On the fourth ballot the College of Cardinals elected Joseph Ratzinger as the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He has taken the name Benedict XVI. Benedict XV was the pope during World War I and struggled, unsuccessfully, to bring peace (Woodrow Wilson was the only world leader who paid any attention and adopted a number of his suggestions). Benedict XV’s first encyclical was a condemnation of modern philosophical systems.
I haven’t read Benedict XVI’s statement, yet, but my preliminary take is that the College of Cardinals have decided that modernity is the most serious problem that’s facing the Church right now.
FWIW, here’s a link to his funeral sermon for John Paul II which you may remember.
“the College of Cardinals have decided that modernity is the most serious problem that’s facing the Church right now”
Rather than say it is modernity, I think one could clarify it to be secular humanism, or moral relativism. Apparently Pope Benedict is a firm believer in absolute truth (influenced by his knowledge of Nazism and Communism).
“the College of Cardinals have decided that modernity is the most serious problem that’s facing the Church right now”
Rather than say it is modernity, I think one could clarify it to be secular humanism, or moral relativism. Apparently Pope Benedict is a firm believer in absolute truth (influenced by his knowledge of Nazism and Communism).