Benedict XVI
The Vatican: HABEMVS PAPAM BENEDICTVM XVI
Roman Catholic blog: "Today's agitation by the shrinking heterodox minority over celibacy, the ordination of women, abortion, artificial birth control, blah, blah, blah -- is really nothing new and is tame in comparison the Arian heresy or the Cathars. And the election of Benedict XVI is a sure signal these agitators will just as surely dissipate in the face of the Magisterium and another determined Pope."
Papabile: "I'm happy. I'm overjoyed...... Today is a beautiful. I'm literally crying with joy."
Andrew Sullivan: "And so the Catholic church accelerates its turn toward authoritarianism, hostility to modernity, assertion of papal supremacy and quashing of internal debate and dissent. We are back to the nineteenth century. Maybe this is a necessary moment. Maybe pressing this movement to its logical conclusion will clarify things. But those of us who are struggling against what our Church is becoming, and the repressive priorities it is embracing, can only contemplate a form of despair. The Grand Inquisitor, who has essentially run the Church for the last few years, is now the public face. John Paul II will soon be seen as a liberal. The hard right has now cemented its complete control of the Catholic church. And so ... to prayer. What else do we now have?"
Professor Bainbridge: "Andrew Sullivan is an Ass"
The Pope Blog: "Long live the pope!"
The Achoress: "I like the name. The press is unhappy - Benedict indicates a more conservative bent, and folks in the press are speaking through their teeth as they bemoan the fact that the progressive agenda will not be moved on. John Allen is suggesting that Ratzinger took the name Benedict to indicate that his reign would not be a long one. I respect Allen enormously, but I think he's being a bit silly with that."
Stern: "Rom feiert den deutschen Papst"
The Belgravia Dispatch: "Great figures in any public office are rarely succeeded by people of close to equal stature. Perhaps the conclave recognized that any new Pope would suffer from comparison with the last one, and decided to choose a man who would not mind and could hold things together until the Church had a better idea of how it wanted to be led in the new century."
Slugger O'Toole commentator: "I should have known that the Germans always come good in the big tournaments."
Wikipedia: "Pope Benedict XVI, officially in Latin Benedictus PP. XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger. This article or section contains references to a current or ongoing event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses."
Michael Novak: "To the meaninglessness of relativism, Ratzinger counter poses respect for the distinctive, incommensurable image of God in every single human being, from the most helpless to the seemingly most powerful, together with a sense of our solidarity with one another in the bosom of our Creator. This fundamental vision of the immortal value both of the individual person and the whole human community in solidarity has been the motor-power, the spiritual dynamic overdrive, of an increasingly global (catholic) civilization."
Rick Deckard: "A German, former-Nazi elected pope - previously in charge of the Inquisition, crucial in the concotion of the Fatima Secrets, occult tendancies, hatred of science, a man who has become the nuclear option if you will...what would Dan Brown say?"
The Ratzinger Fan Club: "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."
The Guardian: "Ratzinger's defence of conservative orthodoxy may have been part of his job, but it hasn't made him popular, especially in more progressive corners of the faith. In western Europe and North America, in particular, there is an acute perception that the church is losing ground and needs to reinvigorate the flock with a less uncompromising hostility to the outside world."
Ratzinger T-shirts: "Truth is not determined by a majority vote"
Tim Blair: White smoke sighted.
UPDATE. Windows open on the balcony.
UPDATE II. Some old guy speaking Latin.
UPDATE III. Ratzinger!
UPDATE IV. Pope Benedict XVI.
Washington Post: "Ratzinger is a brilliant, tough-minded intellectual who started out as moderately liberal and -- like so many American neoconservatives -- developed a mistrust of the left because of the student revolt of the 1960s. He once said that "the 1968 revolution" turned into "a radical attack on human freedom and dignity, a deep threat to all that is human." The pope knew what he was getting with Ratzinger, and he got what he wanted."
