here's my problem with dismissing the hitler youth thing:

[unblock]

how do you tell the runner-up, "sorry, you're just not as worthy a moral leader as that hitler youth guy?"

[davepc]

1. How do you tell someone

"you should of made choices when you were 14 that would of gotten you and your family murdered"

[calico1]

2. I agree. n/t

[Mojambo]

4. But aren't the choices we make in the hardest of circumstances

what leadership (and particularly moral leadership) is all about?

I'm just playing devils advocate. I happen to think Ratzinger is the perfect representative for the Catholic Church.

[davepc]

5. If we hold people up to that standard then we'd have no leaders, ever.

[unblock]

15. this isn't mayor or even president, it's the POPE for crying out loud

and seriously, yes, this WOULD be an issue for a politician. not a showstopper, but an issue.

why shouldn't it be a serious issue for the pope, who isn't just any old leader, but the moral and spiritual leader of an entire religion? shouldn't they try to find someone who has led an exemplary life? someone without any such stain?

is there really no one else?

[Mojambo]

17. I'm just saying

The guy is supposed to be God's representative on earth. The supreme moral leader for millions of people. How he handled such a crisis as a youth is relevent even if it's not entirely fair.

His activities during that time are worthy of inspection and analysis, particularly given the Catholic Church's spotty record with regard to Hitler.

Like I said, I don't really care one way or another.

[Hosnon]

38. The way I see it...the 100 or so Cardinals that know him probably

did think about it but dismissed it. Perhaps the other 64 years of his life made up for what he was forced to do as a child?

[Mojambo]

47. Well, that brings us to his harmful ultra-conservative views

that they focused on instead of his youth.

Either way, Catholics everywhere lose by his ascension to Pope.

[lenidog]

7. Well yes you are correct but do you think any normal

14 year old is going to make a decision that could send his entire family or at least him to a concentration camp.

[unblock]

19. you're talking "normal". i'm talking "pope material".

normal, sure, fine. but for pope, i would think the one guy in a thousand who said no, and spent some time in a concentration camp, and maybe lost some family members, would make a better pope.

[lenidog]

29. It isn't as if they are born knowing they are going to be Pope

John Paul loved soccer, rowing and hiking as a young man. At college he was a member of the drama club. That is not what I would consider activities gearing you up for the Papacy.

[BlueStateBlue]

48. Yeah, but

the Pope is supposed to be infallible!!

[ReadTomPaine]

40. You and Mojambo above have really hit the nail on this issue. n/t

[Kmarx]

69. This holier than thou is really laughable.

No one in this life is perfect, including and especially the young. Those who cast invective at Ratzinger are way off base. All of us did foolish things when we were young. Many of us did these things out of fear of social isolation. Just look at the lives of some saints and you will see that they weren't so saintly when young. Hence the famous quote by Saint Augustine, "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." Can we demand more of someone who is not a saint?

[tabasco]

32. Ever hear of the martyrs?

I guess Christians aren't made of the same stuff these days.

[Igel]

56. I read the subject line of your post last night, disagreed, and couldn't

put my finger on why.

A martyr is someone who dies for Jesus; by extension, for his faith. I don't see a reward for those who die for trees, or for avoiding being in a group that spews propaganda. Being exposed to propaganda isn't a sin; tolerating it to keep your family alive might do one better.

One could argue that being in the German Army would have contradicted his faith, but by that time it was easily interpretable as a just fight, from his perspective: once the bullets start flying, it's damned hard for any 17-18 year old to say, "Nope, let the foreign armies take over my country and occupy it." That I can forgive, if forgiveness is necessary. There's no indication that I know of that he was a soldier outside of German-speaking lands. Serving in the military isn't an un-Catholic act.

But it's unclear that he did anything else along the way that's un-Christian or, at least, un-Catholic (since "un-Christian" tends to have such a diversity of interpretations these days), that a typical kid wouldn't have done. From what I understand he didn't guard prisoners directly; he didn't shoot at people as a Hitler youth ... and, to be quite honest, if I were at the front in war, I'd probably shoot at whoever was shooting at me, whatever the blame my elders bear for getting me into the mess.

Did he know about the concentration camps and what went on in them? (the assumption is that if he erred egregiously in guarding an AA-battery near a BMW plant that used forced labor, he knew they weren't just concentration camps, but death camps) Dunno.

