Path to the


Papacy (Clockwise, from top) Joseph Ratzinger as a 1943 German anti-aircraft unit helper; (circled) with his family celebrating his ordination to the priesthood 1951; leading Mass in the mountains of southern


Germany in 1952; as a cardinal in Munich bidding a farewell to


Bavarian believers, before leaving to lead the Vatican’s Congregation of Faith in 1982.


tive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.” This is not just a problem among laypeople but also among priests and nuns, which is why the Pope scheduled meetings in America to focus on them, along with those who infl uence young people: educators from America’s Catholic schools and colleges. For many conservative and tradi- tionalist Catholics, the confusion in the Church is directly attributable to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), but the Pope disagrees. It was not the Council


56 NEWSMAX / APRIL 2008


itself, he believes, but misinterpreta- tions of the Council’s many docu- ments that are the problem. That may be, but “American Catholics, be they Latinos [in New York] or African-Americans in Atlanta, or those of Irish, Italian or Polish ancestry in Boston and Baltimore, have come to accept that being Catholic means living with inconsistency,” says The New York Times, which goes on to explain that Catholics are thoroughly assimilated Americans, whose “views on social and moral issues [have come] to mir-


AP IMAGES / POPE IN PRAYER/EYEDIA/GAMMA/ZUMA PRESS


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