So Ratzinger served in the Wehrmacht during WW2? And he was Hitler Youth as well? Fascinating. And disturbing.

Ach, silenze!!! You schwiiiine!!!

Scheisse.

Ok, let's please be fair. Ratzinger deserted the Wehrmacht and his theology was strongly influenced by his revulsion for Nazi ideology. Saying he joined the Hitler Youth at age 14 is essentially the equivalent of saying a boy of the same age in Oregon today goes to high school -- it doesn't tell you anything about whether he's eager for the opportunity.

One other thing in the Dionne column Jeff quoted is that popes notoriously show attitudes that surprise the people who thought they knew the men before they took office.

And if you can't stand not seeing Ratzinger as some disaster for the world, remember he's 78.

screw it Suzii, let's not beat around the bush...Ratzinger is the anti-Christ! let not your feebleminded lefty brain blind you to the fact...

It is ironic that Ratzinger counseled clergy in the U.S. not to provide communion to pro-choice politicians, while his predecessor Pope John Paul II seemed to have no problem doing so in Italy...

<screams with="" laughter="">

Thanks, ig, I needed that.

yes, i agree we've gotta be fair about the new pope being a member of hitler youth at age 14. i remember being slightly homophobic at 14, probably because i was afraid. now i'm immersed in lgbt culture, and am a strong supporter of equal rights for the lgbt community. what matters about ratzinger, or "benedict 16" as he would like to be titled, is what he does right now, and what his idealogies have shaped up to be over the course of his adult lifetime. still, he's awful. i could respect john paul because he was a fighter for social justice, despite his blindness about women's personal reproductive choices. this new guy sounds like a dogmatic, conservative, fundamentalist that must be stopped. oh, but he's 78. could he do more damage than gee dubya?

Pope Rat the First.

People that did not want to go along with Hitler to get along with Hitler found ways to do it. There are no excuses for cooperating with the Nazis. The German people may not have known exactly what Hitler did with the Jews, but they had a good idea that something really terrible was happening.

Five years ago, could you ever have conceived of anyone attempting to justify their co-operation with the Nazis?

First official words of Pope Rat the First...

"Luke... I am your father."

He didn't want Turkey to be a part of the European Union because it was a Muslim country.

He opposed John Paul's calling of the religions together to pray for peace in the 80-s because it implied religious equaility.

It's going to suck to be a Catholic Democrat for a while.

Plus He's German! Didn't they ruin the world enough last century? I thought it might be our turn this century.

There are going to be a lot of people saying "give him a chance" etc. This is because we leftists like to practice our naivete on the grand scale.

Ratzinger's new office signals what we already knew; that the institution of the Roman Catholic Church (which I distinguish from its people) has long since ceased its brief flirtation with social justice, and has now fully embraced the Dark Side, with which it has a long and inglorious history.

For those of you who have not had the fortune and misfortune to be born Catholic and have watched the Rat through the years, the most accurate analogy I can think of at the moment is that this is as if, say, David Horowitz had assumed the papacy. You have a similar misguided lunatic quality, parallel delusions of intellectual adequacy, and emphatically the same paranoid world view.

There is going to be speculation and commentary about Ratzinger and the Hitler Youth. This misses the point, the way that shots at Bush for being an ex-coke addict miss the point. The evil does not lie in his youthful indiscretions; they were merely colorful foreshadowings of the Big Trouble that is now all around us.

I guess the good news is that the Catholic Church is about to become even more marginalized and irrelevant than it is at this moment. Sad, but not tragic; the greatness needed for tragedy is long ago and far away.

Paying Attention

So a major world cult has "elected" a new leader... but excuse me for not giving a damn, and for being pretty well done with the coverage of this issue.

This is news for Catholics maybe, but it isn't something I want to hear anything about.

The political case against this antidemocratic religious order is air tight. These people, like most religious folk here in the US, are out to get folks like me (and you?)

Do I have to remind anyone about the honor that is being paid daily in Rome to Cardinal Lay... facilitator of Boston area child molesters? Of the death and poverty that the Church spreads through its approach to AIDS and sex? Of the hatred toward gays (no, not to their "sin"... towards them and towards their love) that it daily foments? And now a new "conservative" who promises to strengthen these policies?

Did this new Pope flee from service to Hitler? Yes, apparently he did, but look what he ran to! He ran from one authoritarian madness to another...from Hitler to the Church. The habits of mind that link Nazi authoritarianism and Catholic authoritarian thought and the authoritarianism of Fundemantalists everwhere are something to contemplate.

It is fashionable today to recall the persecution of Catholics in Germany... I recall through my reading and family stories the vicious alliance between Polish Catholics and Nazis who were united in their efforts to track down and kill Jews in the forests and shtetles... from my family perspective Catholics (and Russian Orthodox Christians) and Nazis were all on the same side against us.