I can't get worked up over 'dunno.'

[Hosnon]

37. Yes I agree that the choices made in such circumstances

define a leader. However, one can hardly hold a 14 year old to such a standard. Imagine if he was 8? We normally only hold mentally mature (capable of reason) individuals morally accountable.

Given the circumstances, he can not, in my opinion, be chastized for this.

[Sandpiper]

9. the Pope fails his own test in this regard

"Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. <...> This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it" (no. 74)."


I'm guessing that Pope Benedict did not hold to this same absolutist view back in the days before he lived in the safety and comfort of a gilded palace.

[Mondon]

65. Evil?

Is every German soldier who was conscripted and fought in conventional military operations during WWII (NOT in the camps, etc.) guilty of having "cooperate formally in evil"?

[atreides1]

10. We All Pay

For the choices that we made in our youth eventually.

[Hosnon]

39. I just don't think it was a choice...

And for the purists...perhaps there was a choice, but not any semblance of a reasonable choice.

If you repeated the situation a million times I would be amazed to find one boy take the other path.

[Orangepeel]

50. less of a choice than being gay?

I'll admit that's a bit of a non sequitur, but Ratzinger calls homosexuality evil, effectively condemning people for something largely beyond their control. So people blame him for participating in real evil, even if it was largely beyond his control? I won't lose sleep over the unfairness of it.

[kenny blankenship]

60. The question is not what the German kid chose to do

or was compelled to do 60 years ago. But why the Catholic Church CHOSE HIM, when there were many other possible candidates without this taint in their background.

And again, it would be different if Ratzinger was not known as an enemy of theological inquiry within the Church, and as a socially regressive force in politics both inside and outside of the Church. Then the link to a Nazi past would be irrelevant. Or indeed it might appear in an opposite light: see, this man who was caught by the accident of birth in the totalitarian mindset of Hitler's Germany is now the protector of intellectual seekers, and promotes (or at least does not persecute) those who seek social justice through Christian teachings, even though he grew up within a regime of crushing hierarchy, officially promoted murderously hateful social intolerance, and annihilating intellectual oppression. We would say, if he was a liberal minded person, that he somehow escaped the terrible shadow he was born under.
Instead he sounds like an old friend of the shadow.

[Mondon]

66. Huh?

So you are judging his past actions by his present views? The same conduct 60 years ago has different moral content depending the individual's views today?

Let's take the converse of Ratzinger's situation: let's say he was a Nazi (he wasn't), that he eagerly joined up (he didn't), and that he was guilty of war crimes (he wasn't). If he were a "liberal minded person" today, you'd have no problem with his past?

With all due respect, that sounds unprincipled.

[kenny blankenship]

73. Twisting people's words sounds unprincipled.

It is very unprincipled actually.
So you are judging his past actions by his present views? The same conduct 60 years ago has different moral content depending the individual's views today?

Not at all. AS I SAID: I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HIS ACTIONS 60 YEARS AGO. They do not seem outstandingly bad or good and that was 60 years ago when he was a minor and under compulsion, it could easily be argued. (However, there remains an inevitably large degree of uncertainty about EXACTLY what he did then. It WAS 60 years ago and people don't always remember accurately or tell the truth.) What he thinks now does not change the moral character of what he did (or what of it we know about) then.

What I am interested in is how that experience shaped him and how he is likely to speak and act and pontificate in the future. Someone with a Nazi past who is known as an authoritarian and arch-conservative, as Ratzinger is, IS WORRISOME. Someone on the other hand who experienced the same things that Ratzinger did, but who unlike Ratzinger had subsequently developed into a passionate defender of individual conscience, a protector of intellectual searchers and seekers, and an advocate of the rights and welfare of society's forgotten and exploited would put to rest all misgivings I have about his early brush with Fascism. The development of contrary sets of views (authoritarian and traditionalist versus liberal and democratic) speaks to two different ways of incorporating the experience of oppression and the evolution of different personalities, not to a different set of moral scorings for behavior lost in the past. Some people will take from an experience like his a deep aversion to unchecked hierarchical power and a suspicion of elites as well as an aversion to the tyrannies of tradition and orthodoxy. The Nazis were after all just as violently repressive towards intellectual freedom in the name of traditional Germanic wholesomeness, and repressive towards liberalizing forces in politics and economics too, in the name of their pals in the military and industry, as they were towards their chosen racial scapegoats the Jews.
BTW: the Church in Germany could have chosen to stand up to Hitler before his rise to dictatorial powers, as the Center Party was largely a southern, Catholic political party. But in exchange for a pledge not to touch Church lands or wealth, the Center Party voted for Hitler's Enabling Act giving him emergency power which he would never be stripped of until his death and the near total destruction of the country. The first victims of that craven moral cowardice would be the political leadership of the trade unions, the socialist advocates of fairer economic and political conditions and of intellectual freedoms. There would be millions more of course, and soon.

