Gentle Benedict concedes papal roadshow must go on

Benedict has personally taken charge of the appointment process and no longer leaves it up to Giovanni Battista Re, the cardinal prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops who, in the last years of the John Paul II papacy had carte blanche in the matter of episcopal appointments. This lead to a considerable number of mediocre appointments and a couple of disastrous ones.

Many were critical of Benedict after the Regensburg lecture on faith and reason. They accused him of insensitivity to Muslims after his arcane reference to the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1391-1425). But he quickly recovered from this over-reaction to a bit of academic showing-off and visited Turkey with religious sensitivity and diplomatic aplomb. He has now restored the independence of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, which supervises relations with Muslims and appointed an experienced diplomat as its president, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

I am not suggesting Benedict is some type of “progressive”. He’s not. He is profoundly and deeply traditional. His restoration of the Tridentine liturgy for a tiny but vociferous group in the church reveals his sympathy with this form of traditionalism. Meanwhile priestless parishes multiply and the Eucharist and sacraments (whether in Latin or Swahili) are denied to increasing numbers of the faithful.

But it is easy to forget that being traditional has its advantages. It means he knows his place in the church and will not turn the papacy into an endless roadshow, while still understanding that in the modern world the pope has to travel to events like World Youth Day.