I believe it was George Will (a Catholic) in the New York Review of Books who amply documents just how the last pope apologizes for the acts of Christians but NEVER for the Church itself.... apparently a theological impossibility that the Church as such could do wrong. But it happened. Go read Abraham's Knife to find out why the Catholic Church is antisemitic to its deepest theological core.... it's heavy going, but you'll learn something: http://www.abrahamsknife.com/ Or take a look at this: http://www.davidkertzer.com/books_paj_b.htm. If you can stomach this coverage after reading that....

The Catholic Church is at war, as are all Christians per se, in my experience, with those who do not belong to their club and believe as they do.... yet the press treats this as a noble and neutral organization. Worse they wage the war in the name of "love"... but a love that does not accept and respect others as they are is better called "hate."

Are there good but misguided people who find solace in the Catholic church? Of course there must be.... but let's put the emphasis on misguided. If one is not part of that club the endless coverage of its inner wheelings and dealings is just nauseating. Please keep your undemocratic authoriarian cult to yourself.

Feh, and be done with this.

A positive, for the future of the church, is that if continued insistence on clergy celebicy, etc., finally causes a critical shortage of clergy forced labor can always be used.

Dear JFS:

Please keep your undemocratic authoritarian whining to yourself.

(Unless you're younger than 20. High-schoolers and college freshmen still gasping with the realization that "You know what? Religion ... OPPRESSES people!" get some slack. After that, if you don't see the benefits that make most people, not all of them misguided, choose to keep religion in their lives, please get out and meet more people.)

I recommend reading Garry Wills (not George Will), Pulitzer-winning historian and philosopher. His complementary books are "Papal Sin" and "Why I Am a Catholic." He does, as you say, document the difficulty the Church has had -- and is still having -- in confessing its appalling behavior (separate from, and possibly worse than, the appalling behavior of the individual Polish Catholics you mention) during WWII. One thing you may learn, which few non-Catholics seem to know, is that Catholics fully understand that popes are human, sinful, and not divinely guided in every pronouncement.

JFS wrote: "People that did not want to go along with Hitler to get along with Hitler found ways to do it. There are no excuses for cooperating with the Nazis. The German people may not have known exactly what Hitler did with the Jews, but they had a good idea that something really terrible was happening."

This is not true ... read the excellent (but sickening) book "Hitler's Willing Executioners." The average German knew exactly what was going on.

If there anything at all that is good about this selection? Not only a European, but a German? And not just a conservative, but a McCarthy kind of conservative. Maybe he'll decide that South America and Africa are too inconsistent with "the Christian roots of Europe" (not an exact quote, but what he is reported to have said in opposition to Turkey joining the EU), and excommunicate them (after a "study" of them, like the liberal Catholic theologians that he has "studied" and found unfit to teach Catholic theology).

You know, if White House secret service starting carrying big spears, and marines started wearing big red crosses on the outside of their body armor (well, those that are lucky enough to have body armor), we in America would be fitting in nicely with the new Pope.

Scheissen bloomen.

At the height of the scandal of priestly pedophilia in the United States, he blamed the uproar on a media conspiracy. "I am personally convinced," he told an interviewer, "that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the U.S., is a planned campaign."

Like I said before, Scheisse!

Jonathan, just for the record that was afs not JFS.

Suzi, I stand embarassed and corrected on one point... of course I meant Gary Wills, not George Will, and those books are more to the point than his NYRB articles. Thank you for helping me say what I meant. Foolish slip.

However, there is nothing authoritarian in my statement. My perspective is democratic and anti-authoritarian, unlike the Church.

As to whether my "whining" is more appalling than the uncritical stance of the media to this coronation I leave to others to judge. I would suggest that the American media have little ability in these times to take a critical stance toward power of any kind, secular or religious.

I suppose you are right that it would be more "adult" to accept the flawed institutions for their good and their bad....

In general absolutist positions are to be avoided... but when you are dealing with a core theology of antisemitism, and a core belief in antidemocratic kingship and a core system of hierarchy and domination, I question whether that is a compromise anyone should make just so they can have a group of old friends....

Sometimes you have to take a stand on principle.

Willkommen zur Rückkehr des dunklen Alters

It is interesting as a progressive Catholic (albeit a fairly inactive Catholic) to listen to all the loathing here. It seems to me that many probably don't "get" my Catholicism, just like many Catholics (and Protestants) don't "get" my progressive values (although many do, especially in the northwest).

As an adult Catholic convert (yes, I actually consciously choose the faith) I am well aware of the position of the church on so many hot social issues. I also disagree with the church on those issues, and am not afraid to publicly declare that.

The Catholic faith is more beautiful and much deeper than its "rules" (which I'm not particularly adept at following anyway) might have you think.

Furthermore, the Church hasn't randomly selected stances on contemporary social issues outside of the context of a much larger theology. Every position is carefully thought out and will probably NEVER change. NEVER. To do so would undermine much of the Catholic church's theology (a theology which is pretty damn solid from a strictly historical, logical, linear, black and white way of thinking and viewing the world - one which I don't prescribe to).

