I don't normally post a link and run, but that's the kind of time I've got this week. Here is a fantastic survey -- thorough and thoughtful -- of Cardinal Ratzinger's writings and positions, and what they might mean for pretty much the whole host of issues facing the Catholic Church today. [via Cranky Professor] It's required reading if you are going to talk about Pope Benedict XVI. [Jeff Vanke, in comments below, isn't as impressed as I was, but I'd still argue that it's better than 99% of what I've seen on the subject... everything except Jeff's comments, in other words]

Also worth noting, given the ubiquity and shallowness of the discussion of whether he's named himself after Benedict XV, is Jason Kuznicki's suggestion that he might have been thinking of Benedict XIV instead. Other libertarians have been looking at the new pope from, of course, the libertarian perspective.

And I just want to say that I really enjoyed the discussions under Ralph's announcement, a model of civil, but lively, disagreement and discussion about real historical and historiographical issues.

Eric Muller, meanwhile, is trying to make sense of Ratzinger's youth under Nazi rule, with the aid of a small army of Glenn Reynolds' readers.

Jeff Vanke - 4/20/2005

That chiesa.espresso.it survey misses a lot about the man, even in his recent past, and it's more informative than incisive. Ralph's links, and Slate's summaries, I found closer to reflecting what I've learned about Ratzinger in action during the past decade.

Muller seems to be presuming guilt and demanding for proof of innocence. I'm not going to condemn a 14-year-old *for life* for doing what 98 percent of his peers were doing. Still, I am interested to learn more about Ratzinger's later and present adult relationship with the Germany of his youth.