Oh, well. The only consolation is that he’s 78 so may not live very long. God willing, we’ll be doing this all over again in a few years.
However, the conservative tendency in the Church will now be reinforced, and Benedict XVI may put the nail in the coffin of liberal Catholic theology.
Have mercy!
With Ratzinger at the top, so much for weakening the power of the Vatican, as was rumored. The college of bishops can’t be happy with this choice.
Ok,
So Bush is in the White House, and a German is now in charge of the church. I mean hey, who doesn’t like the Germans? 5 more heads and the dragon is complete.
Norht Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel/Palestinian…….Canada?
I think that the range of reservation about Benedict will be wide and cover a lot of the developed world. The developing world will enjoy his theological rigidity (as Anglicans in the developing world do for the corresponding theological subjects) but any hope of the re-evangelisation of Europe is now gone for the length of his Papacy. He is not an inspiring person, he does not have the gift of reaching out to other people as John Paul did, and it’s very possible that the reaction against him will be strong and swift. This will be disconcerting to the Church and it will react with great skepticism and even surprise.
Perhaps he told the Cardinals that he has a fatal disease and they elected him to give themselves a year or so in which to think about his successor.
Boy am I glad I left the Scarlet Whore of Babylon 17 years ago.