LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX...:

With Pope Benedict's Ascent, American Cultural Conservatives Scored a Big One (Richard N. Ostling, 4/23/05, The Associated Press)

Now that Americans have had a few days to absorb the election of Pope Benedict XVI, it's clear that conservative Christians - whether Roman Catholic or not - feel they've won another battle in the nation's culture wars. Liberals seem to ready to concede the point, but they aren't happy about it.

The Vatican bells had barely stopped clanging when the Rev. John Thomas, president of the left-leaning United Church of Christ, was denouncing the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Though Thomas once served as his denomination's envoy to other Christians, he abandoned all pretense of the politesse that's expected at such ecumenical moments.

"Cardinal Ratzinger's long tenure in the Vatican has been marked by a theological tone that is rigid, conservative and confrontational," said Thomas, whose denomination will consider a resolution supporting same-sex marriage at its July convention.

The pope has lacked "the warm pastoral heart" that bishops need, Thomas charged, his "harsh treatment" of liberal theologians as head of the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog agency was "profoundly troubling" and his attitude toward non-Catholics has been "narrow," "constrained," "insensitive" and "demeaning."

In other words, this pope is no liberal Protestant.

A competing assessment: "Faithful Christians ought to be thrilled," declared Charles Colson, the prison evangelist who's among the best-known members of America's largest Protestant group, the Southern Baptist Convention.

Colson is especially pleased because, as he sees it, America's cultural elite is alarmed by the cardinals' choice.

The Aughts stand fair to make up for the 60s. Now if we can just expunge the 70s...

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2005 2:23 PM