The Pope is one of the last intellectuals in high office

With the departure of Pope Benedict XVI, the IQ count of public life has collapsed. Along with his seriousness, shyness and charm, the former professor of Freising College, Bonn University, Tubingen University and Regensburg University, had that extremely rare quality – intellect.
Public office doesn't normally attract intellectuals. People who are obsessed with reading books are usually, like the Pope, rather shy and not by nature keen on the self-promotion and public appearances required of politicians.
High religious office is different. Although it produces the same public prominence, it doesn't necessarily require the same self-promoting, unintellectual, electioneering characteristics. It's striking that Rowan Williams is also, like the Pope, an intellectual.
That's not to say modern politicians aren't clever. David Cameron is the first Prime Minister since Harold Wilson to get an Oxbridge First; Harvard's Barack Obama is extremely intelligent, and a very good writer. But they're both too pragmatic to be intellectuals. Angela Merkel, with her doctorate in quantum chemistry, is perhaps the only other intellectual in high office.
(By the way, Ed Miliband got a 2.1, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath got Seconds; Alec Douglas-Home got a Third; Macmillan got a First in his Classics Mods but didn't return to Oxford after the First World War; Gordon Brown got a First, and a doctorate, at Edinburgh).
Here's hoping that whoever replaces Pope Benedict will come somewhere close to matching his intellect.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/…/the-pope-is-one…