Pope Benedict XVI: Protector of Faith or Opponent of Progress?

Rating: 3 Stars

Review:

Very brief read about Pope Benedict XVI that I found while perusing BookBub for Kindle deals. Despite being Lutheran, I am oddly a little obsessed with the papacy. Maybe it is because we Lutherans don't have this kind of supreme ruler? I don't know. it helps that the current pope, Pope Francis, is a total BAMF.

I was curious about Benedict because of all the conflicting types of information I have read about him in brief news snippets. In some cases he is a Nazi sympathizer, in others he is the defender of the faith, and I was looking for something that would kind of reconcile how one person can be described in such drastically different ways.

Unfortunately this did not quite help. I do not know the author's background, but suspect he is staunch Catholic, as there was nothing negative about Benedict, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could be that perfect - even a man on his way to the papacy. I do greatly admire Benedict's commitment to academia and learning; that is quality I can admire in almost anyone.

This was a very quick, very positive read and while I did gain a lot of information about Benedict, it is hardly what I would consider an actual biography. I still learned quite a bit, though I knew nothing of his life before becoming pope, so that is not saying a lot. Someone who is Catholic or is interested in the papacy would likely know much of this already. Still, I was interested enough to finish the book, and found it mostly worth the time at least in order to gain a foundation. The writing itself is very much like a college term paper at times, but it made for an easy read in that regard.