Okay, it's none of my business, really. He's not my Pope. But Ratzinger? A doctrinal hard-liner? What a lost opportunity. At a time when the deveoped countries are seen as stomping all over the third world via globalization and the heavy-handed behavior of multinationals, the choice of a third-world Pope, or a social liberal, or both, could have been a strong humanistic statement. It also could have gone far toward rejuvenating the Church, which has been -- on the ground, not from Rome -- a force for social justice in many parts of the world, and whose numbers are seriously slipping. Instead, they've chosen a man whose focus is strict doctrinal interpretation. Are they trying to fight fundamentalism with fundamentalism? I see this choice as doing nothing to bring back to the Church people driven away by scandals and the perceived lack of relevance of the Chruch to the day-to-day issues of people's lives. It seems to me this will, if anything, only increase that perception. Oh, well. It's hard to fight the zeitgeist, and hidebound fundamentalism does seem to be the order of the day.