Benedict Does NOT Equal Francis

Palm Sunday

• All this week I've been reading that Benedict was never the orthodox prelate whom we thought he was and that he's really just Francis with class. That is hyperbole. Joseph Ratzinger was never mean, he was never crude and not a single person has come forward to tell a story about how Fr. Ratzinger used to swear and scream when he was unhappy or that he mocked them for being pious. 
  
   Maybe Pope Benedict was just a nice conservative, okay I'll accept that. Church and a social conservatives haven't won a single battle in 50 years but they've tossed off some cute witticisms and I  think deep down the leaders are content with that and many of them dislike the embarrassing Trads more than the out right heretics. Pope Benedict may not have had the courage or ammunition to fight the St. Gallen mafia and it probably would have been better for him if he had refused the papacy to begin with, but I don't think he's sipping on a beer in his apartment thinking, " Francis and I sure fooled those suckers. Hah!"