The AP reports that once again the conventional wisdom has been proven wrong: in this case, some early predictions about Pope John Paul II’s successor Pope Benedict have proven to have been inaccurate:
Pope John Paul II’s death a year ago — April 2, 2005 — left many Roman Catholics expecting that their church would take an even harder, more conservative line if the College of Cardinals picked early favorite Joseph Ratzinger as the next pontiff.
They got Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI.
Yet the Vatican’s German-born chief orthodoxy watchdog has hardly acted like the man saddled with the nickname “God’s Rottweiler.”
Instead, the faithful got a pope who rode around in St. Peter’s Square in traditional papal headgear that resembled a Santa Claus hat. The man described as a “dour Bavarian” wrote his first encyclical on love.
That’s not to say that Benedict has changed his doctrinal tune. On the contrary, he has reaffirmed church teaching on everything from sexuality to the sanctity of life.
But in his first year as pope, Benedict has confounded left and right through a handful of small yet significant changes that defy easy interpretation. He is very much his own, unpredictable man.
Read the entire piece. It’s almost as if this Pope has pulled off the equivalent of “triangulation” and is not going as far right as some had hoped and is going further left than many predicted. It depends on the issue.
The AP story suggests that his humble style, willingness to meet with a harsh liberal critic, efforts to reach out to Jews and and firm denunciations of terrorism have made one thing clear: when he was appointed many considered him a mere “caretaker” Pope, someone who was warming the seat until his death and the appointment of a perhaps younger man. Instead, he is emerging as a Pope very much in his own right.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.