A less optimistic reason why Ratzinger might have chosen the name is that benedict is the patron saint of europe -- and he's asserting europe's place as the center of power over the growth of the latin and african blocs.
-- adam
On 4/19/05, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> The most interesting thing about him -- and perhaps the only surprise --
> is the name he's chosen, Benedict.
>
> 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.
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>