Nine days from today, Pope Benedict XVI will step down. Until a new pope is chosen, no one will be pope. Following a centuries-old tradition, the cardinals shall exclaim, “nos operor non have a pope!” which roughly translates to “No one is in charge!”

I made that up. Alessandro Speciale explains what actually happens during the between-the-popes period, or, more regally, “the interregnum.”

Traditionalist Catholics, writing the first draft of B16′s reign, are expressing disappointment in the pope originally dubbed “God’s Rottweiler” writes David Gibson.

A man on many a papal shortlist, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, told CNN that a sexual abuse scandal is unlikely to take root in the church in Africa because:

“African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency.” The cardinal continued: “Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society.”

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