The Tablet approves:

John Paul II was perhaps the last Pope to embody the best of the Counter-Reformation tradition; Benedict XVI offers a link with far older roots of European civilisation such as those of the Fathers of the Church, and of the founders of European monasticism, like his namesake. That may give him a deeper insight into the European soul than his predecessor, and suggests this could be a much more creative and surprising papacy than many might at first have expected.