“Religion is responsible for more wars than any other institution in the history of mankind” is more likely to be the theme of any conversation about religion than any defense of the church or lamenting over the loss of traditional values in my social circles. I’m not a particularly religious person. More accurately, the blind conformity around the social construct of religion isn’t compatible with how I’m wired. Even so, the Pope retiring was surprisingly unsettling to me. I’m not Catholic. I’m from the south where culturally the Catholic Church is pretty much viewed like how the rebel faction in Star Wars viewed the Empire. Not surprising since the religious…