Posted on 04/19/2005 4:49:13 PM PDT by wagglebee
Okay, I'll agree with that. It's like the old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Foxman can be also.
It is beautiful, though, like a monumental healing process (although nothing can heal the Holocaust). First, a Polish Pope, who did more to reconcile old wrongs against the Jewish people by Catholics, and now a German Pope, who is a supporter of Israel. It's good, so very good.
Amen. God bless Benedict XVI.
Amen. I'm not exactly the sharpest blade in the spiritual drawer, but even I can see the hand of God in this.
Europe so desperately needs a Christian revival, and who only 50 years ago would have ever bet on having a Polish Pope and then a German Pope in their lifetime?
John Paul II was positioned exactly right to help bring down the Communist regime in Eastern Europe, and the German Benedict XVI was no doubt chosen for a very important reason also (imho). And neither are/were anti-semites. The future will be more interesting than usual.:)
I figure that if John Paul II could forgive then-Cardinal Ratzinger and take him into his confidence, though the cardinal was on the opposite side during a war that nearly destroyed Poland, then we must consider Ratzinger's atonement complete indeed. The late pope knew his friend's heart thoroughly and would not have drawn him near if Ratzinger was not deeply invested with the Holy Spirit. So we must let it go, as well.
I'm glad you included your last sentence. However, your loaded choice of words in the first two sentences is misleading and indicative of a flawed premise: that even though Ratzinger as a 14 year-old boy was a Nazi, he deserves a chance because he has atoned for that "mistake" since then.
This implied slur that is being bruited about in the MSM is absolute rubbish. Ratzinger does not "have a background in the Hitler Youth"; he was FORCED, as a 14 year-old child, to participate, and as soon as he could get out, he did.
wagglebee, you nailed it: "The Pope was a victim of Hitler just like many other Germans, he was not a war criminal, he was not a Nazi and he has never said anything that would lead anyone to believe he felt anything but love for the Jewish people. You have given us the sound bite to shut-down anyone who raises this canard:
"The Pope was not a supporter of Hitler, he was a 14 year-old victim of Hitler."
We would all hope that Jewish/Catholic relations continue to improve. Ditto for all the Christian denominations.
Exactly. Pope Benedict's membership in Hitler's youth corps had nothing to do with being an "impressionable" youth. It was compulsory service in a totalitarian State.
You are silly. Do you seriously think that school children were capable to oppose Nazi regime recruitment to its youth organizations? It was much much harder then to oppose Diversity Celebrations or feminist propaganda in American schools, and how many children are fighting the later?
It depends on who says it. Foxman is 99% jerk, so I am just not that open to his gestures.
What if Louis Farrkhan or David Duke like the new Pope?
Is that a good thing? Foxman is slightly more reputable not no less noxious.
Disclosure: I'm a Prod.
John Paul II was not a moron and he would never blame or "forgive" anybody for "joining" as a child the youth organization in a totalitarian state.
Atone for what?!
No, they were insulting.
Foxman and the ADL are still a joke. They still have an anti-Christian bias. They like to indirectly accuse many Christians and Christian groups of being antisemitic(When they obviously aren't) when they are the bigots. You don't fight antisemitism by being anti-Christian.
You're right--maybe "forgive" isn't the right word. I never suggested that the late Holy Father would ever have blamed the current pope for his service in the German Army, knowing how reluctant it was and knowing also that he deserted. I just meant if he could let it go,even though his country had been at war with Germany, so could all the critics who carp about it.
Only to the perpetually disgruntled.
Look, Foxman didn't have to say anything at all. What he did say completely pulled the rug out from under the media's smear campaign against the new pope. I cannot imagine that Benedict XVI himself would find Foxman's words "insulting".
Of course he does. He was 14 years old at the time and living in Nazi Germany. Enrolling in the Hitler Youth was mandatory. Reportedly, Ratzinger never attended any of the group's meetings. His parents were noted anti-Nazi activists. After Ratzinger was drafted into the Nazi military, he deserted -- that being a crime punishable by execution. I'd be puzzled by any objective individual who might think Ratzinger wouldn't deserve to be "given a chance". I don't see what he could have done any differently.
He cannot say it openly.
I hope and pray one that one of the items on Pope Benedict XV1's agenda---as the first German Pope in a 1000 years--- is to address the suffering and injustices German citizens experienced at the hands of the beastial Hitler and his Nazi juggernaut.
There are many firsthand accounts out there of working-class Germans sent to concentration camps because they would not kowtow to Nazism. Their families never saw or heard from them again; they simply disappeared, victims of the relentless onslaught of Hitler's killing machine.
This issue must be addressed.
I'm not a Catholic but appreciate the Pope's influence.
I feel about this Pope right now like I do about Tom DeLay.
Stick to your guns. That's why they picked him I assume.
As a reliable extension of the last Pope or maybe it's a sign of the consolidation of Orthodoxy in the Church ....bad choice of words probably right?
A little off subject, but does anyone know what order the Pope took his vows with? Benedictine?
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