Pope Benedict XVI

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Wow, here’s Andrew Sullivan on the new pope: “It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It’s not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It’s a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning.”

Um, and there was also a less colorful profile of Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, in last week’s Washington Post.

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