Where There’s Smoke, There’s Friar

Habemus papam!

As it happened, I was sitting at a cafe in the city of Assisi when Cardinal Robert Prevost was announced as the 267th Bishop of Rome.

I’m still digesting the circumstances: an American Pope, graduate of Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, a White Sox fan!

I love that he chose the name Leo XIV. As he remarked to the College of Cardinals, the name indicates a focus I believe is super important:

Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour. Source: vatican.va

I will continue to pray for the new Pope. In order to live into his new role, he will need God’s grace and the collaboration of the faithful and all people of good will.

The kerning on the pope’s tomb is a travesty

It really is quietly beautiful. But atop that marble is a tomb inscribed with the name “Franciscus.” Or what—due to terrible spacing between letters, known as kerning—reads something more like “F R A NCIS VS.”

This is a grave matter.

John Oliver on RFK

Yesterday’s episode of Last Week Tonight is worth watching if you’re interested in public health or are looking for a reason to quarantine yourself for the next four years.

Habemus Papam

Per recent news, I was reminded of this gem of a film: the winner of Best Film at the 2011 Italian Golden Globes.

A movie that imagines an answer to the question: What if the Cardinal elected by the conclave is worried he’s not up to the job?

Finished reading: Neoliberalism’s Demons by Adam Kotsko 📚

Neoliberalism is, in sum, a totalizing world order, an integral self-reinforcing system of political theology, and it has progressively transformed our world into a living hell. This is felt most acutely by those who have been fully demonized by an economically rapacious and brutally violent prison system.

Medicaid makes it possible.

This is firmly in my bullseye: esoteric liturgical nomenclature and a solid pun.

If only the thurifer was a member of a mendicant religious order. (Because if there’s smoke, there’s friar.)

Shopify CEO says no new hires without proof AI can’t do the job

Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.

If your default is to require proof that humans are more capable than a computer program, you may be doing it wrong.

Finished reading: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams 📚

Finished reading: Between Heaven and Mirth by James Martin 📚