One would hope that knowing about all that, and having lived the consequences of that extremely poor choice, would have made Ratzinger or another young man like him a passionate opponent of unquestionable hierarchies, of intellectual suppression, and of the tyranny of tribal traditions--but in his case it has not. (I suppose he could argue that they didn't know what Hitler would do. I would argue that this ignorance is where he should have started to question all of the assumptions and values that led to their choice) As a powerful prelate, Ratzinger has clubbed the most searching minds of Catholic scholarship into silence, he has been a driving force in the reimposition of unquestionable hierarchical authority, and has sought to make Catholicism a synonym for freaky sexual hypocrisy and bigoted intolerance. And most recently he was very instrumental in returning to power the closest thing to a Fascist dictator we've ever known in the United States.

President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop. After enduring a public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican officials to help him win the election. "Not all the American bishops are with me," he complained, according to the National Catholic Reporter. He pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step up their activism against abortion and gay marriage in the states during the campaign season.

About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the U.S. bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a "grave sin" and must be denied Communion. He pointedly mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" -- an obvious reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought Communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to "refuse to distribute it." Any Catholic who voted for this "Catholic politician," he continued, "would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."

In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states -- Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico -- moved into Bush's column on the votes of the Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.

It is a worrisome thing to see this man rise to the Papacy.

[vpigrad]

3. I can't believe some people here make light...

of an association with Hilter! Have we learned nothing from history or do some of the people here just hate Jews so much they'll support just about any wrong if it hurts the people they don't like?

[lenidog]

6. What association with Hitler are you talking about

he was a member of he Hitler Youth which was COMPULSORY for all male children. You make it sound like he was interning as Hitler's personal aide.

[Tempest]

8. He was a guard in a concentration camp *CORRECTION*

Where Jews were forced into labor.

He also witnessed atrocities against Jews and did nothing.


On Edit:

During the war, Ratzinger was drafted into an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included laborers from the Dachau concentration camp.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-19-pope-usat-cover_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Just as bad IMHO.

[lenidog]

11. Where do you get this info from

[Tempest]

14. News reports

It's all over the Web and reported in many threads here at DU.

[lenidog]

24. I found one mention in one report from time that said he was

a guard at a BMW plant and was never issued ammo for his weapons as were none of the other Hitler Youth with him.

[davepc]

13. where did you come up with this fantasy? Camp guards were all SS

and Ratzinger was NEVER in the SS.

[Tempest]

16. Camp guards were NOT all SS

During the last years of the war, Hitler Youth members routinely were used as guards in the camps.

[ArkDem]

20. He was helping man an AAA batery protecting an aircraft

manufacturing plant which was using forced labor. Try to get your facts straight.

[cestpaspossible]

23. That information is easily available to anyone through google.

The assumption that everyone wants to get their facts straight before they post is not always correct.

[ArkDem]

25. Tell me about it...

:eyes:

[lenidog]

26. Actually no they weren't all camp guards were either drawn from the SS

or were Ukranian SS Auxillaries. I have never in the countless recollections of the Holocaust ever read one person say that Hitler Youth were being used as guards.

[Charon]

54. Guards

Do you have proof that HJ were used as Concentration Camp Guards?

[Boomer]

18. Oh please, this is not an issue of anti-semitism

Ratzinger's association with Hitler Youth was mandatory, and the penalties for opposition were severe, if not fatal. His capitulation was expedient, no question about that, but I have a hard time blaming a 14-year-old boy who chooses not to die fighting his government. Beyond that, there is no evidence to date that Ratzinger actively supported Hitler's policies or committed anything remotely approaching a war crime.

A better case can be made against the Vatican itself, which could have done more to protect Jews. Those church officials were adults, with a power base they weren't willing to use, and therefore have a great deal more to answer for.

