The Exhortation reaffirmed the teaching of Pope Paul VI's Encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 that all conjugal acts must be open to the transmission of human life. Marriage and the family must be defended from "every possible misrepresentation of their true nature". Non-Catholics may not partake of the Eucharist; nor divorced and remarried Catholics unless they promise to live together as brother and sister. He called for solemnity and dignity in the celebration of the Mass, and an enrichment of the liturgy — Latin to be used in all international celebrations, Gregorian chant to replace tuneful ditties. 

None of this came as a surprise to those who had studied the theology of Joseph Ratzinger or followed his more accessible interviews with journalists. The first of these was given in 1985 to an Italian journalist, Vittorio Messorio and was published as The Ratzinger Report. It came at a time of considerable post-Conciliar confusion as to what Catholics were meant to believe. In Western Europe and North America, the zealots of the spirit of Vatican II were in the ascendant, promoting a social Catholicism that encouraged violent revolution in Central America and an ecumenicism that made no distinction between the Catholic Church and other Christian religions. Ratzinger's former colleague at the University of Tübingen, Hans Küng, was their guru. Collegiality, women priests, married priests, contraception, gay sex — all the usual suspects were to be found among priests, lay catechists, the staff of bishops' conferences and Catholic charities and, sotto voce, bishops themselves.

The Ratzinger Report reaffirmed with calm and exceptional lucidity the traditional beliefs of the Church. Its teaching would be confirmed by The Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, and there were also the Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II which, though orthodox, timely and profound, lacked the clarity of Ratzinger's writing. It was left to Ratzinger as Prefect for the CDF, a theologian on a par with the impenetrable Karl Rahner or the esoteric Hans Urs von Balthasar, to calmly confound those who would reinvent the Catholic faith. Decades would pass before Ratzinger's teaching on the true meaning of Vatican II would gain widespread acceptance: liberal Catholics put it about that the "panzer cardinal" or "Rottweiler" would not outlast the Polish pope whose reign, itself an aberration, would be followed by that of a pope more in tune with the modern world — Cardinal Danneels, the Archbishop of Brussels, perhaps, or Cardinal Martini, the Archbishop of Milan.

The conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II showed that this was a pipedream. Devout traditionalists believe that the Holy Spirit moved the cardinals to elect Cardinal Ratzinger. Hans Küng, bitter that his vision had been thwarted, subsequently disparaged in his memoir Disputed Truth "the completely obsolete medieval rules for electing the Pope. The Pope chooses those who will elect his successor solely according to his taste . . . They will choose the next Pope — of course from their own ranks."   

There can be no doubt that Joseph Ratzinger, aware of his age and the onerous duties of a pontiff, balked at the thought of the task ahead. But he must also have realised that his election would consolidate the achievements of his predecessor. As Prefect for the CDF, he had safeguarded true doctrine; as pope he could confirm that the restoration of discipline and orthodoxy in the Church was not the aberration of a Polish pope.