The Holy Father as a young priest

My sister posted a picture of Papa Benedict as a young dogmatic theologian and took up Zadok's theme of comparing him to Johnny Cash. Since we're putting up old black and whites, below is the best one I've ever come upon.

It's kind of weird to see Papa as a young man. Of course, it must be stranger for people who knew him back then to see him as Pope. I mean, surely his mother could never have imagined that the baby she cradled in her arms would grow up to be the Holy Father! I remember reading in his memoirs about how his doctoral dissertation was torn to pieces by members of the faculty; they even criticized its physical appearance - the person who had typed the manuscript had made a lot of typos and been very messy, etc. That sounds like something my professors would do to one of my papers! I'm sure none of the professors ever in their wildest dreams imagined that they were critiquing a dissertation from a man whose name will at least be permanently etched in ecclesiastical chronology, even if his reign turns out to be no more significant than that of the few weeks of John Paul I.

It just goes to show you - God's plan often works out in ways we would find improbable.