There is no hope with this pope!

@Mo: Well, he won’t last forever. Hope the next pope will be a black guy!

Problem with popes is that they are… er… catholics. Also, by the time a man gets to be elected pope the best years of his life have already passed. They are old people, and changing their way of thinking and their cosmovision is almost impossible.

Having said that, it’s hard to change an institution that keeps rituals and practices unchanged for centuries. The Catholic Church even had an “antimodernist oath”, endorsed by several popes of the like of Saint Pius X, an oath that was “just discontinued” in 1967.

There are other aspects that make difficult to change things in Roman Catholic Church. I see it like this:

1) “The pope is the vicar of Christ, and rightful sucessor of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. And as such, he heads not a democracy, but a teocracy, where the pope claims all rights to rule the universal (i.e. catholic) church. Therefore the papacy has no true reason to “bow” to democratic pressures. If it ever does that, it does for the sake of convenience.

2) The pope makes a claim of “infallibility and inerrancy” when it comes to defining faith and related questions. So, it could be said that the current pope, whoever that happens to be, has the power to reshape the universal church at his very whim. Indeed, the pope is considered to be the only absolute monarch that remains in the world. (Yes, he is a monarch for he is the ruler of Vatican City).

3) But when we come to consider the matter of papal infallibility, it also brings a collorary of its own: It’s almost impossible for a pope to change whatever a previous pope established as a truth, as such a change will imply a contradiction with the doctrine of infallibility.

Therefore you have a logical trap that leaves the pope with few options other than continue to lead the church in almost the same way it has been led by his predecessors.

That said, I hope the best from Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.S. of A.

As for Pope Benedict: While growing up in Nazi Germany, Pope Benedict XVI joined the Hitler Youth. The dope on the Pope’s Nazi past. So I doubt he cares what war crimes Bush commits. He was Hitler’s pope.

And as for me:
sorry I haven’t been around in a while but my son’s wife murdered their baby. I am heart broken. If you want to read about it, the permalink’s here She Murdered My Grandchild

@Leonardo: Thanks for your insight.

Depending on it’s on dogma - the Holy Mother Church doesn’t need reform or modernization. It is perfect like it is.

I don’t understand why people ask the church or any religion for change - the very idea of most religions is based on eternal truths that don’t need to adapt.

@Static: Sorry for your loss.

Have you read the Pope’s biography regarding the Hitlerjugend? He was drafted twice into service and decided to desert the Wehrmacht. I dunno what you mean by “He was Hitler’s pope”.

Benedict certainly is a conservative hardliner, but no warmonger or war supporter.