So...Ratzinger started out as a progressive as a young priest...what happened? [View all]

Originally, the future Pope Benedict was an intellectual disciple of Hans Kung. He was a big supporter of Vatican II.

Then, at some point, he switched over to the side of reaction and fear.

Under John Paul II, he silenced Hans Kung(which was ingratitude if nothing else). He drove Ernesto Cardenal out of the priesthood for doing the only thing you could do to help the poor in Nicaragua and supporting the Sandinistas.
He essentially crushed all vestiges of "liberation theology" and, by doing, effectively restored the medieval "Will of God" social values the church used to crush the hope of the non-wealthy for hundreds of years.

Now, he persecutes nuns for refusing to be sanctimonious, finger-wagging scolds rather than doing what Christ most wants his brides to do and helping those who have nothing.

How did he end up becoming "God's Rottweiler"?...and why is he so obsessed with rooting out every last vestige of what John XXIII and Paul VI did?

What was it that so frightened him about openness, collegiality, freedom of intellectual activity, and discussion?

What was it that made him become so obsessed with oppressing gays and denying equality to women in the church(which, after all, is what his opposition to women as priests is about, since that opposition has no real scriptural basis and is derived solely from the fact that the composition of the closest advisors to Jesus was based simply on the gender roles prevalent in 1st Century C.E. Israel?

Why, while he is crushing the progressive wing of the church, is Benedict negotiating the return of the fascist and antisemtic Society of Pius X crowd?

And is there any hope of a future Catholicism that isn't going to base its agenda on a relentless campaign to drive us all back to the 12th Century?