"Ratzinger & JPII... rolling back VII" bla-blah, blah blah blah

Last week UPI had an analysis of appointments which John Paul II will have to make as certain church officials approach the mandatory retirement age of 75. Among them is Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The second paragraph of the article reads thus:

He [the pope] needs to find a replacement for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Bavarian-born, rigidly conservative Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith who has been second in importance only to John Paul II himself in putting the clock back -- as many observers see it -- on the progressive reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

I hope the author of this article isn't as, well, theologically- and historically-unaware as these "observers" he refers to. Ratzinger was, after all, one of the leading periti (theological experts) of the Council, and John Paul II (then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Kracow) played an important role in the drafting of Gaudium et spes. Both men were regarded to be among the "progressive" element of the Council. Too bad most (granted, not all) of these "observers" have memories which seem only to go back 20 years or so.