The last pope of that name was an Italian diplomat (nicknamed 'Piccoletto,' 'Tiny') elected a month after the First World War began. Benedict XV (pope 1914-22) was in retrospect known for three things -- putting an end to an intellectual witch-hunt run by his predecessor (Pius X), the 'Modernist Crisis'; reversing Pius' anti-liberal politics; and working strenuously for an end to the war.
His politics included dissolving the papacy's opposition to the anti-clerical governments of Italy and France and reversing the opposition to the union movement. The best general history of the papacy refers to him as 'as explicit a reaction against the preceding regime as it was possible to get.' Can this be what Ratzinger has in mind? What does he suggest by choosing that name?
That's not a rhetorical question. But I'd also point out that all four of the popes elected in the last fifty years (before today) contradicted the received wisdom about them. Roncalli (1958-63) was supposed to be a chair-warmer and produced the biggest intellectual revolution in Catholicism since the Reformation. Montini (1963-78) was elected explicitly to continue that program and didn't. Luciani (1978) was supposed to be a 'uniter, not a divider' and, by dying immediately, left matters in disarray. Wojtyla (1978-2005) made his reputation as a liberal in the Vatican Council but was, in the words of his first and best biographer, 'a great disappointment.'
So I'm hoping to be surprised again. --CGE
On Tue, 19 Apr 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
> NEWS ALERT from The Wall Street Journal
>
> April 19, 2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was named the new
> pope.