He was a professor of theology for decades and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for decades more. He was the right-hand man to Pope John Paul II, and he is theologically conservative. That much most of us know from the news reports. What journalist Bardazzi brings out are the details, that Pope Benedict XVI and his brother were ordained together, that he was drafted into the German army during World War II but defected, and that he mused to a reporter that one assurance the Holy Spirit gives to the election of a pope is that "the thing cannot be totally ruined." Bardazzi gives much more than a glimpse of His Holiness, and includes a chronology and a well-chosen selection of quotations on topics ranging from Beethoven to Western self-hatred to cloning.
