German Green party taking action over Papal holocaust comparisons

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German anger over abortion-Holocaust link by Pope
From Richard Owen in Rome



THE Pope’s new book stirred controversy in Germany as Jewish groups condemned passages in which he draws parallels between abortion and the Holocaust.

Paul Spiegel, the president of the Central Council for Jews in Germany, said yesterday that “the Catholic Church does not understand, or does not want to understand, that there is an enormous difference between mass genocide and what women do with their bodies”.

The Vatican rushed to the Pope’s defence, saying that he had been misinterpreted. But the German Greens, who are part of the ruling coalition, said that they were taking court action to ban Memory and Identity, an autobiographical summation of the 84-year-old pontiff’s life.

German law forbids any “offence to the memory of Holocaust victims”. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that in the offending passage the Pope had discussed the failings of parliamentary democracy and sought to make clear that “a course of action is not necessarily right because the majority have chosen to take it”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1495915,00.html

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1. The Pope should...

take up needlepoint. This book-writing thing doesn't seem to suit him.

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2. Jewish leaders criticise Pope's book: Guardian

Agencies
Wednesday February 23, 2005

A new book by Pope John Paul II today attracted criticism over comments by the pontiff comparing abortion to the Holocaust and characterising gay marriage as part of an "ideology of evil".
The book, called Memory and Identity, which was launched by an Italian publishing house yesterday, also reveals the Pope's thoughts in the moments after he was shot in an assassination attempt in 1981. The Rizzoli publishing house said it would come out in 14 editions in 11 languages over the next few months.

Jewish groups voiced anger over its comparison of the Holocaust and abortion. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book last week, reporting the Pope's words that a legally elected parliament had allowed Hitler's rise to power in Germany, which led to the Holocaust.

"We have to question the legal regulations that have been decided in the parliaments of present day democracies," AP quoted the pontiff as writing. "The most direct association which comes to mind is the abortion laws ... parliaments which create and promulgate such laws must be aware that they are transgressing their powers and remain in open conflict with the law of God and the law of nature."

Paul Spiegel, the head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, told the Netzeitung daily newspaper that "such statements show that the Roman Catholic church has not understood, or does not want to understand, that there is a tremendous difference between factory-like genocide and what women do to their bodies".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,12272,1423542,00.html