Pope Outlines His Vision of the Papacy - Newsflash! Catholic Church Will Remain "Catholic"

From the Washington Post:

ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI indicated Saturday he will stick to Pope John Paul II's unwavering stands against abortion and euthanasia, saying pontiffs must resist attempts to "water down" Roman Catholic teaching.

Benedict outlined his vision of his papacy in a homily during a ceremony in which he took his place on a marble-and-mosaic throne in the ancient Roman basilica of St. John in Lateran. The ceremony is the last to formally mark Benedict's assumption of the papacy.

The pope "must not proclaim his own ideas, but ever link himself and the church to obedience to the word of God, when faced with all attempts of adaptation or of watering down, as with all opportunism," Benedict said.

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"Freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery."

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"The pope isn't an absolute sovereign, whose thoughts and desires are law," Benedict said. "On the contrary, the ministry of the pope is the guarantor of the obedience toward Christ and his word."
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My Comments:
I guess this answers the question raised by all those MSM pundits after the death of John Paul II (the Great) as to whether the next Pope would change "John Paul's teachings" with respect to sanctity of life, contraception, homosexuality, women's ordination, etc.

Hint to mainstream media: these teaching didn't begin with JPII and they didn't end when he died. They are the unchanging teachings of Christ and His Church.