So, who is he anyway?

1. His father was not an SS officer, as rumoured. He was a rural policeman without Nazi sympathies though, like most Germans and to quote his son, "he made no public opposition . . ."

2. The Cardinal was a member of the Hitler Youth. It was compulsory from 1941. 3. He was drafted into the German army in 1943.

4. He deserted in 1945 as Germany faced defeat.

5. He was held as a prisoner-of-war by the Americans, but released in June 1945.

6. A card to mark his ordination in 1951 quoted St Paul: "We aim not to lord over your faith, but to serve your joy."

7. He was one of the most liberal and influential theologians at the Second Vatican Council.

8. He got a job at the theology faculty in Tubingen university in 1966, thanks to its Dean, Father Hans Kung. Father Kung's licence to teach theology was withdrawn in 1979. The Cardinal is believed to have been central to that decision.

9. Father Kung has compared the CDF under Cardinal Ratzinger to the Soviet KGB.

10. In 1984 when Father Leonardo Boff came from Brazil to Rome on his own, as instructed, to defend his views on liberation theology he asked "jokingly" if handcuffs would be necessary. He was silenced temporarily.

11. The Cardinal is unpopular with women (opposes women priests), gays (homosexual acts are "instrinsically evil"), the politically correct (actively resists inclusive language in Church texts), Anglicans (their ministry is invalid), other Reformed churches (not "proper" churches), Orthodox churches (the primacy of the pope cannot be reduced . . .), Jews (they can be fully true to their heritage only by becoming Christian), Muslims ("non-democratic"), Buddhists ("an auto-erotic spirituality . . ."), Hindus ("negative theology").

12. He is popular . . . with senior clergy who have progressed upwards since he became prefect at the CDF. And with old-time Catholics.

13. Chances of becoming Pope? Slight. But it has been suggested that if he did he should take the name Pius XIII - unlucky for some.