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A: Yes, but that's not surprising. We have seen runs of the same type of men in church history, as in the medieval monarchs and the early modern administrators, but even within those groups there were many different personalities: bombastic and quiet men; scholars and humanists; leaders of simple spirituality, mystics, pastors; the greedy and the generous; popes with big egos and true humility. Other eras saw contrasting popes in close proximity, particularly a set of Pauls from the time of the Reformation. Paul III (1534-49) and Paul IV (1555-59) were both Italian aristocrats, patrons, and clients of the Renaissance papacy in all its excess. But though they shared a papal name and reigned within a short time of each other, a more contrasting approach to the Protestants could not be found. Paul III was well aware that some criticisms and calls for reform leveled by both Protestants and Catholics were well justified; in response, he created a climate for reform in Rome, calling in outsiders to tell the curia and papal machinery just what was wrong with them. Paul Avon the other hand, was the father of the Counter-Reformation: a hardheaded approach that took the Protestants as wrong, the Catholics as right, and zero-sum end game as the battleground. He backed the Inquisition and the Index of Forbidden Books while acting in an oppressive, defensive, and monarchical manner.
We find the same model of contrast in the last 150 years or so, Pius IX (1846-78) was a social and political conservative while Leo XIII (1878-1903) shared Pius' monarchical tendencies but also promoted social Catholicism and generally supported intellectual inquiry (with some important exceptions). Pius X (1903-14) slew the modernist dragon like his namesake Pius IX, but Benedict XV (1914-22) took off some of the chill. He was diplomatic, certainly a necessary attribute given World War I, which began the month before his election. His successor Pius XI (1922-39) permitted scholarship to continue, but was only partially successful at defending the church against the rise of Italian fascism. However, he showed a human face to a world hit by the depression and promoted clerical-lay partnership and social Catholicism, like Leo XIII before him, even while being every bit the monarch that his predecessors had been. Pius XII (1939-58) was an austere man, again a diplomat elected during the tensions that produced a world war, and he was followed by the grandfatherly John XXIII (1958-63). In turn, Paul VI (1963-78) was another introvert and diplomat who saw himself as indecisive and wondered if he was a Don Quixote tilting at windmills—a man who didn't disagree with John XXIII's earlier assessment of him as a Hamlet. While John Paul I (1978) was pope for just a month, it did appear that his personality was warmer than Paul VI's and he was quickly dubbed the smiling pope. John Paul II's big, brash, extroverted papacy was followed by Benedict XVI's quieter, introverted style.
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