Watch them not, though. Watch them quietly take their time for this to drop out of the news cycle and for everyone to forget about it. Because taking a stand against hatred and bigotry is NOT the Catholic MO.
I knew a guy who believed that if a black man was ever elected Pope that it would signify the end of the world. Or the church. One or the other. As far as he was concerned, those would be the same thing anyway.
He said there was a prophecy or something, which I'm sure he mentioned but I've forgotten in the intervening decades. I want to say "Return of Nebuchadnezzar" but I might be mixing that up with something else.
Originally I was going to say that he gave no other hints of racism, but I didn't really get to see him in contexts outside work, so it probably never came up except that one time. Religion is the one thing he was disturbingly serious about. Outside that he was pretty easy going and friendly.
His wife wasn't the same nationality - or the same church - as him, but she was still white European.
There was one black person on our team, and religious guy might even have been responsible for the hiring, but again, that's still not really enough evidence.
"Steve"* had a full name that gave no indication of race. I knew two different white guys by the same first and last name before meeting him. Maybe that got him through the pre-interview rounds and religious guy decided to give him a chance?
I mean, it's not like he was being hired as Pope.
As for "what other people were feeding him", religious guy wasn't what you'd call stupid, but now that I think about it, the fear of a black Pope might have come in via his equally religious wife.
* Not his actual name, but it was about as, uh, vanilla as that.
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