Why the Holy Father chose the name "Benedict"...?

QueenOfPeace.Ca ^ | April 12, 2005 | Zenit.org

[Southack]

"Mobilization, at the state of the art then, meant war."

Only to apologists and those who beg to re-write History to their own liking.

For those interested in facts, it's a different story altogether.

[Sonny M]

you are essentially a leftist and no better than the Jacobin thugs of the French Revolution.

Then let me joint leftists such as Ruch Limbaugh and Jesse Helms and President Reagan and toast, that the so called "true conservatives" are but a trivia question in support of a more primitive time of civilization.

Left wingers of the likes of Jesse Helms, and Barry Goldwater,raise your glasses, for the crowns are falling into the heaps of history. Long live conservatism of man, and be gone to the ruins conservatives of the crown.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Last I read (in the Bible) the Holy Father's name was Yaweh or "I am"

[annalex]

If Keegan is an apologist, he would be an apologist for England, to whose veterans he dedicated his book. The understanding of the role of war plans as definitive for early 20 century strategists is common knowledge and I took it straight from Keegan.

[DannyTN]

Have you seen this?

There does appear to be a logic to the name choice in light of the challenges being faced.

It's still a weak fulfillment in my opinion, but then the papacy has just begun.

[stm]

Not by choice. All children that age were automatically enrolled in the Hitler Youth. Again this is an attempt by the "progressives" to slam a conservative Holy Man by twisting facts. They would have to believe he was a willing participant and he executed hundreds of Jews personally.

[N. Beaujon]

Have you seen this? There does appear to be a logic to the name choice in light of the challenges being faced. It's still a weak fulfillment in my opinion, but then the papacy has just begun.

Danny, thanks for the article. As interesting is the following: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1351430/posts, this was started in February. I just find the prophecies interesting. Mainly, I enjoy parsing Latin. I do think Ratzinger took the name Benedectine to fulfil the prophecy but I'm a bit of a cynic. I mean, why not? It makes for good press and the vatican is probably one of the most savy PR machines in history. JHVHO.

[Domestic Church]

As JPII was dying on April 1st, Cardinal Ratzinger was receiving a Benedictine award. He has had long ties to the Benedictines.

[annalex]

This is what John Keegan in The First World War (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999, pp 57-58) has to say on the subject of Serbian "acceptance" of the ultimatum (typos all mine, as well as a few comments in square brackets):

The night and most of Saturday remained for it to be seen what the Serbs would do. On the morning of 25 July they were still reconciled to capitulation, though reluctantly and with occasional bursts of belligerence. Then, during the afternoon, word was received from their ambassador ad the Tsar's country palace tha tthe mood there was fircely pro-Serbian. The Tsar, though not yet ready to proclaim mobilisation, had announced the preliminary "Period Preparatory to War" at eleven o'clock. The news reversed everything the Serbian ministers had decided. In the morning they had agreed to accept all ten Austrian demands, with the slightest reservations. Now they were emboldened to attach conditions to six and to reject aboslutely the most important, that Austrian officials be allowed to take part in the investigation of the assassinations on Serian territory. In the hurried hours that followed, the reply to the note was drafted and redrafted, lines crossed out, phrases corrected in ink. As would happen in the Japanese embassy in Washington on the night before Pearl Harbor, the typist gave way to nerves. The finished document was an undiplomatic palimpsest of revisions and afterthoughts. With a quarter of an hour in hand, however, it was finished, sealed in an envelope and taken by the Prime Minister himself, Nicholas Pasic, for delivery to the Austrian ambassador. Within an hour of its receipt, the personnel of the legation had boarded the train for the Austrian frontier and left Belgrade.

There followed a curious two-day intermission, Sunday and Monday 26-27. Serbia mobilised its little army, Russia recalled the youngest reservists to the units in its western military districts, there wqere scenes of popular enthusiasm in Vienna over the government's rejection of the Serbian reply and similar scenes in German cities, including Berlin. On Sudnay, however, the Kaiser was still at sea [on vacation], while Poincare and Viviani, the French Foreign Minister, aboard La France, did not receive a signal urging their immediate return until that night. Meanwhile there was much talk, reflective and anticipatory, rather than decisive or belligerent. Bethmann Hollweg instructed the German ambassadors in London and Paris to warn tha tthe military measures Russia was taking could be judged threatening. The German ambassador in St. Petersburg was told to say that the measures, unless discontinued, would force Germany to mobilise which "would mean war". Bethmann Hollweg learnt from him in reply that the British and French were working to restrain Russia while Sazonov, the Russian Foregin Minister, was moderating his position. The Kaiser and the Austrian government were informed. The British Foreign Office, working from information of its own, perceived a hope that the Russians were ready to acquiesce in a mediation by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. There was, briefly, the circulation of a feeling that the crisis, like those of 1909 and 1913, might be talked out. [This must be when the Kaiser praised his diplomats].

The weakness of that hope was the ignorance and misunderstanding among politicians and diplomats of how the mechanism of abstract war plans, once instigated, would operate. Only Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, and Jules Cambon, the French ambassador in Berlin, fully comprehended the trigger effect exerted by one mobilisation proclamation on another and the inexorability of deployment once begun.

