Benedict was a fairly Conservative German-born priest. He could speak and read Koine Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
He came after John Paul the 2nd, a man that was part of the Trifecta (Reagan, Thatcher, and JPII) battled communism and won. JP2 was effectively hated by enemies of the Church, but they couldn’t really criticize him in any way that mattered until he died and the Pedophile scandal blew up.
Benedict inherited that (which according to his death journal was an issue that JP2 was aware of, but JP2 was dealing with communist infiltration in South America and the homos in the Vatican). He also got called a Nazi because he was a Hitler Youth member as a child… which was required by German law at the time.
There’s a very famous story where some reporter asks Benedict why he doesn’t do more with his authority. Benedict points to the door and says that’s where my authority ends. Every executive officer has to deal with entrenched bureaucrats who fuck with their plans.
To bring it back on topic, Benedict wanted to do more and issued indicts to do so, but like Trump he got fucked by people slow walking shit and eventually getting debanked from SWIFT.
