Habemus papam!

Actually, we have a new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. No smokes though. Chief Justice John Roberts was confirmed by the Senate 78-22 and sworn in yesterday. Of course, if Justice Roberts will rule according to his professed legal philosophy (as an umpire and not a rule-maker, in his baseball analogy), he will be nothing like a judicial pope the way the Leftists view the office as.

As I typed the title of this entry, I entered papam. A fleeting doubt passed through my head: did I decline the word correctly? After all, the accusative of pater is patrem, with an e. So I looked up “habemus papem” on Google. Curiously enough, the first result pointed to an article about the exact same question! And there were many other results as well. I went on to read this article, and according to the author, the correct form is papam, just as a normal first-declension noun and just as I had it the first time [indulging in a bit of self-congratulatory feeling]. But just to be sure, I had to check with the authority. The Vatican’s website did not show up in the first page of results of my search, I noted. So I changed the search to “habemus papam”, and sure enough, I now see the Vatican. Hence, habemus papam must be correct, for thus says the infallible authority.