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Transnational Thursday for May 8, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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A new pope has been chosen. Exactly who remains to be seen.

Hoping for Pizzaballa, has the most "papal vibes" of the papabili that I'm familiar with.

E: Cardinal Robert Prevost has been chosen. The New Leo XIV is the first man born in America to become Pope. Was not expecting him, although he ranked quite highly on PopePredictor for whatever that's worth.

So, does this somewhat surprising choice of an American pope count as another instance of successful meme magic?

Cardinal Prevost, the first American. Pope Leo XIV.

It’s not exactly the RETVRN we’d been prepared to expect from this election, so I don’t know what this means. I don’t think hydro spent a lot of time discussing him.

I am surprised by this, mostly because his record on dealing with abuse cases can be charitably(not a typo) described as atrocious.

He has liberal friends, but a knack for being the most moderate in the room. He’s a registered Republican, for what it’s worth(probably not much), but also tweeted lots of criticisms of trump on immigration(also probably not worth very much). He has a reputation as a company man and was criticized by pope Francis’s more progressive Allies for keeping the old bishop selection process rather than putting a political thumb on the scale. His early acts will probably set a conservative tone but he’ll ultimately settle near the center.

Prediction markets didn't see itn coming, which I thought was interesting.