The Cardinals are ‘rawdogging’ the Conclave, no phones, no nothing.

First things first: I am OBSESSED with the Conclave. Can’t get enough of it. The secrecy, the ritual, the black smoke, the white smoke, I could watch Conclave coverage all day. I still think they need to change the color of the ‘we’ve got a papa!’ smoke to green, just to make this clip more usable:

But it feels like the Vatican probably isn’t going to change a centuries old tradition just so I can use The Rock movie clips with more accuracy.

Anyway, what a world we live in that ‘Papal Conclave’ and ‘rawdogging’ get used in the same sentence in a newscast. What a time to be alive!

Now for those that don’t catch the reference, ‘rawdogging,’ is a phrase that youths are using to describe a situation where they aren’t being entertained by anything. No tablets, no phones, no music, no nothing. ‘Rawdogging’ a flight has become a thing on Tik Tok. You go on a cross country flight and don’t listen to music, watch movies, read a book, nothing. Just stare off into space for four hours.

So as it relates to the Conclave, it sounds like these Cardinals get a rosary, a prayer book, and that’s it to occupy their time while voting is going on. YEESH. And these voting sessions go on all day for days at a time! You can’t watch an episode of The Office? Listen to Strange Brew podcast? You can’t even bring in a non-fiction book to eat up some time?? No thanks. Props to them for taking this so seriously, but I don’t think I’d make it.

And I’ll tell you this: MANY decades from now, when a younger generation is in their 60’s and 70’s and they are the Cardinals at The Vatican taking part in a Papal Conclave, that Conclave is going to last 17 minutes. Have you ever been around someone in their early 20’s when there’s downtime and they don’t have their phone? JITTERY. They’re going to check those phones on their way in and there’s going to be white smoke so fast you’d think there’s a fire.

PS: I was watching the news this morning and they were talking about how the first vote didn’t yield a new pope, and a second vote was on the way after lunch. What do we think the lunch situation looks like at Conclave? We Door Dashing? Party sub? Pizza?? And if it’s pizza, which Cardinal is the one making them order a pie with toppings that no one else wants. “Cardinal Parolin wants mushroom and black olives on his pizza.” “Mushrooms and black olives?? Man I can’t wait for the other 6 slices of that pizza to rot in the break room fridge. We’re getting a cheese, a sausage, and a pepperoni and he can just deal with it.”

Double PS: David Puddy, the original flight raw dogger: