The New York Times expresses shock that the Pope is Catholic:

His personal style, praised often even by critics, remains pastoral and gentle. But the more contentious views, less publicly visible when he first began as leader of the world’s billion Roman Catholics, seem to be coming more to the fore.

On Wednesday, on the flight to Brazil from Rome, he seemed to weigh in on a particularly sensitive issue for the church: Catholic politicians who advocate abortion rights, he suggested, risk excommunication.

There are other signs of a public turn to the right: He is expected soon to approve the wider usage of the Latin Mass, largely shelved more than a generation ago. In recent months, the church in Italy has engaged outspokenly in a fight against a proposed law to give legal rights to unmarried couples, including homosexual ones.[This is a turn to the right, because the Church has never taken a position on Homosexuality before?]

Recently he spoke about the reality of hell and, despite a free discussion of the issue when he was first elected, he seemed to have firmly ruled out any changes to priestly celibacy as a way to alleviate a desperate shortage of priests in some places, Latin America included.

At the same time, the speech on Sunday underscored that Benedict remains, as ever, untethered to any set of views apart from his own.[WOW!]

In the speech, for example, he railed against abortion and contraception, as hurting the family, but he also called for state-sponsored day care, as helping it.

This is shocking even for the New York Times. Let us sum this up.

  • Expected soon to approve the wider usage of the Latin Mass
  • The church in Italy has engaged outspokenly in a fight against a proposed law to give Legal rights to unmarried couples, including homosexual ones
  • Reality of hell
  • Ruled out any changes to priestly celibacy
  • Railed against abortion and contraception

The view of the NYT is that this proves the BXVI “remains untethered to any set of views apart from his own”

No, this simply proves that the Pope is Catholic. These have been the consistent teachings of the Church for 2000 years, but the NYT thinks that these are simply Ratzinger’s personal pet peeves.

This is lame even for the NYT.