hegemony rules

Sigh. I was hoping for a rockstar Pope - but we got Ratzinger. I was hoping the CC would go for a kinder/gentler/inclusive papacy, not appoint a former member of the Nazi youth movement. And, Ratzinger isn't exactly down with social justice, either. As the Washington Post notes, he's pretty much anti- everything:

Ratzinger is a brilliant, tough-minded intellectual who started out as moderately liberal and -- like so many American neoconservatives -- developed a mistrust of the left because of the student revolt of the 1960s. He once said that "the 1968 revolution" turned into "a radical attack on human freedom and dignity, a deep threat to all that is human." The pope knew what he was getting with Ratzinger, and he got what he wanted.

With Ratzinger playing the tough cop against dissent, John Paul was free to be more expansive. Rocco Buttiglione, a philosopher who was close to the late pope, captured their division of labor perfectly in an interview some years ago. "The pope has more the gift of synthesis, because of his office," Buttiglione said. "Cardinal Ratzinger has more the gift of polemic."