Why is Pope Benedict XVI so popular?

Sandro Magister offers his answer:

This pope is respected and admired for one fundamental reason. Because he has placed above all else this priority, which he formulated in the letter to the bishops last March 10, one of the essential documents of his pontificate:

In our time, during which in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of being extinguished like a flame that has run out of fuel, the priority that stands above all others is that of making God present in this world, and
revealing to the eyes of men the path to God. And not to any sort of god, but to that God who has spoken on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in love to the end (cf. John 13:1), in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. The true problem at this moment in history is that God is disappearing from the horizon of men, and that with the extinguishing of the light that comes from God, humanity is seized by a lack of direction, the destructive effects of which are becoming increasingly clear.