Benedict XVI gave us words of great comfort and encouragement in the message he delivered on Christmas Eve.

 "God anticipates us again and again in unexpected ways," the pope said. "He does not cease to search for us, to raise us up as often as we might need. He does not abandon the lost sheep in the wilderness into which it had strayed. God does not allow himself to be confounded by our sin. Again and again he begins afresh with us".

I applaud 'Ben' for quoting BXVI's words. It is in this spirit that we must go forth, believing blindly in God's great Grace and His Providence. We truly are as small children. God knows what is going to happen, what we are going to do. We know that this is not 'fatalism', but rather like the father who sees his son on a bicycle doing some silly trick and who just knows that his son is going to come a croppper. His son cannot see it. His father can. The son does fall off. This is not fatalism, it is the greater knowledge the father has than his son.

The mother says to her child, don't touch the cooker, you will burn yourself. The child does not listen and... yes, it burns itself.

Neither the father nor the mother turns against the child, but keeps raising up their child as often as is necessary. Our Blessed Mother continues to pray for us even when we are in deepest sin - Why? Because she loves us. God's love is supreme and never ends, but some of us 'small' children think we know better, not listening to words of wisdom, and eventually some are damned.

Our new Pope needs our prayers more than ever. God knows the outcome, we do not. So, we pray in all charity. We can be all things, but if we have not charity, as St Paul says, we have nothing!

I find it interesting that in the 1920's, an aged German JESUIT, Father Gruber, an expert on Masonic matters, made contact with 3 highly-placed Masons in order to study the possibilities, first of a truce, then of a permanent modus vivendi, which would put an end to the furious war which has raged between the Catholic Church and Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ since 1738.  These contacts were discreet, not to say secret, and they remained virtually unknown to the public at large.

After WWII, the campaign which Father Gruber had secretly begun from the Catholic side was resumed in France, this time openly, by another JESUIT, Father Bertheloot.

The progresssives, who were enjoying considerable influence within the Church, realized that they had little chance of success during Pope Pius XII's  life-time.  

With the accession of Pope John XXIII, and the growth of new conceptions of ecuмenism which followed, something like an explosion took place.

Is there any connection?   Have the Freemasons finally found their time? Is this JESUIT  their boy to end all previous condemnation of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ?

Good history Ben.  Thanks.

To answer your question, I think you can bet on it.  
In reviewing Masonic Times and their links to other masonic sites,  every single headline pertained to the selection of Bergoglio, and that it was on the anniversary of  Pope Leo XIi's QUO GRAVIORA - condemnataion of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.

I'd laugh, but tears are more appropriate.