Nicely put

From a piece by John Waters for Il Sussidario about Pope Benedict XVI:

This subtle and brilliant Pope has struggled to be heard in a media climate characterised by sabotage and diversion. Repeatedly the media sought to distort or reduce his statements, to make them fit with prejudices unfurled on his election. But Benedict has emerged from the episodes of Regensburg and La Sapienza, and more recently from attempted misrepresentations of his statements about human sexuality and the controversy concerning condoms as a means of combating Aids, as a man of courage and grace, his message undiluted, his status enhanced in the human spaces beyond the news desks and the studios of the international media.

The importance of Benedict is that he brings an intellectual rigour to the core of Christianity in the public square, expounding and illuminating the core connections, and disconnections, between Christianity and modern culture. John Paul II was a charismatic figure and a brilliant philosopher but in his public persona tended to emit a dualistic message: soft and loveable on the one hand but rigidly and even simplistically traditionalist on the other. Of course, this had a lot to do with media treatment of his message and personality, largely overlooking his vast canon of philosophical writings. Benedict is adept at bringing Catholic legalisms back to their core significance, at reaching out, in spite of the background noise created around him by the media, to the educated generations of young people who now, as he correctly identified, hunger for something to transform the lassitude that has been invoked in them by a culture selling sensation and freedom but nothing approaching the kind of satisfaction they crave.

Read the entire piece.

• "A Revolutionary of the Christian Type" | Peter Seewald | The Preface to Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait
• Benedict XVI's Theological Vision: An Introduction | Monsignor Joseph Murphy | From the introduction to Christ Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI
• The Theological Genius of Joseph Ratzinger | An Interview with Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.
• The Courage To Be Imperfect | The Introduction to Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait) | D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.

Comments

[Christopher Milton]

John Waters the pencil-mustached film director?

[Dan Deeny]

This is a very good tribute to Benedict XVI. Who is John Waters?