Tuesday, June 21, 2005
PAPAL METAMORPHOSIS
From a story linked at the Crux blog:
He has a new name and a new job. Two months into his reign, the papal persona of Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is beginning to take shape, and it's taking many by surprise.
Ratzinger had long been portrayed as the stern German theologian who guarded the church's doctrinal orthodoxy for nearly 24 years. Since his election April 19, a new, warm and smiling Benedict has emerged.
Far from a dour professor, the new pope rides standing and waving in open vehicles, willingly has his picture taken donning a Hawaiian lei or a firefighters' helmet, and at a recent public audience spoke to an apparently terminally ill nun on a cell phone handed to him by a man in a wheelchair.
"When you become pope you take a different name, a different job, and if not an identity crisis, you undergo an identity shift," said David Gibson, a former Vatican Radio reporter who is writing a book about Benedict.
Popes have not always been crowd pleasers. It has the effect of getting the majority on their side, as JPII demonstrated. The appeal is emotional only, however. We still don't know what this papacy will stand for.
If this pope is going to highlight dogma and doctrine--if he is going to be orthodox as we all hope--his crowd-pleasing capabilities will be very welcome. Imagine what would happen if he were not orthodox, however.
