considering the head of the church did not attend the funeral mass of his predecessor. the meeting IS being held in rome. things could still go south.

Annika,

You know I've got big reservations about this particular pope. Whether his papacy will truly continue in the spirit of reconciliation* fostered by JP2 is unclear to me. The priests and grad students I knew at Catholic University never spoke well of Ratzinger; one joke was that, whenever a reprimand was issued by the the CDF, it was termed "getting a rat zinger."

I'm glad to see the optimism that you and Mike (of Naked Villainy) have for this papacy; I won't be upset if it turns out you guys are right, but Pope Benedict is going to have to fight an uphill PR battle quite unlike the one that sometimes dogged JP2. My main concern is that Benedict might view his new role simply as an expanded version of what he, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was doing as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. If he does go that route, treating your Church as the CDF writ large, I can't expect good results.

As I argued on my blog, religious conflicts tend to occur where one or both parties in a religious dispute present clearly defined doctrinal (or cultural, theological, ecclesiological, etc.) boundaries. The danger of a Ratzinger/Benedict papacy is that he'll want to keep the faithful "in their place" and make the spiritual boundaries of Catholicism as clear as possible. Whether this is healthy, in the current global religious climate, I don't know.

Anyway, hope is one of the cardinal Christian virtues, so I'll do a lot of hoping. Unfortunately, I can't shake the feeling that Benedict's election is a mistake.

"Just my two scents," as the skunk said.

Pax,

Kevin

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*I can hear people objecting to this noun, arguing that JP2 did a lot to divide Catholics from Catholics and Catholics from non-Catholics. Perhaps, but to reduce his life to those actions would be to miss the larger context of his entire papacy.

As a law student, one thing i've learned is that clear boundaries are good. In essence, that is what law is all about. It is the essential aim of all law. Marking the lines of human behavior so that people can predict the consequences of any course of action and plan accordingly. In the real world, it doesn't always work out that way, and even less so nowadays. But if that ideal of predictable consequences is breaking down here in the west, it's because we've allowed too much gray area to creep into our legal system.

i say this because i believe what works for the civil law should also work for God's law. The Catholic tradition has always been that the Church maintains clear doctrine from the top down. Yes, i know that was a major disagreement that led to the Protestant Reformation. But that's the way we do things on this side, and i hope we continue.

There are so many people outside the Church (and i consider fallen away Catholics like Andrew Sullivan, Chris Matthews and Rosie O'Donnel in this category) who have their own vision about where the Church should be going. A pope who could please all of them is impossible, because the Church would splinter apart if these people had their way,* and what would be left would not be Catholic at all. It would be a bunch of little new denominations. Maybe that's what the liberal critics want.

(Well Kevin, proofreading the above, i see i've gone off about doctrine, while the thrust of your comment was interfaith relations. On that score, i'm also hopeful that Benedict will continue John Paul's good work.)
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*Look at what's happening to the Anglican Church, based on one issue.

Annika, as it turns out, I don't have to listen to anything you say because my battle monster beat your battle monster three times.

Seriously, though: your point is well taken re: clarity. But clarity, like lack of clarity, is a two-edged sword. Islamofascists are quite clear in their vision of right and wrong, of Dar-al-Islam versus Dar-al-Harb. Abortion clinic bombers also demonstrate a certain perverse clarity. Many American fundamentalist Christians are pretty sure the Bible is the literal Word of God-- a Word leaving no room for interpretation because everything's so clear.

Clarity solves some problems and creates others, as Keith Burgess-Jackson implies whenever he uses the example of determining a legal drinking age. When you draw that bright line, it sometimes hurts the wrong people (as when the drinking age prevents mature teens from drinking, while allowing certain immature adults to drink-- KBJ's example).

I don't think Pope Benedict is going to be a raving lunatic. He won't deliver any homilies that sound anything like those being delivered by certain Muslim clerics. I'm dismissive of the "Nazi past" crap being put out by the press. All of that is just a bunch of desperate flailing by sensationalist journalists.

But Ratzinger's controversial history as CDF prefect is reason enough for caution-- no need for journalists to spin or exaggerate.

Your blog post makes a good point when you quote Jordan's king: a clear, firm stance gets respect. That's true. Then again, the previous Pope was very much against the Iraq war and got slammed by American conservatives for "getting in the way" or "being on the wrong side." Ratzinger, too, has been an opponent of Bush's project. What will political conservatives say about him?

I'll watch with interest as the cosmos unfolds.

Kevin

Conservatives simply dismiss any criticism of capitalism or war as naive and expected from Church. However, when it comes to sex lives ignoring the Church presents a 'values' problem.

Both sides of the aisle quote selectively from the Catholic Church but only the Republicans push to have the US government endorse Christian theology.