hree thots about Benedict:
a) Though he has spent his life working his way to the position (see Earthly Powers by Burgess), i wonder if he actually ever wanted it in the first place.
b) For someone who is deeply respectful of tradition, this is genuinely shocking, esp. considering the health of his predecessor--I wonder if the work got to be too much for him, and i wonder how substantive his inner circle was/is.
c) Uta Ranke-Heinemann was his close friend, and she talked quite openly about how smart he was compared to his predecessor, i wonder if it would have been better if he had stuck as a moral theologian, as much as i profoundly disagreed with him the dude wrote well, and was terribly terribly smart. That his smartness was used to a set of political and social ends was intensely problematic, but being a leader of a billion people is an actively political position, and to think otherwise is profoundly naive. Religion is politics. Theology is politics. Of his politics think that his changes to AIDS policy, his books of theology suggested another way of looking at his role as leader. I mean we won't get a radical, Martini is retired, and Martini was the last of a certain kind of V2 nostalgia, and there are a number of ways that he made me feel very uncomfortable--i left when he became pope, but in the negotiating a western institution becoming post colonial, it's an impossible job, i wonder if we will get a gatekeeper, and be pleased by it. I also wonder if w. this resignation, they would be willing to find someone younger, but is there anyone younger.