Ratzinger elected pope

[winterbadger]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4462077.stm

Ah, how long has it been since the head of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was actually elected pope?

I forsee a schism in the church during this papacy, as liberal catholics from North America and western and eastern Europe and conservatives from Latin America, Africa, and southern Europe pull the church entirely apart. I don't think progressive catholics are willign to give up on the church, but I don't think they're willing to accept the sort of iron hand they're probably going to get from Benedict XVI. Perhaps the conservative faction of the Anglican church can swap places with liberal catholicism, and Roman Catholicism can uphold the standard of blinkered, stubborn, doctrinnaire, bloody-minded antiEnlightenment while the rest of the catholic church moves forward.

Comments

[vikingcat.livejournal.com]

I think that it's moves towards liberalization that would be more likely to generate schisms by provoking the ire of traditionalists (as among the Anglicans). With a conservative hardliner I'd expect the more natural consequence would be contraction of the church (like the Ninotchka line about Stalinism leading to fewer but better Russians).

Speaking of the USSR, I think the last time the head of the Inquisition became the leader of an organization on this scale was probably when Andropov was selected to succeed Brezhnev and sort out the Soviet Union's problems by taking a harder line with the slackers.

[winterbadger]

[Andropov] And that was more of a John Paul I situation, at least in the practical outcome...