According to this article in the New York Times Pope Benedict XVI is winning people over with his shy, low-key style. They see him a really nice guy:
But in the two months since Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he has not evoked such instantly polar emotions. Supporters and skeptics alike say Benedict is revealing himself as a man more complicated, subtle and personally warm than many had expected from his years as the Vatican’s defender of the faith. (…)
"I have been pleasantly surprised by what we have seen thus far," said the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, an American Jesuit who is a professor at the Gregorian, a pontifical university in Rome. "What strikes me is that he is clearly a man of deep prayer and spirituality. He is very intelligent, a good theologian. And he is very humble. He clearly does not want to call attention to himself."
But, behind the scenes it is business as usual:
Sechs Wochen vor dem Weltjugendtag gibt es heftige Missstimmungen zwischen der Katholischen und der Evangelischen Kirche. Der Rat der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) ist verärgert, weil der Vatikan bisher keine Einladung zu Gesprächen mit Papst Benedikt XVI. während des WJT ausgesprochen hat.
The attack against equal rights for gays and lesbians also continues:
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican has called recent government measures in Spain and Canada legalizing same-sex marriage "new, violent attacks against the family."
The Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said the moves were "violent attacks aimed at the natural family — based on a union between a man and a woman."
In focusing on family issues, promoting discrimination against gays, undermining women’s reproductive rights, and blocking women from any power within the Roman Catholic Church, the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI is likely to be the most divisive of all time
