Benedict XVI as a Classical Liberal

Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute thinks Pope Benedict XVI will be seen not as a conservative, but as a liberal; a classic liberal, that is.

That would be most welcome, and I don't doubt that he's right. As Cardinal Ratzinger, the new Pope certainly had no patience with liberation theology. Also, as a survivor of the Nazis who saw part of his homeland turned into a communist hell hole after the War, he's unlikely to favor a stronger role for the state, or to believe that civil society, Burke's "little platoons," should be subsumed to state power.