you'd think Karl Rove was at the conclave

Like Jeanne, I was momentarily stunned when I heard the Latinate pronouncement that the new pope would be the virulent Joseph Ratzinger -- and then enraged,  like my girl and  John Aravosis, who's spent the last few hours compiling much of the damning evidence on Benedict 16. Starting with  this:

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He sends shivers down the spines of liberal Catholics and Catholic thinkers. He's bee been the head of the inquisition in the church, literally. He's called dozens upon hundreds of theologians and priests to the carpet, put a chill through free speech and debate in the church. John Paul's legacy was of spreading democracy in eastern Europe but he quashed it inside the church. Ratzinger was the main instrument for killing free speech in the church. Ratzinger helped quash democracy inside the church, intellectual thought. He believes the church always knows what right, is never wrong.

He's UBER-conservative, he was a bit of a liberal, a moderate, as a young man. But the 1968 student uprisings turned him into an arch uber-conservative, he's like a convert, the worst kind of conservative.
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Over the years,  the fierce anti-clericalism of my teen years has been moderated by the knowledge that much, if not most, of the heavy lifting in social justice movements has been done by people with some kind of religious community -- whether it's the Erie Benedictines and their vibrant feminist community up north, who stood up to John Paul II -- and Ratzinger - when he ordered Sister Joan Chittister to be silenced in her support of women''s ordination; Catholic Relief Services, doing in Darfur what no government will;  the Mennonites that staff the Military Counseling Network in Germany; or my uncle Joe, about to retire from 35 years of teaching in the South Bronx, but not from his ministry as a deacon. I was at his ordination in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and was stirred by the music and the odd reckoning that I was, by doctrine, watching two (three) miracles in one.

I've also felt that if age made me more in need of  a spiritual community, I would have to dance with the one that brung me -- rather than convert to Judaism, as I'd thought about,  let alone some more homegrown California Taoist thing. Not any more. I will stop feeling embarrassed when I go to a wedding and decline communion.

For when a man  variously called, according to the Times of London, by  "a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler,”  who defends violence against gays and doesn't think much of women, is chosen with such dispatch, it can only mean  two things, neither of them appetizing.

One is that a group of celibate old men had a chance to express their rage at  the sexual revolution, feminism, and the tendency of literate clergy  and parishioners to think and write for themselves. The other is their fear of that "enforcer," like Tom De Lay on steroids. The  result was a repeat of the Cheney effect: the dark power behind the throne easing himself into the seat of power without a hitch. (Update, Friday: Maureen Dowd saw the same connection, and of course her take is funnier..)

Many have observed how JP II, with his purge of diverse thought, centralization of power on the one hand, and oversimplified. wildly charismatic approach on the other, has brought Catholicism into much closer alignment with the fundamentalists who once abhorred it. No wonder George Bush was the first American president at a papal  funeral.

My condolences to the brave Catholics who are weeping tonight. I'm deeply curious about your thoughts.

Comments

[keri]

Well, not a practicing Catholic here, but as an interfaith minister I've been spending all day reading about this, with varying levels of seriousness from all concerned.
I am really feeling just about the same way I felt in November, and I have to reiterate what I've been saying since then.
If we can't create change from the top down, we've got to flood it in from the bottom up.
Hopefully B16 will be a catalyst for change, even if he makes none of it directly himself.

[Dave]

it just seems it's all very political ... they brought in a polish pope who would and did help nurture solidarity movement in poland and lead to europe being free of communism ... now they're working to combat what they see as rampant secularism left in the wake of communism to see if they can restore the holy roman empire again ...