Sydney’s Cardinal Anthony Fisher is right to praise the late Pope Benedict XVI as ‘a man of towering intellect and deep piety [who] was influential as a peritus (expert adviser) at the Second Vatican Council and in the subsequent interpretation and implementation of the Council’.

While Pope Benedict XVI is widely known for being the first Pope to resign in nearly 600 years he is better known by Catholics as one of the Church’s more conservative advocates and as a strong defender of religious orthodoxy as espoused by the magisterium.

In his role as the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation of the...