Popes are cheered with champagne too

The past week offered a rare but through 2.000 years frequently recurring event - a new pope has been chosen - and how would you celebrate this in a more appropriate way than sharing a glass with the cardinals? The bright red circle of princes of the catholic church, to whom the former cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, belonged just moments before.

They celebrated the election with champagne. Is it possible to imagine better publicity for the French bubbles? Completely for free and distributed to media all around the world by newsmachines as the Associated Press and BBC World.

Once again it has been fixed that the most festive of occasions get just a little bit better when accompagnied by le roi du vin, le vin des rois: champagne. Now I would like to know, what they drank the other night in the Vatican-home of-conclave-hit-therefor-homeless-cardinals. And this is a fact kept totally secret.

As we do not know, how many votes send the nestor of the cardinals to the Holy See, we do not know, who voted for him, and also the excact mix of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in the glasses is kept in the dark.

But cheerful it must have been. A multitude of media tell, how the newly elected Benedict XVI after having received the tribute of the crowd on Saint Peters Square in his new outfit invited the cardinals to join him in a common meal in the Vatican conclave-home. This is where the cardinals live - cut off from the outside world - while they are in the process to choose a new pope.

The menu was simple, says Associated Press. Beansoup, cut meat, salad and fruit. The nuns, that take care of the meals of the cardinals, of course could not in forehand be told of any dinnerplans, so they did not have time to prepare anything special. But they remembered to cool the champagne!

Some of the cardinals have told, that even songs were sung after the meal. A difficult project when you count the many different nationalities and languages of the cardinals. So they finally chose one in Latin. Cheers.

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