You'll save yourself a lot of frustration if you let go the idea of radical theological change in the Church. A Pope will NEVER change anything that previous Popes or the teaching magisterium of the church have declared to be infallible truth. The only condition in which that could happen is for a Pope to declare that a particular previous "infallible" theological teaching was flawed and he would thereby be declaring Church law null. (I personally think that such an extraordinary gesture of humility would be wonderful and would be a watershed moment for humanity).

This probably won't happen anytime within my lifetime (unless the priesthood is opened to married men so I could become a priest, and then I eventually became Pope : ).

Frankly, I'm not particularly moved by the new Papal selection one way or the other, because my expectations were realistic. I wasn't expecting a radical new pope and I don't EVER expect one. I wish the church prescribed to a different theology in many respects, but I know that it won't change. If you don't understand that, then you really don't understand the theological and scholastic basis of the faith (that's not meant as an insult, just an observation).

I completely disagree with the church on so many social issues including gay marriage and death with dignity, both of which I have bogged about. That doesn't make me loathe the Pope though. Actually, I don't loathe anyone, .....including W. (It goes against the whole Christian forgiveness thing - and yes, it is possible to fight without hating).

I sincerely believe that MOST of my political opposites are good hearted people who are trying to do what they believe to be the right thing. Of course ego will strongly influence people's judgement (on both the left and the right), and I strongly disagree with their definition of right, but I often can't criticize their hearts.

You don't have to hate your opponents to be a good Democrat. I think that the Catholic Church's view of so many issues is no more disgusting than the loathing I sense from many progressives toward the faith and its leader; hate is hate, no matter what it is based on. I'm not challenging you to love the Pope, just be real about what the Church is, what it isn't and if you can, take the higher road. Believe it or not, those guys in the robes, more often than not, actually teach and express love to toward those they declare as being immoral. If they don't they themselves are falling short of their Church's mark. And of course they often fall WAY WAY short and experience the humility of being mere humans.

The best way to effect change isn't to trash the church but to offer better alternatives.

(This gives me an idea for a new blog post about why I have an affinity for the Church and how I reconcile that as a progressive.)

Peace to you all.

JFS wrote: ..."but when you are dealing with a core theology of antisemitism, and a core belief in antidemocratic kingship and a core system of hierarchy and domination, I question whether that is a compromise anyone should make just so they can have a group of old friends...."

My response: I actually know my theology pretty well and I don't see how the Church is "antisemitic" or "antidemocratic" in its THEOLOGY. I don't doubt that various church leaders or actions have been either or both in the past. But that is much different from claiming the theology is such.

The first acknowledges an act incongruent with the faith (i.e. sinful), the second says the belief system is itself fundamentally sinful. That is a tremendous leap to make. If you believe this then so be it; I can't change that. You will, I presume then, also find me inherently sinful too for feeling a kinship with the church and for attending mass occasionally.

I know Catholic theology a lot beter than intermediate church history and won't make excuses for the church's many past sins. And I will defintely read the books you recommended with an open mind. I appreciate your contribution to the discussion but nonetheless felt compelled to challenge a few of your assertions.

People that did not want to go along with Hitler to get along with Hitler found ways to do it. There are no excuses for cooperating with the Nazis.

You really believe a kid in the 30s would not do as he was told? There was a respect for adults not found in kids today. At that time in Germany, kids of Aryan lineage were forced into the Hitler Youth (thought I am sure there were some that wanted to be part of that organization.) They didnt have a choice. They didnt have courts or the ACLU to run to like kids do today when their dont like what they are told to do by adults. (Including their parents.)

Im not a big fan of Catholics either, but I think cutting this guy some slack for being in that organization as a kid is reasonable.

Personally, I think most of the "bashing" of this man is due to an ideological hatred for religion in general.

Jon,

You say you're not a bog fan of Cathloics either. DO mean them or their religion. There are a lot of religious views and practices that I don't care for, but I may actually like the people who are practice that religion.

I agree with you that much of the bashing is rooted in a disdain for religion in general.

So when do we discuss Sen Byrd and his Klan (racist organization) membership when he was a bit older than 14? Wouldn't that be a good comparison for discussion between him and the new Pope? Wouldn't it be a fair comparison that both have changed their opinion on the subjects? But, why does Sen Byrd keep getting the pass? Interesting to note.

why do you all freak over a mere man!! he is not God!!!he will work at his own pace ,at his own thoughts,with his own views, except when he is guided by the spirit of God,if you are not a christian or not a catholic there is no need trying to run anyone down,a lot of things one did when he was in his or her youth are things you would never be caught dead doing again.besides his being there does not affect how you decide to live your live.waht you consider a sin would not mean anything to another,even if he refuses abortion rights and other issues ,it would not make you not to do them when you need to make that choice. just run your race to meet your creator when you die( if you are a christain) and live well(other religion) instead of wasting time analysing other peoples failures or should i say forsee other peoples doom.

<h2>how did the new Pope become Pope?</h2>