It'll be interesting to see how Benedict XVI behaves differently as Pope vs. as a cardinal. On the one hand, he has been very vocal in the past about seeing other Christian churches as "deficient." On the other hand, he was John Paul's right-hand man, and John Paul was aggressive about intra-Christian and interfaith dialogues. Given the state the world is in right now, it'll be interesting to see if he follows in John Paul's foosteps, or begins once more to isolate the Church.

In any event, he won't be Pope for a terribly long time, and it might be that the Church wants to "catch its breath" for a few years, while thinking about what course should be charted in the future.

He was, in a handful of ways, the "safe" choice.

I won't be upset if the Church continues its policies regarding married priests—though it's becoming impractical—or continues to hate on condoms. I will be upset if the dialogues don't continue with Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.

UPDATE: The BBC has a handful of quotations from leaders around the world reacting to the new Pope.

UPDATE 2: Outside the Beltway has a nice synthesis.

Posted by: Attila at 10:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Oops, typo in the first line. :-) Benedict XIV is Benedict XVI. I was looking for an email addy as this isn't really comment fodder (so it should probably be deleted), but I couldn't find one. (I'm probably just blind)

Posted by: Masked Menace© at April 19, 2005 12:44 PM (ISV0b)

2 That's okay; I can own up to my mistakes. Every time I resolve never to blog when I'm in a hurry—or half asleep—some hot news item changes my mind, and I find out that evening that I've had some egregious mistake on my blog all day. Oh, well.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 19, 2005 06:55 PM (mwhMN)

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