'The new Pope may proclaim another crusade'

In an interview with the Voice of Russia, editor-in-chief of the German satirical magazine “Titanic” Leo Fisher expressed his special opinion on the election of the Argentine cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as the new Pope.

- I am very much pleased with this election, although the choice of the cardinals was a surprise to me. Pope Francis is interesting for us because he has German roots and studied in Freiburg. That is, we have a common reference point. And he is of a very pleasing appearance. He resembles Oliver Hardy of the "Laurel and Hardy" series. In general, I like him. I think that we will successfully cooperate with him.

- And will your magazine make fun of him like you do with other priests?

- "Titanic" is a German satirical magazine. We react to whatever is of interest to the German public; if he is spoken about, and there are some conflicting opinions, we will pay attention to him. However, in comparison with Benedict XVI he is much farther from us. We have little in common with Argentina. We do not know that country very well. But the fact that he was related to the military dictatorship is just wonderful. I think it will cause glorification. I can imagine that he will go down in history as the first military Pope. And Germany is heavily dependent on the export of weapons. And, perhaps, he shall proclaim another crusade. It has been a long time since the Vatican organized a war. It is possible that Francis could take care of it.

- Sometimes your material is rather audacious. Where are the boundaries for that?

- We do not really know, but we constantly think about this. After all, good lawyers are very expensive today. Nevertheless, we publish materials, hoping it will turn out all right somehow. If our material hurt someone's feelings in any way, we immediately apologize. We are acting in good faith. And we manage to calm people down. For example, last year, Benedict XVI filed a lawsuit on our "Titanic" magazine. But at the last moment he took it back. But it cost us an enormous amount of effort. We explained to the Pope that his photo on the cover, which in fact was the cause of the fuss, had nothing offensive in it. We explained the essence of this image to the Pope. In most cases the complaints are due to misunderstandings. And for the most part, when we resolve misunderstandings, nobody is hurt.

When the Voice of Russia talked with Leo Fisher on the eve of the election of the Pope, he had other preferences:

"I like the Archbishop of Berlin Rainer Maria Woelki. We especially like the fact that he looks funny. This is a cross between the ageing Harry Potter and a big screech-owl. We like him very much, too. He likes to communicate with children, he communicates with clergyman on YouTube and gives interviews," Leo Fisher said then.