[Buddha-l] Will new the pope verify Buddhist doctrine?

[Richard P. Hayes]

During the past several days I have been reading all manner of
interesting quotes gleaned from the writings and talks of Cardinal
Ratzinger. A few years back he entertained all of us here on buddha-l
with his famous caricature of Buddhism as a form of autoeroticism. I
also recall some discussion here of his claim that all religions outside
Christianity are defective, which is right up there in quality of
insight with his claim that homosexuals are mentally ill. One of my
colleagues, a German professor of theology, reports that Cardinal
Ratzinger has never been willing to include Protestants within the
Christian Church, since the Church is the body of Christ, and
Protestants are not part of that body. But then neither are Eastern
Orthodox Christians. (Protestants and Orthodoxists are perhaps like
warts that have been removed from the body of Christ?) None of this
sounds very promising for anyone interested in religious pluralism and
interfaith dialogue, let alone a rapprochment between Marxist theory and
the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (who sounds pretty much like a proto-
Marxist to me).

No need to despair, however, since everyone in Vatican is assuring us
that Pope Benedict XVI will not be at all like Cardinal Ratzinger. The
new pope, we are assured, is all in favor of ecumenism, interfaith
dialogue and uniting the brotherhood of man. (Women will have to wait
several more centuries to be fully included, but women are always
welcome to unite with men, provided they do not use condoms.) One can
almost hear Le Nouveau Pape saying, in one or more of the ten languages
he reportedly speaks fluently, "I am a uniter, not a divider."

If all these predictions are true, then this will prove the central
doctrine of Buddhism, namely, that there is no enduring personal self.
Cardinal Ratzinger's mentality will allegedly not be welcomed into the
body of Pope Benedict XVI. The new pope, according to most predictions,
will in fact have the mentality of Pope John Paul II, thereby making the
papacy not entirely unlike the Dalai Lamacy. Welcome aboard, Catholics!
We Buddhists hereby recognize you as anonymous Dharmacharis! 

No matter how you look at it, I think we're in for some interesting
times ahead.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico