NORWAY

NORWAY
Aftenposten, Oslo, April 24: The selection of Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope has been met with both joy and resignation. Joy because Ratzinger, the new Pope Benedict XVI, is respected, learned and clearly capable. Resignation because he is seen as a man of yesterday.
Benedict XVI wants reconciliation with all churches, and dialogue with all religions, right and needed bridge-building in a globalized world. If we are to judge by his past, he will also carry on the late pope's conservative view of women and homosexuality, his hardheaded opposition to contraception and abortion, as well as his determined defense of celibacy.
Secular currents
Questions like these put the church at odds with widespread beliefs in the West and have caused a shortage of priests in many places. The big challenge will be to make the connection to broad, secular currents in a way that make the church's insistence on its own values and beliefs more relevant for more people than today.
It will be exciting to see whether Joseph Ratzinger as pope will live in the shadow of John Paul II, or if he will grow beyond it.
BRITAIN
The Scotsman, Scotland, April 27: The Scottish Liberal Democrats have warned their Labour partners in the Executive that they will not countenance NHS reforms on the English model, which favour buying in more health provision from available independent suppliers.
Some would consider this Liberal Democrat predilection for nationalised industry rather illiberal -- especially as the English NHS is producing lower waiting times for patients than its more expensive Scottish counterpart. But then the Liberal Democrats have adopted much of Old Labour's clothing: higher taxes, opposition to the war in Iraq and abolition of university tuition fees.
So it is hardly surprising that an arch member of Old Labour such as Brian Sedgemore has defected to the Lib Dems. He joins the leader of the Sixties student protest movement, Tariq Ali, who is also calling for a Lib Dem vote.
Dissembling
Curiously, there is one area in which the Lib Dems do copy New Labour -- in the art of not answering a straight question. The Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, systematically dissembled when asked if the Lib Dems are now to the left of Labour. He must be the only person in the country who does not know the answer. Perhaps he should ask Brian Sedgemore.
As for the Executive and reforming the Scottish NHS, surely it is time we abandoned outdated ideology in favour of doing whatever works best to improve patient care.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mail and Guardian, Bloemfontein, April 21: Britain's Guardian newspaper remarked this week that the election of Pope Benedict XVI, formerly German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "will clamp the cold hand of foreboding round the hearts of all who care about the developing world."
Indeed. It was also a bitter disappointment for forward-looking Catholics who want their church to contribute to the material upliftment of the world's hungry, homeless, ragged and disease-afflicted billions, rather than merely minister to their immortal souls.
'Relativism'
Nicknamed "God's Rottweiler" and "the Panzer Cardinal", Ratzinger comes out of Catholicism's most intellectually rigid, Eurocentric and authoritarian-hierarchical traditions. Believing the church has an absolute monopoly on truth, these denounce all other perspectives as false and all internal reform initiatives as "relativism."
The 78-year-old leader of the world's one billion Catholics is hostile to the ecumenical movement, which seeks closer ties between Christian denominations, and has banned the phrase "sister churches."
Loath to broaden the concept of Europe beyond historical Christendom, he is unlikely to build on his predecessor's tentative overtures to Islam.
The cardinals' conclave made a safe choice, but one that betrayed the clear majority of the faithful, now concentrated in South America and Africa. Progressive people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, can only hope that Ratzinger's advanced age ensures a swift succession.