Pope Benedict XVI:

As a young priest he was on the progressive side of theological debates but shifted to the right after the student revolutions of 1968.

In the Vatican, he has been the driving force behind crackdowns on liberation theology, religious pluralism, challenges to traditional moral teachings on issues such as homosexuality, and dissent on such issues as women's ordination.

Sounds like a winner.

[EDIT: The Mirror has more, withour any of that "mincing" or "politeness" you see in less fashionable media, in "Nazi Past of Right-Wing Papal Candidate." In any event, membership in the Hitler Youth seems like a silly thing to hold against the guy; it's not like he had a choice in the matter. Via Cynical-C.]

[EDIT 2: MetaFilter's Popethread directs us to TNR's much more positive portrait of Ratzinger. Use BugMeNot to clear the subscribers-only registration.]

In other religious news, there's a giant foam display of the Ten Commandments in the EUC today. (Supposedly the College Republicans put it up as part of their "Morals Week.") I'm either wildly outraged by or rabidly in favor of this, whichever will get me on TV faster.

UPDATE: The Washington Post chimes in:

He wrote a letter of advice to U.S. bishops on denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights, which some observers viewed as a slam at Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry. He publicly cautioned Europe against admitting Turkey to the European Union and wrote a letter to bishops around the world justifying that stand on the grounds that the continent is essentially Christian in nature. In another letter to bishops worldwide, he decried a sort of feminism that makes women "adversaries" of men.

...

He is a lightning rod for church liberals who see the hierarchy as reactionary. Ratzinger was active in stamping out liberation theology, with its emphasis on grass-roots activism to fight poverty and its association with Marxist movements.

He once called homosexuality a tendency toward "intrinsic moral evil" and dismissed the uproar over priestly pedophilia in the United States as a "planned campaign" against the church.

Sigh.