Don't look now, but...

...Archbishop Angelo Scola has taken the lead on Intrade. The Italian prelate is still in second place on Paddy Power (behind Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana) but tied for first on Ladbrokes.

Will the next pope be an Italian conservative? Who woulda thunk it?

From Luke Timothy Johnson's review of Scola's book, Body Beautiful: The Nuptial Mystery, in Commonweal (my emphasis):

With a starting point in essential gender difference, love, and procreation, and with a remarkably elastic definition of “nuptial mystery,” enthusiasts will be further cheered to find John Paul II’s lead being followed by Scola as well in the condemnation not only of abortion and of genetic engineering (cloning), and of birth control, but also of feminism, of homosexuality, and of cultural traits Scola associates with feminism and homosexuality, namely individualism, libertinism, relativism, narcissism, and even nihilism. The cardinal’s logic, in fact, seems to be that feminism is responsible for homosexuality, because the more women act like men, the more men are likely to want to have sex with other men.

Were you hoping for a reformer? Don't hold your breath. The Catholic Church is in the same place right now as the Soviet Union was in the 1970s. And, unfortunately, there's no Mikhail Gorbachev in sight.