Joseph Ratzinger’s coat of many colours

A common but flawed assumption about Joseph Ratzinger is that he is simply an ardent conservative. That’s the figure we see in Netflix’s The Two Popes. Anthony Hopkins’s performance may be a visual feast, but the script leaves no cliché unaired. Better informed observers note that the Vatican’s former doctrinal guardian is a poacher turned gamekeeper who once supported major reform of the Catholic Church but then performed a somersault, partly because of worry about threats including Marxism and moral relativism. Among the truest verdicts is that he has always been torn between different versions of himself. The cultural warrior who could urge Catholics not to practise yoga and to avoid the Harry Potter books has insisted at other moments that there are as many paths to God as there are people.

Being the most distinguished thinker at the Church’s helm in many centuries, Ratzinger has a good story to tell.