Habent Papam

Was getting ready to go to lunch today when I happened to see the homepage for MSN proclaim that Ratzinger had been elected Pope and had taken the name Benedict XVI. On the one hand, this bodes well for traditionalist Catholics, as they now have a hardliner traditionalist at the helm who, from closed communion to sexual abstinence to the separation of clergy and layman, seems to be a stone wall against a growing tide of liberalism and innovation. On the other hand, this bodes poorly for us Orthodox, as the man is very set in the heresy of the communion's claim that the Pope is the universal head of the Church, so further gestures towards reunion are unlikely to get anywhere under his pontificate.

And on the other hand, this bodes maddeningly for us Americans, as now we will have to hear ad nauseum about how "this pope will have to deal with the issues facing the Church," such as women's ordination, homosexual lifestyle, abortion, the ever-present sex scandal...and I say, let the man do it. Statements such as the following give me hope that we need not kow tow to novel sexual or moral standards, regardless of what America or Europe may say:

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ’swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."

Sounds like he'll follow in JP2's footsteps regardless of the pressure. I just wish I didn't have to hear everyone harp about it, always annoyed, all the time.