Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club

Fascinating site:

http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/

 

Not a fan, but anyway...

It's auf deutsch, but here's a link to a good rundown of ostensible papabili.

http://www.n24.de/php-bin/scripts/cgalerie/cgalerie.php?gal=n24_nachrichten_de_050405_papstnachfolger&bild=1&skin=553

 

Wow. Somebody even MORE right wing than PJP II!

 

Well, he is the head of the Inquisition . . . it's something of a job requirement.

Angela

 

That´s just a colossal stupidity.


Pure ignorance and bigotry.

 

Er, sense of humour failure, JLV?

Mind you, I did get the job title wrong, as Benedict XVI has just had a promotion.

 

Viva il Papa!

 

Yes, I found your sense of humor hilarious. Also your ignorance.


I am still laughing.

 

Cardinal Ratzinger has just been elected Pope.

Now he's Pope Benedict XVI.

He certainly seems to have been the safe choice.

He's very conservative doctrinally. There's definitely not going to be anything radical concerning abortion, birth control, or female or married priests.

He's up in years, so there won't be another twenty year papacy that would allow one man to put a personal stamp on the office. That protects the interests of the hierarchy.

He's European, avoiding the unpredictable changes that might accompany a Latin American or African Pope.

He isn't Italian, but a German just doesn't have the edgyness that a Pole had during the Cold War.

 

Good. Now they can get back to the important business of being inconsequential.

 

Wasn't it Stalin who asked how many consequences the Pope had?

 

Wasn't it Stalin who asked how many consequences the Pope had?

============================

Well it looks like the Papacy turned out to be very consequential to the fate of Stalin's Soviet empire.

 

In Muenchen steht ein Hofbraeuhaus...

So is drinking beer a sacrament now? (We Lutherans tussle over this, too.)

Seriously, B16 may be just the vitamin the Roman Catholic Church needs. One needn't agree with him on all theological issues--and as a confessional Lutheran I surely don't--to appreciate the new pope's exceptional clarity of mind and expression, ethical earnestness, concern for the morality of the clergy, and loyalty to his church's theology.

Our Roman and Byzantine Catholic posters have many good reasons to be very happy with this choice, as does anyone who opposes postmodernism and radical intellectual relativism, or who values theological precision.

 

Are you suggesting that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith isn't the modern-day successor to the Inquisition?

Clearly the Congregation operates differently, but it's not a difficult connection to make.




Tom Nixon

 

Stalin actually asked how many (military) divisions the Pope had.

 

We Orthodox Christians will be casting a wary but hopeful eye towards Rome. Though we have major theological differences with Rome (the Filioque, purgatory, indulgences, merit, soteriology, papal ecclesiology), the new Pope Benedict will gladden the hearts of religious and social conservatives in every confession. Umm hey uncle Janko! How DO we get beer drinking as a sacrament?

 

Do I really need to explain this to you?

 

Re: In Muenchen steht ein Hofbraeuhaus...

Janko, I appreciate your integrity and your fairness. A hug, my Lutheran friend.

Here in The Netherlands the theory in the news is that they elected this very conservative Pope to last, let´s say, a not too large number of years. After that, they may elect a more progressist one that leads the Catholic Church into the XXI Century. John Paul II was not a conservative when he was elected. The job, I guess, made him to be one.

 

Benedict XVI will look a lot like the first Benedict XIII (a most stubborn, granite like, immoveable, ultra-conservative but personally saintly antipope), I predict.

I hope not for the Catholic Church; Benedict XIII reigned for decades "in his obedience" as the phrase has it.

 

Jewish Telegraphic Agency's comment

This came from JTA as a breaking story right after the election of Benedict XVI:
<quote>
"Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, chosen Tuesday as the new pope, was the brains behind Pope John Paul II’s reconciliation with the Jews, a Jewish official said.
Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, called Ratzinger, who took the name of Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, “the architect of the policy that John Paul II fulfilled with regard to relations with the Jews. He is the architect of the ideological policy to recognize, to have full relations with Israel.” Ratzinger, from Germany, succeeds John Paul, who died April 2. The Vatican’s chief theologian under John Paul, Ratzinger, 78, is considered a conservative. But in 2002, he authorized the publication of a report that stated that “the Jewish messianic wait is not in vain.”

That document also expressed regret that certain passages in the Christian Bible condemning individual Jews have been used to justify anti-Semitism.

Visit www.jta.org for comprehensive coverage of this developing story."
<end quote>