Quote:
Originally posted by citydogisu
is there any meaning behind choosing the name Benedict?
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He hasn't said why he chose the name, but I have heard three possible reasons suggested:
-- The last Pope Benedict was pope during the First World War and had a reputation as a peacemaker and reconciler. His efforts at peacemaking in the War didn't go well and led to him being distrusted by both sides, but his efforts to reconcile conservatives and "modernists" in the Church were more successful. Perhaps the new pope, aware of his reputation in some quarters, is signaling his desire to reconcile conservatives and progressives in the Church.
-- He may be harkening back to St. Benedict, the monastic who founded the Benedictine Order. St. Benedict was a scholar and a prayerful man, and those traits became hallmarks of the Benedictines. Some say that their scholarship kept the Church alive in the "dark ages" in parts of Europe. Benedict XVI may be suggesting that Europe and the West are again going through a "dark age" of secularism, and that scholarship and prayerfulness are needed.
-- St. Benedict is considered a patron saint of Europe. Many have surmised that the new pope, a German, may have been chosen, in part, to combat the rise of secularism and the decline of Christianity in Western Europe. The choice of the name may be a sort of invocation of St. Benedict as that task is faced.
Of course, his reason may be some or all of the above, or something else altogether.