Against my non-existant judgement, the Cardinals have selected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany as the new Pope. at 78, one would expect his reign to be relatively short. I believe this this Pope may spell trouble for the Church. He is one of the Arch-Conservative Cardinals that has done much to push away from the modernization of the church. As a Non-Catholic, this impacts me little on a personal level, but in a worldly sense, this will likely do much to (further) drive the industrialized world away from Catholicism--Europe in particular.
The Pope took the name Benedict XVI. He was Theological advisor to pope John Paul II and greatly responsible as the conservative influence on JPII's hardline decisions. From CNN:
As a young priest he was on the progressive side of theological debates but shifted to the right after the student revolutions of 1968.
In the Vatican, he has been the driving force behind crackdowns on liberation theology, religious pluralism, challenges to traditional moral teachings on issues such as homosexuality, and dissent on such issues as women's ordination.
I believe a more liberal pope would have created an influx into the Catholic church, in light of the positive attention being paid after JPII's death. A Catholic Church still calling condom use a sin, in light of their influence in Sub-Saharan Africa (and in light of the AIDS crisis there) is just irresponsible and hopelessly out of touch.
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