In defense of Pope Benedict

• After Pope Benedict's letter from retirement was published I noticed that there was the same old tiresome crap that happens every time he makes a peep. Some people said the letter was a hoax. Others got mad because it appears to be genuine.  I was reminded of something I wrote last Palm Sunday that still, weirdly enough applies to the situation at hand. I'm posting it again with a few additions.
  
  
  
  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 even crude in private, much less in public 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.  Although he said some things in his books on the life of Our Lord that raised my eyebrow I don't recall him being openly heretical in his statements. I don't recall ever cringing at his daily reported utterances or wondering if he was non compos mentis. 
  
   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!"