Why cardinals chose Pope Benedict XVI

Brian T. Olszewski reports in our Catholic Herald on John Allen's February 27th Pallium Lecture. He focused on the papacy of Benedict XVI.

Why was Benedict elected?

"[Cardinal Joseph] Ratzinger appeared as the best and the brightest they had," Allen stated.

He said the cardinals identified three things they wanted the successor of Peter to address: runaway secularism in the West; someone to reform the Roman Curia; and someone who had "the substance of Pope John Paul II without the craziness," i.e., the frenetic pace, of John Paul II.

So things are being handled differently.

As examples of how the pope does business, Allen noted that rather than consult two or three Italian bishops for advice on choosing the head of the Italian bishops' conference, he sought input from all of Italy's 245 bishops.

Is that an improvement? Depends on how the two or three were selected. Two or three can be consulted in depth, but 245 are going to be handled bureaucratically. Reminds me a bit of the "listening sessions" held from time-to-time here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, blatently bureaucratic but with a veneer of participatory democracy so as not to harm our bureaucrats' self-image.

Likewise, at the World Synod of Bishops last fall, when groups were at odds on their views of the Eucharist, the pope spoke from the floor of the assembly.

"He settled it not by act of authority," Allen said, "but by reasoned argument."

That would be "likewise" if opinions on who should head a bishops' conference were grouped, and then discussed and debated with group representives. Second, to contrast acts of authority to reasoned argument contains some unstated assumptions about authority.

Mike passes along a report that one Milwaukee priest in attendance would have rather been at Martinifest.