Thus Benedict's pastoral strategy as Pope has been unabashedly evangelical: like John Paul II, he sees the papacy as a platform from which to make the Christian proposal come alive in a fresh and compelling way, as a challenge to the ­boredom-amid-­material-plenty that lies like a choking fog over too much of Western culture today. Bene­dict's first two encyclicals - on love and on hope - were "back to basics" reminders of the things that truly endure, as St Paul once reminded those rowdy Corinthians. His Wednesday audience addresses have revisited the origins of the Christian Church in the teaching, witness and martyrdom of the apostles and in the ­foundation-­setting theological labours of the Fathers of the first Christian centuries. His revival of the older form of the Mass is an attempt to nudge the reform of the Church's worship in a more sacral, more religiously nourishing ­direction.

Where others see religious indifference, Benedict XVI senses religious hunger. Moreover, as a close student of history who knows that Western civilisation rests on three legs marked "Jerusalem", "Athens" and "Rome" - biblical religion, Greek rationality, Roman law - he is keenly aware that if the "Jerusalem" leg crumbles, the project will get very wobbly, as indeed the postmodernist assault on the "Athenian" leg and its scepticism towards any claims to "truth" demonstrates. Thus, in addition to revivifying the Church and making the Christian proposal more interesting, Pope Benedict XVI has set off on something of a rescue mission amid the postmodern confusions of Western culture.

And here we meet the Joseph Ratzinger who ought to be of interest to everyone, whatever their religious "location" or lack thereof.