All that being said, based on his actions as an adult, I think Ratzinger is a very poor choice for pope.

[lenidog]

28. I agree but at 78 I doubt we will have to worry about him very long

[Boomer]

31. I dunno

He looked distressingly healthy in the photos I've seen of him.

I come from a family that is long-lived, so I'm accustomed to relatives who live to their mid-90s.

He could reign for 10-15 years.

[borg5575]

52. It's up to God.

If God wants him to have a long reign, then he will.

[Kmarx]

70. What could have Pope Pius XII done?

Obviously you are not well read in the history of the Vatican and WW II. The fact is that Golda Meir praised Pope Pius XII for the number of Jews he is credited with saving. In honor the pope, the Chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicisms after the war was over. In the 1940's Pius was instrumental in hiding Jews in the Vatican and in other Vatican property outside of the Vatican. Many monasteries and convents took in Jews and disguised them as workers and in some cases as clergy in order to protect them from the Nazis. They tutored these people well so that if they were found and brought in for questioning by the Nazis, they would show an in depth knowledge of Catholicism and would pass as Christians! The literature is vast in this area. I recommend you read any of the works by Sister Margherita Marchione, Ronald J. Rychlak and Pierre Blet.

[Boomer]

44. Has Ratzinger repented?

Discussion and debate in my own household brought up the point that Ratzinger does not appear to have expressed any significant remorse or apology for his involvement, involutary or otherwise, with the Nazi regime.

If that is indeed true, then I'm far less willing to overlook his wartime record.

An analogy that some on this board have made is to Senator Byrd -- who is genuinely repentent of his early involvement in the KKK, and who has spent years working to further the cause of civil rights.

If the adult Ratzinger has not made equal efforts to disassociate himself from his experience, then he does not warrant absolution of guilt.

[Mondon]

62. Not equivalent to Byrd

Forced to join the HY at 14 by law and then conscripted in to the army of his country (NOT the SS) at 18, from which he deserted, is NOT the same as joining the KKK in your late 20's and functioning as a "kleagel" or recruiter for an organization dedicated to the eradication of a race, and then filibustering the Civil Rights laws, like Sen. Byrd did.

Byrd has every reason to apologize--he became an officer of an illegal, terrorist organization as an adult. This priest's experience was identical to hundreds of thousands of German CHILDREN caught up in the Nazi totalitarian machine.

They are not equivalent.

[Yupster]

72. To me Byrd more serious

When Ratzinger joined the Hitler Jugend the Nazis were in complete control of every facet of life. Not joining would have been difficult and dangerous.

When Byrd joined the KKK, it was no all-powerful group. This was not the Klan that marched through Washington in the Twenties.

The Klan Byrd joined was the thoroughly destroyed and discreditted remanant of the 40's. You had to go out of your way to join the Klan in the 40's. It was no longer a large or powerful organization.

I guess a similar analogy would be joining the Nazis in the Twenties long before they came to power, or maybe joining the Nazis in the 50's after they had been discreditted and destroyed.

[Tempest]

12. New Pope: Violence against Gays acceptable

'But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual
persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not
disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is
consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to
protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase (No. 10).


8. "What is at all costs to be avoided is the unfounded and demeaning
assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and therefore inculpable. What is essential is that the fundamental liberty which characterizes the human person and gives him his dignity be recognized as belonging to the homosexual person as well' (No. 11).


http://www.americablog.org/

[Boomer]

22. And pedophilia is okay, too

At least, when friends of his -- like Bernard Law -- are involved. Evidently the "irrational and violent reactions" of Catholics to having their children molested by priests are not valid.

[Grooner Five]

51. I'm missing...

...where he said violence against gays was acceptable. Giving an opinion on the root of violence is far from accepting or even excusing it. It's much the same as saying that poverty leads to crime.

[ArkDem]

53. Hey, stop using facts!

[kenny blankenship]

59. Except that

he's saying the root of the violence against gays is the gayness of the victim, the fact that no one has any right to do what homosexuals do; therefore, when civil authorities pass laws extending civil rights protections to homosexuals they add aggravation to the insult that the sheer existence of the homosexual poses to God's normal healthy people, and violent reactions from normal people are only to be expected.

