Rome, Italy, Jul 14, 2005 / 22:00 pm
In a column published Friday by the Italian online magazine L’Espresso Vatican analyst Sandro Magister notes that, three months after the beginning of his Pontificate, Benedict XVI has marked out his own style, although most of the mainstream media, as expected, continues to treat him with hostility.
According to Magister, among “progressive” Catholic intellectuals, there has been no delay in criticizing the new Pontiff.
“From the beaches of California, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese…has denounced the new Pope as an irreconcilable enemy of modernity”; while in Italy, Professor Achille Aridgo, “the guru of the Bologna school founded by Giuseppe Dossetti…said in an interview with La Repubblica, ‘I pray everyday to the Holy Spirit to keep the pope and Cardinal Ruini from persevering in their rationalist theology’,” Magister writes.
The Vatican analyst points out, however, that Benedict XVI has compensated by “conquering the masses.”