Let us imagine, for one indulgent moment, how Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate his 80th birthday tomorrow.His beloved cats will no doubt feature, although he is no longer able to enjoy his morning walks with them across St Peter's Square - he has to be driven in a car these days, to avoid the scrums of autograph hunters.
At some point he will surely open the lid of his piano and play a sonata by Schubert, Schumann or Brahms, as is his daily custom. He is an accomplished pianist, though few have heard him play. His modesty forbids it. Perhaps he will listen to his iPod, something he is said to enjoy.
Unlike President Bush, he has yet to reveal what is on his playlist, but it is unlikely to include rock music - he strongly disapproves of that. Perhaps he will go shopping for designer clothes.
As he showed when he posed on the ski slopes in a Nike hat, quilted white jacket, and designer Serengeti sunglasses, he has a taste for labels. And it is said that under the ceremonial garments he has reintroduced to the papal wardrobe, including the mozzetta, a fur-trimmed velvet cape, he wears dainty Prada shoes.
There will be time set aside for prayer and contemplation, of course. And perhaps the leader of the world's one billion Roman Catholics will also reflect wistfully upon how he would rather be spending his 80th birthday.
As a cardinal he often spoke of looking forward to a peaceful retirement in a Bavarian village, dedicating himself to writing books. And when it became clear that he was in the frame for the top job he prayed to God to be let off the hook. "Evidently," he mused as the white smoke rose, "this time He didn't listen to me."
The Big Fella wasn't listening to the world's liberal Catholics either. They, too, were praying Cardinal Ratzinger wouldn't be elected to the throne of St Peter.
They expected "God's rottweiler", the one-time Hitler Youth, to be a heretic-devouring, fire-breathing inquisitor.
Not surprisingly.
As well as clamping down on dissent in his previous role as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - formerly known as the Inquisition - he described civil partnerships for homosexuals as "the legislation of evil", dismissed the paedophile priest scandal as a media contrivance, and damned all other faiths as "gravely deficient".
But two years into his papacy - the anniversary is this Thursday - liberals seem to have warmed to him, or at least come to recognise that the rottweiler was a media caricature.
The Pope may still have those slightly sinister black circles under his eyes and that thin, off-centre smile, but he has not yet shown his fangs.
On the contrary, there has been a gentle, unhurried and conciliatory tone to his papacy. His appeal to those languishing in the "spiritual deserts" of personal despair, for example, won over many a liberal heart and mind.
But it was his first encyclical that truly wrong-footed the moderates. Deus Caritas Est was a poetic, positive and inclusive document that amounted to the old hippy message that love is the answer.
"Sex please, we're Catholics," was the considered response to it by the Catholic magazine, The Tablet.
"Love your neighbour, even make love to your neighbour, but love God above all" seems to be a better paraphrase of it.
This is not to say that Benedict has strayed from the traditional Catholic doctrines on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality.
In fact, some believed that the phoney war of his papacy was over when, a few months into it, he produced guidelines on excluding gay men from entering the priesthood.
But guidelines were as far as he went, to the frustration of conservatives. One, Fr Richard John Neuhaus, has acknowledged his "palpable uneasiness" about the Pope's lack of decisive action.
Another prominent American conservative has privately groused: "We thought we were electing Ronald Reagan, but we got stuck with Jimmy Carter."
To make matters worse for hardliners, it was reported last year that the Vatican had launched a commission to investigate whether married couples should be allowed to use condoms to protect against infection.
Though no conclusions have yet been reached, the investigation surprised many in the light of John Paul II's consistent refusal to consider condom use in response to Aids. There was a widespread belief that his successor shared this view.
Damian Thompson, the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, thinks that both reactionary and radical factions within the Catholic Church have missed the point about Benedict.
"He has confounded and outwitted his critics by combining orthodox theology with a tremendously vivid theological imagination," he says. "He wants to talk about what he is in favour of rather than what he is against."
The question now is whether that is what the rest of the world wants to talk about as well.
The Pope's first two years have, after all, been overshadowed by the firestorm he started last September with his incendiary remarks on Islam.
During a lecture at Regensburg University he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying that Islam was a violent religion that relied upon the sword to spread its message.
As if to confirm this, a nun in Africa was duly murdered by a Muslim in protest, and the Pope had to wear a bulletproof vest on his visit to Turkey.
In England, 100 Muslims gathered outside Westminster Cathedral holding banners calling for the Pope's execution.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, meanwhile, waded in with the thought that: "Anyone who describes Islam as an intolerant religion encourages violence."
Quod erat demonstrandum, as the Pope might say - and not only because Latin is one of the nine languages he speaks.
As a highly distinguished academic he read philosophy as well as theology, and it is this that informs his belief that true religion is the exploration of metaphysics by the power of reason - and that the absence of reason is what is fundamentally wrong with Islam.
There were those who dismissed his comments on Islam as a diplomatic blunder. Others think that, given his formidable intellect and his considerable knowledge of the Koran, he must have anticipated what reaction he would get.
His lecture, moreover, represented a deliberate departure from the Vatican's previous policies on dialogue with Islam, away from promoting harmony at all costs towards more reciprocity.
It may even be that it indicated that Benedict has given up hope that Islam will reform; that he now wants to take on Islam in Europe in the same way that his predecessor took on Communism.
Pope Benedict does not have the effortless theatricality and charisma of John Paul II. Nor does he share his predecessor's enthusiasm for thrusting forward his ring for the faithful to kiss.
In many ways, Benedict is still the shy, sober son of a Bavarian policeman. But he is also described by those who know him as being a warm and self-deprecating man in private.
Humour, he has said, is a good way to cope with stress, even for popes.
His collegiality, meanwhile, can be measured by what hasn't happened during his reign, including the delayed release of his motu proprio authorising wider celebration of the Tridentine Mass, the one celebrated almost entirely in Latin.
He is all in favour of it, when the time seems right.
Some Vatican-watchers are still predicting that a conflict is imminent with the more modernising elements in the Church.
But if he was going to do something, it would surely have happened by now. A man of 80 does not bide his time, especially one with a heart condition.
There is a rumour that he has undergone an operation in preparation for an eventual heart bypass, but the Vatican is notoriously circumspect when asked about the health of popes.
Perhaps the most telling indication as to the fitness of this one is the explanation he gave for bringing forward the publication of his book Jesus of Nazareth: "I do not know how much time and strength remains to me."
A lot of both, it is to be hoped.
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