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I hadn't been at all certain that Josef Ratzinger was the 'favourite' for the papacy - and on the basis of his conservatism, I thought that he would choose the name Gregory XVII, though this wasn't really a prediction based on serious consideration of the activities of the sixteen Gregories. Benedict XVI is an interesting choice. I at first thought of Pope Benedict XV and his attempt to mediate between the powers during World War One - his predecessor Pius X had been the first pope to refuse to bless the Austrian army at the start of the conflict - and then of the Benedictine order, of which I know little. The papers have informed me that St Benedict is the patron saint of Europe, and that the choice of name reflects Ratzinger's desire to desecularize Europe. There is even a suggestion that he talked John Paul II out of some of his conservative statements, and resisted the idea that John Paul II's teaching on birth control should be made infallible. I don't expect a humanist pontiff in the modern sense, ever; and a humanist pope in the vein of the fifteenth century's Pius II would just be dangerous - but dialogue with the secular world, as apparently envisaged by John XXIII, is surely essential for the Roman Catholic Church.
I'm writing as an agnostic of Methodist descent who once had a list of popes on his bedroom wall, many years ago now... and who has never formally studied the papacy or Catholicism in any depth. Still, it interests me as an enduring institution - and just consider how the composition of the college of cardinals has changed in the last century or so, following the extension of papal influence around the world. The last 78-year-old to be elected pope was Clement XII in 1730, and his interests included a failed conquest of San Marino and sabre-rattling towards Parma and Modena. Benedict XVI's horizons are much wider, but his intentions (one assumes) more pacific.
I'm writing as an agnostic of Methodist descent who once had a list of popes on his bedroom wall, many years ago now... and who has never formally studied the papacy or Catholicism in any depth. Still, it interests me as an enduring institution - and just consider how the composition of the college of cardinals has changed in the last century or so, following the extension of papal influence around the world. The last 78-year-old to be elected pope was Clement XII in 1730, and his interests included a failed conquest of San Marino and sabre-rattling towards Parma and Modena. Benedict XVI's horizons are much wider, but his intentions (one assumes) more pacific.
