I'm not Catholic, but as a former Catholic (and oddly enough, occasional defender of the Roman Catholic faith) I find the election of Joseph Ratzinger a little depressing. As his central function appears to have been fighting any sort of reform within the Catholic church about sexual attitudes, it seems that the college of cardinals believes that the most important issues facing the world are not rampant poverty, hunger, violence, and oppression, but homosexuality, abortion, and the idea of married or women priests. What you do with your machete is your business, but what you do in your bedroom, Benedict XVI wants to weigh in...
The Catholic church used to seem like the denomination that really cared about real-world problems on a basic human level: justice, poverty, oppression. I had hoped for someone who might be concerned about those things, instead of a German version of Rick Santorum. This is one of the guys who actively fought that movement. Bummer.
There's an interesting cover article about him in the National Catholic Reporter about him from 1999. It says quite a bit about his controversial past. It appears that Gary's comparison to Karl Rove might not be entirely off-base.
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