[N. Beaujon]

As JPII was dying on April 1st, Cardinal Ratzinger was receiving a Benedictine award. He has had long ties to the Benedictines

First, source? Second, even if so, the two theories aren't mutually exclusive.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

So there's this little country, and it sponsors terrorists. But because it has big tough friends, it figures that it can get away with this.

Seems I've heard this story somewhere before . . .

How does Serbia's support and protection of the Black Hand differ qualitatively from Afganistan's support for al Qaeda?

Didn't a recent American president launch missiles against a sovereign state (without a declaration of war) because of its ALLEGED involvement in a plot to assassinate one of our ex-presidents.

How about that whole U.S.S. Maine deal?

And why is Pershing's incursion into (or invasion of) Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa justified?

Or is it that one set of laws applies to the U.S. and another set to Austria-Hungary?

[Conservative til I die]

Only an RC could invent volumes of tradition around an invention called Pope and ascribe it all to that little verse, which is about Peter's profession, as everyone ELSE knows.

An only a Prot could be as illogical and foolish as to believe that the sum knowledge of Christianity is restricted to the Bible and stopped in the year 33.

Christ left us a Church, not a book.

[biblewonk]

This pissing match is going nowhere.

[Southack]

"Now they were emboldened to attach conditions to six and to reject aboslutely the most important, that Austrian officials be allowed to take part in the investigation of the assassinations on Serian territory."

It's not just that Keegan lies above, but that it is such a preposterous lie.

To wit: if Serbia wanted to be beligerant, say, to rely upon Russia to back Austria down, then it would have simply rejected Austria's ultimatum.

There was no need for Serbia to capitulate on 3 of Austria's four main demands, after all, if Serbia intended to be defiant.

So Keegan's lie doesn't even pass the most rudimentary of smell tests. It stinks.

What Serbia did was to capitulate on all of Austria's demands, save to *suggest* that the Hague arbitrate Austria's demand of having Austrians enter Serbia to be involved in all phases of the apprehension of anti-Austrians and the shutting down of all anti-Austrian publications.

This capitulation was so complete, and the diplomacy involved so well done, that Germany's Kaiser William II himself read it and said that there was now "no excuse for war."

That's directly from the source. Germany was Austria's key ally. Kaiser William II was the absolute, uncontested ruler of Germany, and *his* authoritative response to the Serbian capitulation was that now there would be no war.

Austria invaded Serbia anyway. There were no further "negotiations." Not even an attempt.

[Southack]

"How does Serbia's support and protection of the Black Hand differ qualitatively from Afganistan's support for al Qaeda?"

Serbia rounded up and arrested the assassins, as well as agreed to turn them over to Austria. Many were executed, others died in Austrian prisons, one survived and became a history professor.

[annalex]

Keegan lies above

Well, I got an eminent British war historian, author of many acclaimed, highly researched books, on my side. What have you got?

Keegan, in the quote I gave you, explains with precision how and to what extent, the Serbian stance evolved following the signals from the Russian Tsar.

You wonder why Serbia did not reject the ultimatum in toto. Obviously, it needed to appear reasonable enough to provide cover for the Russians' saber rattling.

[Southack]

"You wonder why Serbia did not reject the ultimatum in toto. Obviously, it needed to appear reasonable enough to provide cover for the Russians' saber rattling."

Nonsense. You are engaging in historical revisionism.

There were only two options: War or Peace.

If Serbia wanted war, then it would have rejected Austria's ridiculuous 48 hour ultimatum (made after doing nothing for 2 full months).

If Serbia wanted peace, then it needed to capitulate to Austria's demands, which it did.

For its part, Austria didn't even negotiate. The Austrians had bet, badly, that Serbia would reject the ultimatum, and they had no Plan B if Serbia capitulated (which it did).

So Austria invaded anyway, even though Serbia's capitulation was so complete and well done that Germany's Kaiser William II said after reading Serbia's response that there was now "no excuse for war."

NO EXCUSE FOR WAR!

And that's from Austria's ally, not a neutral or opposed power.

[annalex]

What revisionism? I am quoting from a well-researched book by someone sympathetic to the Entente, which you do not address directly.

Of course Serbia did not want a war, being a small country. Neither Keegan or I say it did. Serbia wanted to get away with as much as possible diplomatically, and the Tsar, as well as the disposition of the previous crises in the Balkans, lead it to think it could respond with a certain degree of defiance. That was a fatal miscalculation.

This history is complex and no one is immune from blame. However, Austria was injured first, and so remains the only party for whom the war was entirely just.

[smiley]

our struggle will always continue....like the oldest profession......liberals will always be with us...:)

[Southack]

"Of course Serbia did not want a war, being a small country. Neither Keegan or I say it did."

But you both did. You both claimed, bizarrely, that Serbia was somehow beligerant in its reply to Austria's ultimatum in order to enable Russian saber rattling (something that offered utterly no benefit to Serbia).

The truth is precisely the opposite: Serbia caved to Austria's ultimatum.