We Have A Pope!

[gmacleod]

...or should I say, those that are Catholic do. Just figured I'd start a thread to get various opinions on this new pope, as well as the state of the church in general.

Personally, I'm reserving judgment on the man until he settles into the job a bit. I expect that he will be a bit softer than the "hard-line" image that has been portrayed.

I wish him luck as he starts his pontificate.

[Ranz]

Its a bit odd that I'm making my first post here on a non karate issue, but here goes.

I think its important that he basically had the worst job in the Church for 20 some years. Everytime some theologian wants to do something new, he had to review it and say yes thats great, or no thats not authentically catholic so stop. He had to be the bad guy for a long time (and reportedly would rather not have been, he asked to resign but JPII asked him to stay on), no wonder people think of him as a hardliner.

Back when he has was an archbishop in germany, he was very poplular, everyone loved him, and from anyone who has had personal contact with him says he is very warm and humble. I happen to have a couple of book lenth interviews he did with a journalist a few years back, and they are very personable, very reasonable and anything but harsh.