I'm going to leave the question of whether Benedict XVI is a good successor to the throne of Peter to people with better knowledge than me - my only substantive comment is that I expect much more vigorous leadership in the next few years with a new, still active, pope. Also, I was hoping for Damasus II. But I did want to say something about the "heh, heh, men in dresses" line of comments I've heard recently, bemoaning archaic vatican tradition. Basically, I don't think Americans have much standing to complain about ceremony.

After all, thinking about it for a moment, if the ceremony surrounding the President got any more elaborate, or any more resonant of earlier monarchies, we might as well have him begin curing scrofula (the traditional 'magic power' of kings). Like any Emperor or King, he's both warlord and domestic leader - and increasingly so over the years as presidential power in wartime has expanded. He's "crowned" by the head of our secular clergy, the Chief Justice of the United States, before a crowd of subjects/citizens - where he publicly takes an oath, before God, to a constitution (read any British coronation oath as far back as you want) He has the power to pardon. He holds almost untrammelled appointment privileges, and like the British kings, has recently begun descending into the legislature once a year to deliver his program. It's important for him to be like the normal people in some ways, and yet better than them (Louis XIII, for example, went about the country winning rigged archery competitions - compare that to recent heroic articles about the President's 1400 calorie work-outs). And the symbols that accompany the person of the President - especially the seal - are almost explicitly imperial. Our jurisprudence and traditions have reincarnated the Holy Roman Emperor, and we're worried about the Pope? At least the Supreme Pontiff is supposed to be like that - he is, after all, theoretically the vicar of Christ. But the President is just supposed to be a yeoman citizen, called to service for a time, and sent back to his land afterwards. And yet - give him a sceptre, and we'd need a new Voltaire.

As all will rapidly know, Cardinal Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Jacob Levy, on the plight of the transgendered in a gendered, gendered, world.