Ratzinger

Para além do natural impulso (demasiado humano?) para fazer previsões, as preocupações expressas com a possibilidade de o Cardeal Ratzinger poder vir a ser Papa são bem reveladoras das pressões que hoje (em certo sentido, como sempre, mas de novas formas...) se abatem sobre a Igreja. Resta-nos aguardar...

Swing to Ratzinger boosts chance of becoming Pope

A late upsurge in support for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger days before next week's conclave has boosted the chances of the Vatican's doctrinal chief becoming the next Pope.

The German-born cardinal, feared by liberal Catholics as a dour enforcer of orthodoxy, won over many sceptics with the touching, human tone of his sermon at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, often described as his alter ego.

(...)

Cardinal Ratzinger, the dean of the college of cardinals, made his uncompromising views on the state of the church clear in comments made only days before the last Pope's death.

In a Good Friday homily, he wrote: "Lord, often your Church seems to be about to sink, and to be a boat full of holes... The face and clothing of your Church shock us. But it is we who are sullying it."###

Such forthright opinions have impressed the Ratzinger lobby, but his rivals will use them as more evidence of his grimly ideological stance.

The conventional wisdom that "he who enters a conclave as a Pope comes out as a cardinal" will also work against him.

But the biggest barrier to his election as Pope is still his divisive record as the arch-conservative guardian of Vatican orthodoxy.

"He has too many enemies due to his heavy-handed, centralised and arrogant approach to theology," said one Vatican insider, while admitting that otherwise he had "all the requisites for the job".

According to one Italian newspaper, "for many [in the Church] he is not welcome".