"I knew Joseph Ratzinger when he wore a coat and tie," said Saint Louis University theology professor Ronald Modras, Ph.D., recalling the time when he had the newly elected pontiff as a professor.

Before he became Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, and before he was a cardinal, Ratzinger taught theology at the University of T�bingen in Germany, where Modras was working on his Ph.D. degree in theology in 1968. Modras described the course he took under Ratzinger as "theology of the church."

Modras described 1968 in Europe as "the height of student unrest." The period when Modras was in T�bingen was months after the church issued the Humanae Vitae, an encyclical on birth control.

Modras described Ratzinger as "truly a scholar, a man of books." He added that German professors read books they are working on as lectures, which does not make them very exciting. This meant that professors were "not used to student criticisms."

Modras said that Ratzinger was known for taking a hard line against criticism of the pope.

"Ratzinger was defensive of the pope when other theologians were not," he said, adding that he became known as the "Panzer Cardinal," a reference to the tanks used by the Nazis in World War II.

"I do not believe that he will be the Panzer Pope," Modras said.

Modras said that Benedict XVI will make an effective pope because of his expansive academic background.

"I can't think of any pope who has his [Ratzinger's] academic credentials," he said. "John Paul II was a philosopher who wrote ponderously. Ratzinger is capable of writing lyrically.

"He has been judged through the prism of his job as chief enforcer of orthodoxy, the prefect for the congregation for the defense of the faith. But his job as pope will be not only to defend the faith but to pass it on…to preach it, and I believe that he will return to the skills that he honed as a university professor."

Modras hopes that Ratzinger taking the name Benedict will mean a time of peace for the Roman Catholic Church. The previous Pope Benedict "inherited a very polarized church and healed that polarization."

"[I] hope that his choice of that name will try to heal some of the polarities present in the Roman Catholic Church today," he said.

"He knows the distinction between the heart of doctrine and the way it is expressed, and he is capable of surprising us," Modras said, referring to the viewpoint that Ratzinger will be a pope that holds fast to the preachings of Pope John Paul II.