Under the wire: Sign of the times

OPINION: In the couple of thousand years and several hundred conclaves they’ve had to work on it, the cardinals apparently haven’t quite got the knack of mixing the chemicals to make their ballot papers burn appropriately.

Same thing happened in 1978, with the election of John Paul II -- that time the smoke was an indifferent grey before whitening up. That’s analogue technology for you: inherently unreliable.

However, the media were unfazed by the green smoke, if they noticed it at all, because they had already been told via email to expect an announcement. They weren’t told what the announcement would be, of course -- there are traditions to be upheld -- but they knew to get their collective keesters down to the square and wait for smoke and Latin.

Given all this modernisation (and the irrefutable evidence that it is more effective than the traditional techniques), I can’t help wondering why the Vatican clings to the use of Roman numerals.

There is a certain historical lineage, I understand, between the Roman Empire and the Vatican. I respect that. But no-one in the world except the Pope and the people who put copyright notices on movies still uses the Empire’s numbers anymore. Be honest now: how many of you saw ‘Benedict XVI’ and took a moment to work out whether that was 14 or 16? It would, I feel, be a great step forward in the reconciliation between the world’s religions if, for example, the Pope would use the same Hindu-Arabic numerals the rest of us do.

Benedict 16 seems a perfectly acceptable name to me, if not as grandiose. Perhaps, in the current political climate, that would be asking too much.

Or, if they want to maintain their cloistered ‘We know something you don’t know’ secrecy, why not adopt the counting system of the current world empire, namely digital technology? In binary, he’s Benedict 10000 -- how much more impressive does that seem (and only nerds even know what it means)?

A step geekier, and they could adopt hexadecimal numbering, a system understood only by the very strange. The 16th Pope in a line seems a good opportunity, though, if they wish to switch: he’d be Benedict 10. One less digit to carve into stone blocks and whatnot.

Another thing: since 1998 there’s been an alternative Pope. I have no idea where this alternate Pope resides (and I think the basis upon which he’s declared himself Pope is decidedly shaky), but he has a website. Sadly, despite apparently existing only online, he also clings to the Roman archaism and calls himself Pius XIII. Now, if he were a truly modern thinker, he’d be Pius D. Now there’s a name you could proclaim by SMS.