A good day for a change

[fpb]

Today I got some paying work as a translator, which was great. I translated a piece of political communication which struggled to right a major wrong and to undo a political Berlusconi crime, which was even better - it is so good to be paid for work you would do unpaid. Finally, the Conclave elected the man I was hoping for. I am not sure whether Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger is the man I feel the Church needs - someone with attention to all the administrative and procedural matters that John Paul, however great, had allowed to deteriorate so shockingly. I know that he is a German, and that usually helps - Germans without administrative abilities are few and far between. But I know that his election is a kick in the teeth for the whole BBC "the Church must adapt itself to the modern world" party. Christians will not be driven out of their own mother Church just yet, as they are being driven out of the main Protestant denominations and struggling to survive among the Anglicans. The war has only just begun.

Comments

[jennilee.livejournal.com]

Why were you hoping for Ratzinger if you weren't sure whether he's what the Church needs?

Is there anyone else you would have preferred if it wasn't him?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The qualities of a man are only seen in action. We know of Pope Benedict XVI that he is a first-rate mind and a very resolute spirit, but not whether he is an able administrator, since he has only been a diocesan bishop for a very short time and decades ago. The Church needs administrative reform now, in many different ways - the corrupt elite must be swept out of the North American churches, the number of priests in Latin America needs to be multiplied by about four, and so on. I wanted Ratzinger because he is clear-headed, resolute and intelligent, but whether he is the reformer I think the Church needs, only time will tell.

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

I also don't really know what to think of Ratzinger as the new Pope. While I am all for ultra-conservatism in most respects, I think that having this conservative of a new Pope is really going to cause problems.

Like you said, the war has only just begun. However, with all due respect, Benedict XVI is 74...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...and in good health and mental strength. No doubt the cardinals did not want another long papacy - it is rather a rule that a long-lived Pope is succeeded by an elderly one, as Pius XII by John XXIII. However sometimes the calculation backfires. The great Leo XIII was elected on the calculation that he was an old man already - and he lived to be 98 and one of the giants of modern Church history. (In his last years, he met an American bishop who said sadly, "Your Holiness, I fear we may never meet in this world again." "Why, my lord" answered the Pope, "I had no idea you were in poor health.")

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the job - sounds like you've been needing it.

Anmd congrats on the Pope, I suppose. Not that I understand much in these matters.