"Black Pope could follow Barack Obama's election, says US archbishop"

I hope this is an example of a mainstream paper misinterpreting Archbishop Gregory's meaning - but some of the quotes are just hard to get around:

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope, according to a leading black American Catholic.

Wilton Daniel Gregory, 60, the Archbishop of Atlanta, said that in the past Pope Benedict XVI had himself suggested that the election of a black pontiff would "send a splendid signal to the world" about the universal Church.

Archbishop Gregory, who in 2001 became the first African American to head the US Bishops Conference, serving for three years, said that the election of Mr Obama was "a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome". Like Mr Obama Archbishop Gregory comes from Chicago, and was previously Bishop of Belleville, Illinois. (UK Times)

There are some obvious problems here:

• The selection of popes does not follow "the trend" set by our selection of American Presidents. The idea that Rome looks to where the American voter is tending ... is just silly.
• I'd like to see Pope Benedict's exact quote, but I'm sure he wasn't advocating some sort of affirmative action in the selection of popes for the universal Church, and I dislike this whole notion that the Catholic Church has to elect a black pope to prove that it does not discriminate. That's an American hang-up, not the Universal Church's. Frankly, you could make a better argument that the Vatican tends to be euro-centric, and as an American shouldn't I be complaining about that? Nope. So what - we've been getting great popes.
• I'm happy to hear Archbishop Gregory say the election of Obama means that racial discrimination "has been overcome", though I doubt the USCCB will uniformly act as if it agrees in the future.

The other quotes from Archbishop Gregory are more nuanced and I get the distinct feeling he's being re-read through the Times' lenses.

I do also resist this attempt by the Times and other papers to claim some sort of Vatican endorsement of Obama as Obama. Every official statement I've seen so far from the Vatican is an endorsement of Obama as President.

And it's no surprise - Obama will be the leader of the most powerful country in the world and the Church is a universal institution with universal interests and considerations to take into account.

And I'd like to see the original interview in La Stampa.

Oh and - seriously - Richard Owen gets put up in Rome by the Times to report "trends" and make "predictions" like this?

Next up ... "Does the recent mention of iPods at the World Synod of Bishops signal that the Church is switching from PCs to Macs?!"

update: the AFP's headline is even worse: "Catholic Church ready for black pope: US archbishop".

... yeah, because I can just see those cardinals in the Vatican reading their morning paper:

"Good heavens! The Americans elected a black man as their President! Why - do you know what this means? It means we can finally have a black pope! This is awesome news. I'd like another espresso, please."

Yeah, right.