Boff: Two Thumbs Up for Ratzi

*ENGLISH EXCLUSIVE*

This is, indeed, something.... Just got this in an e.mail from Rome, relaying an interview with a Basque magazine -- translations are, per usual, my own

"Benedict XVI has done well, defending the Second Vatican Council, beginning work to revalue the local churches, tamping down on the centralization which characterized the last pontificate and investing in interreligious dialogue. This is the unexpected positive judgment on the new Pope expressed by Leonardo Boff, one of the most noted exponents of liberation theology, once a prominent victim of the Vatican discipline meted out by the same Cardinal Ratzinger when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

Of the first six months and change of this pontificate, Boff says, "[He has carved out] a good base from which to begin." He's looking forward to the coming Encyclical -- "I very much expect that the Pope has an intelligent theology," he said. "We'll know more of the direction he will take when the encyclical will be published, as it will constitute the political platform of this pontificate which he will follow and realize."

Boff was, himself, a Ratzinger student in the 60s. Once a Franciscan, he left in 1992. He's currently in the Basque country, and one of the prayer services he was leading was, according to one account, "interspersed with [Boff's] New Age messages."

But he's back on the Ratzi Wagon. Who'da thunk it that the onetime "Hammer of Heresy" would be the one to bring the family back together?

Just another miracle of Catholicism.

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