From Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI...

"The church must renounce worldly principles and standards in order to accept the truth, and the way it must go will always lead to some form of martyrdom. It is important for us to realize that we cannot bring about unity by diplomatic maneuvers. The result would be a diplomatic structure based on human principles. Instead, we must open ourselves more and more to God.

The unity that God brings about is the only true unity. Anything else is a political construction, and it will be as transitory as all such constructions are. This is the more difficult way, for in political maneuvering, people themselves are active and believe they can achieve something. But we must wait on God, and we must go to meet him by cleansing our hearts."

I must admit, I am a little disappointed in the selection of Ratzinger as the next successor of Saint Peter. I will grant him that he was close to John Paul II and that he seems to be ready to follow humbly in the same trajectory established by his predecessor. I have nothing against Ratzinger, per say, but had hoped, as many, that the next pope would hail from the new center of Christianity, the Southern Hemisphere.

The above quote from Ratzinger is an excerpt from a conversation he had with members of the Bruderhof Community in 1995. In this quote, Ratzinger reveals part of the reason for the strange mix of emotions I feel in his papacy as Benedict XVI (of course, I do pray he lives up to his name's sake, the author of the monastic rule that transformed the church in the sixth century). I am thrilled by his pleading for the church to find the source and foundation of its unity in God. The depth of faith and trust revealed in that (almost overly) simple assertion is one that I pray guides his papacy. On the other hand, the dismissal of anything else as a 'political construction' seems to be a guerilla attack on liberation theology. With the strength of the church in the southern hemisphere, along with the centuries of oppression under the hands of authoritarian figures there (both of which are in part due to European colonialization), Benedict cannot dismiss liberation theology so quickly. It has been a groundswell reading from the bottom (the oppressed) up. I can understand his reticence to accept the Marxist influence in some areas of liberation theology, but the entire liberationist movement cannot be squelched from Catholic theology because of that. Marxism is one influence among many, just as Catholic tradition and theology owe a debt of gratitude to various theological and philosophical presuppositions and foundations. I could continue, but I would prefer to hear your thoughts...