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

[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.