"And it is hard to believe so cynical an account of a pontificate which has at times been the opposite of cynical: above all, when the pope has returned to his great theme of “the throwaway society,” his lonely stand against a global system which, from the sweatshops to the euthanasia clinics, treats the vulnerable not as the image of Christ but as useless trash. That magnificent critique will be one of his most significant legacies.
Will there be other positive legacies from this pontificate? I think we are obliged to pray that there will. As for the first decade, despite the mysteriousness that hangs around it, its legacy can be simply summarized: ten years which have destroyed a great deal and created almost nothing."