Then in the second selection he insists that the homosexuality of gay people is not (he knows this somehow) an ineradicable drive that they must obey, (and so their choice of lifestyle cannot be condoned as being their nature); but in the first selection, he presents violence against homosexuals as the inevitable reaction of healthy non-homosexual people (which the state would do well not to provoke by taking the homosexuals' side and rising to their defence).

It's very reminiscent of the Nazi shrugging at the violence against Jews that they incited among the German people in the 1930s: "Hey what do you want us to do? They are being attacked because they are Jews. The fact that there's so much anger towards them, from so many, proves that they are guilty of having provoked us with their injustice and scheming. They asked for it by being so Jewish and antagonizing the wholesome values and pocketbooks of the healthy German people. We as the Government of the Reich don't like violence and disorder in our streets, but we understand why it must happen: intervening with police power would just make it worse!"

[cmkramer]

68. More quotes regarding homosexuality

On homosexuality:

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

-- from Ratzinger's "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," 1986, as reported by National Catholic Reporter.

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs... The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in work, in action and in law."

-- from same.

"Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."

-- from "Cardinal Ratzinger on Laicism and Sexual Ethics," Zenit.org, Nov. 19, 2004.

<http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/04/19/quotes_by_cardinal_ratzinger_the_new_pope?pg=2>

Obviously, he's not a supporter of gay rights but it doesn't sound as if he condones violence against them either.

[kenny blankenship]

74. An old, OLD tune, which...

AMAZINGLY ENOUGH doesn't sound any less harsh and offensive when sung with a Nazi accent.

Opposing gay civil rights IS condoning violence against them. Demanding the suppression of homosexuals by making them second class citizens is the ROOT of violence against them. And I don't give a flying damn what rationales he appends to that.

Intrinsic moral evil is bad. Opposing intrinsic moral evil may run to regrettable extremes certainly, but never forget that the victim was INTRINSICALLY MORALLY EVIL! Which means his or her assailant STARTED on a presumptive level of moral superiority. So they just cancel each other out, you see. No need to take extraordinary actions to punish those who meet INTRINSIC MORAL EVIL in the streets and assault them verbally or physically without further provocation. Intrinsic moral evil has always been recognized by judges and juries as PROVOCATION ENOUGH, no matter what the statute laws say about assault and battery of strangers.

[cestpaspossible]

21. a few comments

First: I'm an atheist, I'm no fan of the Catholic Church, and the only bright side I can see to Ratzinger becoming pope is that he's old enough that he might die soon.

Second: The premise of your thread is a strawman. In response to someone else's comment, it might mean more than it does as a standalone statement, which is, not much.

Third: Since being in the Hitler Youth was compulsory, it doesn't really speak to someone's moral leadership 50 years after they were kicked out.

Fourth: Cardinal Law is not tainted by any membership in Nazi organizations - does that mean he is more worthy a moral leader than Ratzinger?

[Mojambo]

27. A few responses

First: I'm an atheist, I'm no fan of the Catholic Church, and the only bright side I can see to Ratzinger becoming pope is that he's old enough that he might die soon.

And supposedly there is only one more after that so hopefully we'll be done with this nonsense soon.

Third: Since being in the Hitler Youth was compulsory, it doesn't really speak to someone's moral leadership 50 years after they were kicked out.

This point was addressed above. (Reply #9)

Fourth: Cardinal Law is not tainted by any membership in Nazi organizations - does that mean he is more worthy a moral leader than Ratzinger?

Of course not. They are both unworthy, but for different reasons.

[cestpaspossible]

35. only one more?

supposedly there is only one more after that

Huh?

[stray cat]

30. Most of our leaders were spoiled rich kids

who never faced a hard decision. Bush was given a free pass for the indicretions in his youth ie before 40. I have never faced a choice that might result in myself and my entire family being murdered - let alone at the age of 14. I think it is a test that most Americans, let alone kids, would fail miserably.

I am willing to wait and see what he does as pope.

[New Dealer]

33. What do you expect a 14 year old boy to do?

He's 14, in Germany, with his parents. Hitler makes joining Hitler Youth mandatory. What the hell is he supposed to do? Run away? Yeah, right, he's only 14.

[ClarkUSA]

34. How about when he joined the Wehrmacht at 17 in 1944?

That wasn't mandatory, was it?

