When he resigned, Benedict XVI left a church that was almost run into the ground. Some brighter people and more astute people on the workings of the church had confided in me, even people on the inside, he was killing the church. People were moving away from the church; people were leaving the church in droves.
What he did in his seven years as pope or so, is he brought back into the mainstream many fringe groups on the extreme right, groups that did not like or threw into question the reforms that happened at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The modernization of the church these people did not like. They wanted to go back to the old Tridentine Mass, the pre-Vatican II Mass, and he allowed them. These people were brought back into the mainstream of the church, even though they’re tiny little pockets, insignificant pockets really, [and] they became the tail wagging the dog.
This was driving away a lot of people, even inside the Vatican. The Vatican is naturally a conservative place. … Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, was too conservative even for them.
On Pope Francis:
What’s the biggest danger he faces?
… The strength of this pope will be the people, and the people who continue to push him. …
His biggest danger is that there are a lot of small-minded bishops that were appointed under Benedict XVI and John Paul II and a whole cadre of clergy that were ordained in the last 10 years on some idea of priesthood in church, so very different from the one that Francis is putting forward, who will find it hard to be enthusiastic and to follow and to pick up his message and to diffuse it among the people.
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