Posted on 04/19/2005 12:24:34 PM PDT by Fred
I wonder what his combined title would be given his university background. Herr Dr. Prof. His Holiness Benedict XVI?
"Just about every kid was."
True. Glad to see a more-truthful version of his past in post 12...
So he was a deserter? I can see why they left out the war years.
"Like a U.S. presidential campaign, the run-up to the conclave saw dirty laundry being hung out in public.
For example, a Sunday Times of London profile on Ratzinger reported on the cardinal's "brief membership" in the Hitler Youth movement.
In his memoirs, Ratzinger speaks openly of being enrolled in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941. He says he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood."
New York Post wrote on April 19th
From CNN.com - SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR/CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR/JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT
transcript April 18th:
S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about Cardinal Ratzinger's background.
I've read that he was a member of the Nazi youth in Germany, that later he served in the German Army in World War 2.
What else can you tell us about him?
ALLEN (CNN Vatican Analyst John Allen ): Well, first of all, Ratzinger's class was forcibly enrolled in the Hitler Youth when he was a young man. He asked immediately to his teacher, or of his teacher, to be disenrolled. And, of course, he was conscripted into the German Army. He didn't volunteer. He spent a few months in an anti-aircraft battalion in Munich and then deserted.
So I don't think you can make any credible case that Ratzinger was in any sense pro-Nazi. Quite the contrary. His family was quiet strongly anti-Nazi. His father took a series of less significant jobs in order to sort of stay away from what was happening in Nazi Germany.
But he obviously did live through the war. He then became a very prominent German theologian. He was part of the progressive majority, ironically enough, at the Second Vatican Council in the mid-'60s.
But after Vatican II, particularly in the wake of the student revolts in Europe in 1968, I think Ratzinger felt that things were getting dangerously out of hand and he began to move in a sort of steadily more conservative direction.
In, and then, of course, as we all know, in 1981, Pope John Paul II called him to service in Rome as the chief doctrinal authority in the church, running the Congregation for the Faith. And in that time, Ratzinger has been the architect, I would say, of the most conservative and therefore controversial aspects of John Paul's papacy, from stands on abortion, divorce, homosexuality, to the pope's crackdown on liberation theology in Latin America in the '80s. That was a movement to try to align the church with progressive movements for social change. Up to the very recent, when Ratzinger has taken a very strong stand asserting that Christian is a kind of superior religion to all the other religions in the world.
So he's a man very much admired by conservatives and he is a man to whom people of a more progressive temperament would certainly have a long list of objections.
S. O'BRIEN: John Allen, lour Vatican analyst, this morning.
The guy can't win, on your reading... either he's a desserter or he's heading up the gestapo... make your mind up.
Do the research is not difficult. ;)
I never said he was heading up the Gestapo. I'm just saying that to desert, without even waiting to see combat, is a wee bit dishonourable.
Read the book he wrote if you want the facts of his life.
"Read the book he wrote if you want the facts of his life."
Nah. I got all I need here.
Besides, I've far more pressing items to read than a bio. of this guy.
Well, let's think about it for a moment...
1)your a young german man,
2)your conscripted into army fighting a war you're fundamentally opposed to that runs contrary to your devout beliefs,
3) the war is being waged by a fundamentally anti-christian Neo-Nazi party,
4) you don't particularly want to kill people and certainly not on grounds that you consider an abhorence to moral decency...
Erm... Yep. You're right. He should've stayed in the army and blasted a few people to smithereens. Sorry.
Yes, a Nazi, at the time, might conclude his flight to be dishonorable..I find him most honorable for his decision, especially at that age.
Would be much appreciated for a link to this AP article.
He as 12 when it started, and 18 when it ended. Prolly got drafted at some point.
Just to play Devils Advocate....anyone back up his story or is he the only eyewitness??
My pleasure, here you go:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050419/ap_on_re_eu/pope_ratzinger_s_war_2
My pleasure, here you go:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050419/ap_on_re_eu/pope_ratzinger_s_war_2
While it is true that a new Pope is elected by the Cardinals of the Church let us not forget that it is The Holy Spirit that guides them, The Holy Spirit is the reason Cardinal Ratzinger is now the new pontiff. All I can say is THANK YOU HOLY SPIRIT!!!
it isn't always wise to repeat what you hear, unless of course you are listening to God ;)
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