U.S. Catholics are not going to be happy I think. Turning their back on the “Social Justice” Cardinals, the College of Cardinals selected a man rumored to be a Vatican hard liner. While the conventional wisdom is that Cardinal Ratzinger was elected because he will be an “interim pope” ( he is 78 years old), I think there was also intent to send a strong message to the Church and in particular to the American Church, don’t go out looking for women priests, wedding rings for male priests and basically telling them to get back on board the Catholic bus.
It will be interesting to see how Pope Benedict XVI makes his mark.
