Speaking of running always in pursuit of something new... western thinkers seem to be all a tizzy over the possibility that the Roman Catholic Church will undergo some sort of Postmodern transformation.  The Cardinals will enter the Vatican as if it were a chrysalis.  The new Pope, preferably young and non-western, will turn the stodgy and slow moving religion of the Middle Ages into a beautiful, free, colorful butterfly.  This modern concern for catching tradition up with present trends has to it a glint of nobility.  Real problems and concerns demand that people react rather than predict.  Sometimes using traditions people can prejudge a crisis making them slow to meet the moment's demands.  In the modern western mind, however, individuals and institutions must flex with change because it serves as the essence of reality.  Traditions, more than the Roman Catholic Church, have become the outmoded DNA system; people should abandon it for a more freeing physiology which allows for unhindered, erratic flight.  Ideas that do not change, such as religious dogma and sacramental institutions, serve only to contain individual freedom.  The Roman Catholic leadership will have to explain why, even though it may choose someone non-European, it remains anchored to timeless traditions.  In fact, in the Postmodern world, all Christians have to make this argument without sounding like some kind of antiquated larvae.  We must turn the dialogue: tradition gives meaning to human lives which often become untethered from their real identities by the dizzying changes of daily life.  I wish the Cardinals luck.