As usual, over at RCP, you can sample a wide swath of opinion and commentary, this time on the election of Pope Benedict XVI, from Michael Novak's "pro", to Andrew Sullivan's "con", and everything in between. One angle I hadn't thought about was in this lead to the Telegraph article:
For the past 25 years, a meeting took place each week which defied the history of the 20th century. A Pole and a German met in peace to discuss the will of God. Every Friday, Pope John Paul II, the Pole, sat with Josef Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, alone. Now the Pole is dead, and the German is Pope.Posted by dan at April 20, 2005 12:32 AMIn some ways, it is even more extraordinary to have a German Pope than it was to have a Polish one. Much of Polish society retained its Catholic integrity under Communist persecution. Most of German society succumbed to Hitler, compromising itself.
To choose a man brought up at that time and in that place is to state that the most corrupted human society can be redeemed. If the world accepts the new Pope, Germany's atonement will be recognised and its honour among the nations will be restored.