Pope Benedict XVI Blog

Tough side of Pope is glimpsed on way to Brazil and sets clearer definition of him

These astute observations about Pope Benedict come from Spirit Daily:

The surprise of Pope Benedict who we have long called the "Pope who will surprise" is that there are two of him.

We are speaking, of course, of public perception.

One of the images is Cardinal Ratzinger, the persona everyone thought they knew.

He would be a "rottweiler," many believed -- reining in wayward members of the Church, clergy and laity alike.

Such was glimpsed when the editor of a liberal Catholic journal bowed out upon the Pope's elevation to the Throne of Peter, and it was glimpsed more recently when a Jesuit named Father Jon Sobrino was disciplined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for his "liberation theology."

The other image, the second Benedict persona, was the one who issued an encyclical on love -- as his first major piece of writing.

That has been the biggest surprise thus far in a papacy that is taking form as this Pope who (so long was in the giant shadow of John Paul II) begins to define himself.

Confounding it was to those who predicted that a "hardliner" was in the Vatican: not only the encyclical, but the repeated harping on love. Meanwhile, this ultimate theologian also has shown a proclivity for the mystical in the setting he chose for a major address in Brazil -- near a miraculous image -- and his stated desire to visit Fatima.

It is a crucial message -- a wonderful undertaking for any Pope (to underscore the single most important aspect of life on earth), the lessons on love, and the acknowledgment of the mystical (without which the Church suffers great loss) -- but there is also Cardinal Ratzinger the Enforcer and that side appeared during his trip to Brazil, where a Pope who many expected to be more like an attorney general showed his prosecutorial and tough-love side, if only for a few moments.
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posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 9:20 AM