Rivera Carrera (Mexico), Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras).

My guess is that, despite his strengths, Sch�nborn will be a long shot because it's not likely that one German speaker would follow another. Pell comes from a land far, far away and one with few Catholics. Ouellet has the disadvantage of living too close to the U.S. Rivera Carrera and Rodriguez Maradiaga live further away, not just in miles but in perception, so I'd leave them in the running.

All this is grossly speculative, of course, but it does suggest that the passing of just a few years will see big changes in the constellation of forces at the top of the Church. One also needs to factor in that Pope Benedict, if he does reign for eight years, likely will have named quite a few new cardinals himself.

If our new pope does live as long as Messrs. Hope and Burns, it's likely that I won't be around to witness the next conclave, since I will have passed my actuarial expectations. Benedict will have reigned longer even than John Paul II, and probably not a single one of today's cardinals will be young enough to be elected.