But now that Benedict is pope emeritus, liberal Catholics should re-examine this prejudice. Prejudice means prejudgment, and any judgment on a papacy is premature until at least one generation after a pope is gone. It takes a generation for any pope’s teaching to be absorbed, for his legislation to have its global effect, for political consequences to settle in.

A generation from now, liberal Catholics may look back on Pope Benedict XVI as the innovator who opened a new chapter in the history of the papacy.

By stepping down, Benedict effectively handed the fate of the Church over to the College of Cardinals. His resignation puts to rest the idea of pope as king. Kings don’t retire. Liberals are generally fond of democracy, and should respect Benedict for stepping away from the monarchical style of the 19th-century papacy.

Benedict also showed himself a friend of democracy by requiring a two-thirds majority to elect his successor. The two-thirds rule means cardinals had to reach a substantial consensus before declaring the new pope. That made political maneuvering almost impossible. Under the old rules, when two-thirds was becoming difficult, the cardinals could turn to a run-off between the two top vote getters. That was a powerful disincentive against seeking consensus.

There has been no worse side effect of modern communications — beginning with the 19th-century triumph of the free press and all the way down to Twitter and Facebook — than attempts to transform the papacy into a cult of personality. A Catholicism defined in terms of loyalty to one person loses a culture of beliefs and hope. In stepping down, Benedict presented himself as just a man, a pilgrim taking the last steps of his journey with gentleness and in peace.

When Pope Benedict said he lacked the strength to carry the load of the modern papacy many called for a younger, more energetic pope who could police and administer every detail of a hierarchy of half a million priests and bishops. But others ask when did being pope become an administrative post? Isn’t the papacy a symbol of our unity in Christ, the embodiment of a joyful, generous, Christian life. If the pope becomes an administrator then we make bishops into branch managers and priests into employees. That’s not a very Catholic conception of priesthood.

Benedict should be thanked for raising the question of how the papacy has changed. While conventional wisdom says the new pope must be a good administrator, capable of reforming the curia, for example, others can now challenge the conventional wisdom. After Benedict, they can argue for a papacy that’s more scaled down, and more spiritual.

Benedict wrote three deeply thought encyclicals bound together by the idea of caritas, love. In the first and second he defined the Church as love, as communion. In the third, he directed the Church to address the real, concrete injustices of our time by applying the strength of caritas and communion to our common struggle against evil.

There was a time when many Catholics would guffaw when anyone talked about the Church as communion. Benedict, a great theologian, changed that. The Church is the communion that exists among Christians. That has implications. Because of Benedict, liberals can talk to conservatives about those implications.

Benedict also applied himself to liturgy. He made it licit for priests to celebrate a different Mass for a subgroup of Catholics when he re-established the 1962 Latin Mass for those who wanted it. With that motu propriu, Benedict established that the liturgy should respond to culture and even subcultures. He established diversity in how Catholics pray. That pleased the orthodox proponents of the Latin Mass. And when has a liberal opposed diversity?

Benedict also ensured that the English liturgy received a new translation. Many liberals dislike the translation. But does that really matter? By changing the words 40 years after the launch of the post-consular vernacular Mass, the Pope established a precedent. The liturgy can be a living thing that evolves and responds to the world around it — thanks to Benedict.

So as liberals and conservatives celebrate a new pope, they should raise a glass to Pope Benedict XVI.