To find out why he took the name "Benedict", I would recommend looking up the life of St. Benedict, as that may be a saint Ratzinger looked up to all his life. That would be my guess, anyway.
Editorial note: I think Ratzinger will be a good pope. Maybe not 'great', but not horrible either. Conservatism isn't ALWAYS a bad thing!
The other thing is, today would have been my dad's 84th birthday. I think it's only too fitting that this announcement happened on this day, and my dad is of German descent anyway.
