It is anomalous that Joseph Ratzinger—who was Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 to 2013, and afterwards Pope Emeritus until his death at the Vatican on 31 December 2022 at the age of 95—came to be seen as a rigid conservative. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith under Pope John Paul II he was known as the Panzerkardinal who reined in (some might say thwarted) many of the bold attempts made at reform in the name of the Second Vatican Council. It was at the same Council that he had made his name, as the liberal peritus of the Archbishop of Cologne.