Word: benedicts
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...decline of membership in Europe and to a lesser extent the U.S. Others, however, feel that Church has not explicitly enough stated its guiding values strongly enough, and that a stronger sense of what the Church stands for would have avoided the decline in numbers. For the latter group, Benedict XVI's papacy offers a great deal of hope. But the more common analysis is that people in the West have left the Church because not only do they disagree with some of its teachings, they are not allowed to disagree out loud on questions such as the ordination...
...TIME.com: Benedict XVI's frequently stated positions appear to accept the inevitability of the decline of Church membership in the industrialized West, rather than to reach out to accommodate the concerns of those who might be drifting away from the Church...
...that analysis, the Church would continue to shrink in the West under Benedict XVI, unless he turns out to be extremely gifted pastorally. But that would not necessarily bother him that much. He has previously indicated that he would be comfortable with an extremely small Church, preferring a small church of true believers to a larger one whose numbers are swelled by people he would not see as good Catholics. Benedict XVI has previously argued that it is not unhealthy for church to be a counter culture rather than a dominant player in secular Western society. He's willing...
...expected that ecumenical efforts in relation to other churches are unlikely to advance during the new papacy. Benedict XVI has, for example, insisted that other Christian churches not be called "sister churches," but "daughter churches." And given that view of the relationship, I'm not sure ecumenism will be a major party of his legacy. The same might be true on interfaith efforts. After John Paul II had pulled together the remarkable convocation of religious leaders of every stripe at Assisi in 1986 where they prayed, in one another's presence, for peace, Cardinal Ratzinger was quoted as saying that...
...other hand, Benedict XVI won't leave any doubt in the minds of other religious leaders where they stand with him. There's often a lot of cotton in interfaith conversation that allows everyone to participate in good faith, but prevents things getting down to brass tacks. Benedict XVI is all about brass tacks. So, while it may not move interfaith dialogue forward in the way that John Paul II did, his approach may define it more clearly...