Benedict Lackland

Der scharfe Beobachter Martin Mosebach über den Papst ohne Land in der NY Times - evtl. ist der Text ja auch auf deutsch irgendwo erschienen:

"As a German, I myself have always been struck by how un-German the pope is. Consider his strikingly peculiar face, his large, child's eyes lurking in their shadowy sockets, and the eager glow that seems to radiate from them even when he is absorbed in contemplation. It's rare to see a face like that in his Bavarian homeland. The great novelist Heimito von Doderer once said that all of Bavaria can be divided into a small group of butchers and a larger group of people who look like butchers. And unlike many of my compatriots, the pope is unflaggingly courteous and appears to grow even gentler in the midst of debate, though he'd never relinquish so much as an inch of ground. His enemies call him cold because he refuses to feign cordiality. (...)

While John Paul II's teachings centered on humanity in its God-given dignity, Pope Benedict might turn back to the nature of Jesus. Western theology has long been influenced by a creeping Arianism - the idea that Jesus was not of the same substance as God. It would be true to character if Pope Benedict were to invest all his zeal in the effort to recast the concept of the divine incarnation in a new language, which would once again render it understandable to modern-day theologians, teachers and intellectuals."