[theHandpuppet]

42. Folks don't want to hear that

They just keep bleating that "14 year old" line because they don't want to face the truth, like that "BMW plant" which was a secret weapons factory that used concentration camp prisoners from Dachau for their labor.

[davepc]

43. Yeah actually it was.

[Zynx]

49. It most certainly was mandatory

By the end of the war, if you were between 16 and 50 and remotely able bodied, you were carrying a weapon or could be shot or hung for not doing so.

[Charon]

55. He was Drafted

[theHandpuppet]

41. He was 14 when he first joined, not when the war ended

He was 17 when he served at the Munich BMW weapons plant which used concentration camp prisoners from Dachau as forced labor.

[cestpaspossible]

45. Was that where he deserted from?

[Kmarx]

71. You're right

You get it! How many 14 year-olders are politically minded!? At that age, most have other things on their mind and rightly so. Ratzinger did what any of us would have done, especially at the age of 14. It's easy for some on this site to sit back in their chairs and criticize someone of another generation and time for not taking a moral stand against the nihilistic despotism of Nazi Germany, all this at the age of 14. Show me any present day 14 year-older who is so politically astute, savvy and courageous enough to stand up to a monolithic, despotic regime like Hitler's! Some people hate the Vatican so much that they would preach the absurd in order to hurt it!

[Hosnon]

36. Easy, labeling something as "that hitler youth guy" can only be derogatory

if it was a choice. Come on!!...14 years old in Nazi Germany. I would be utterly amazed if there is ONE man here who can honestly claim he would not have joined a compulsory nationalistic organization during a time of war in a climate such as that. There are thousands of other qualities about Pope Benedict XVI...why fixate on that one?

You could frame such a question in ANY scenario.

[Boomer]

46. Yes.. BUT....

That was my initial reaction as well, but my partner has been scouring the internet for some evidence that Ratzinger has expressed remorse or issued any sort of an apology for his involvement in the war.

Instead, she maintains, there are only "he didn't inhale" statements that seek to finesse his service, rather than confront the issue head on.

Given the gravity of the German atrocities, even a minimal involvement with labor camps and other such abuses deserves a heart-felt expression of sorrow. Has he made them?

If not, I take back any and all defenses of that particular aspect of his character.

[Mondon]

63. What evidence

do you have that he was in any way involved in anything other than normal military activities, like millions of soldiers? Do you blame every 18yo VietNam draftee for My Lai?

[librechik]

57. I dismiss it--and judge him only on the RW fascist LYING example

he sets now. Hiding a sex assault case in the priesthood? Interfering in an US election?

I don't care where he got it from. As a mature adult he has chosen to be a hypocritical fascist. So what else is new, from that ilk? I'm not Catholic, and the church's long history of abuses is why.

[borg5575]

61. Exactly

It's not fair to blame him for what he did when he was 14, and there in no evidence that he supported the Nazis at that time.

But it is completely legitimate to blame him for his present ultra right wing views.

[HuckleB]

58. Problem with a Pope who grew up in an anti-Nazi household?

As recognized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center? The family had to move a number of times because of his father's criticism of the Nazis. Yes, he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth and into an anti-aircraft unit from seminary. He never joined the Nazi Party, however, and biographers have found no reason to suspect that he sympathized in any way with the Nazis.

There is much to criticize this Pope about. There are many things and many fronts on which he must be confronted. This is a distraction from the real issues at hand. The issues that can and will affect the world today.

[Mondon]

64. THANK YOU

This Nazi crap is really annoying--undermines legitimate criticizm of this man.

[immoderate]

67. The least of what bothers me about this man

is that he was a Hitler youth.

It's his current stand on humanity that makes him odious. He is a superstitious, authoritarian, anti-humanist who has much power. He also did a lot to help Republicans take control of the US. That really sucks.

--IMM

[Bonobo]

75. If a German Nazi resister is a hero, then what is this new pope?

Answer: Not a hero. Part of the silent German majority that allowed the atrocities to take place = Not a hero (at the very least)

Furthermore, the Catholic church has a lot to answer for already vis a vis their role in perpetuating or at least turning a blind eye to the atrocities. So to elect a man who was a Nazi Youth is at the bare minimum -an undiplomatic one.

Weren't their any other possible choices that could be less ambiguous in terms of what they may symbolize to the world? Was this a deliberate message or just ill considered?