As today may or may not be the final day for elections of a new pope, the newly elected pope will be bestowed two titles and two sets of responsibilities. First, he will be in charge of the 1.2 million Catholics worldwide; but secondly he will be the Head of State for the Vatican City. I will admit that I was unconsciously unaware of the dual responsibilities of the pope. While watching BBC this morning and they were interviewing from the St. Peters Square, they brought up the dual title subject. My initial reaction was that a pope is not a legitimate or a good figure to assume responsibilities on the world stage. I view the pope as isolated, having a narrow-minded perspective of the world, and largely biased. Mainly this stems from his devotion to Catholicism. However, then I began thinking of how Islamist fundamentalist states would also have this narrow-minded perspective of the world due to their religious beliefs. But I still didn’t equate them with the pope.

I guess where I am going with this post, is that I am weary of a pope having an equal voice and vote in the UN (on the upcoming Syria discussions and votes for example). If someone wants to support the pope as an equal to other Head of States I would like to hear other arguments.