It depends what you mean by popular.

He is known by most people of the world.

He is the spiritual leader of about 1/6th of the world's population.

The spiritual and moral values that he represents are loved by most but dispised by many.

It is rather unfair to compare him to Pope John Paul II:
+ Pope John Paul II, born in 1920, was elected in 1978 at the very young age of 58 and served for over 26 years, dying in 2005 at the age of 84.
+ Pope Benedict XVI was born in 1927, elected pope in 2005 at the age of 78 and just turned 82. He is the oldest person to have been elected pope since Clement XII in 1730.

Pope Benedict has neither the youth nor the time in office that John Paul had.

With love in Christ.

I can't even tell you the guy's name.

Well, gosh, where do you think the word "popular" came from, anyway?

I find him creepy and just yucky...


He looks like something that would hang out with the Hellraiser.

Not as popular as the last one. This one is kind of clueless as to why Nazism is a bad thing.

Pretty popular. He's also one of the ugliest people I've ever seen.

Roman Catholics where disappointed he wasn't like JP 2.
Libral Catholics didn't like him at first. He started off really ignorant.
But with the church taking a stand on the enviorment, and human rights as well as becoming less concerned with pro-life issues he is becoming popular.
The idea of condums downrighted him.
Him congradulating Obama made him unpopular with conservtive Catholics.
He is kind of an avarge Pope I'd say.

Popular enough to have his own question. Is the pope catholic?
Overrated religious leader. The only qualification is to be old. They elect the old ones who are so out of touch everytime. The last one kept falling asleep during public appearances.

I understand he's somewhat popular with Catholics.