The new Pope [The road less travelled...]

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I am sad that people have been so quick to jump on the future Benedict XVI. The accusation that bothers me the most is that people automatically assume that, because he was a German, he must also be a Nazi. Does that mean, if he had been Italian, he must have been a supporter of Mussolini? Pope John Paul was a Pole and there was no proof he acted against the Nazis - so OMG he was a collaborator! Of course not - people would have been hugely offended at the mere suggestion. So why can you get away with it with Benedict?

He may have done things in his past (and I don't know if he has - I'm covering my bases) that aren't the best - but, gee, is he all alone in that area? If God is willing to allow him to become head of His Church, what right do you have to criticise Him?

And if he was that bad, would John Paul II have had him as a member of his team? In fact, as one of his closest advisors? Or will you suggest some underhanded and dirty dealings? Of course not, because JPII is only one step removed from sainthood and can do no wrong.

Does the fact that it took such an amazingly small number of elections not suggest that the cardinals have faith in him? So what right do you have to make such libellous accusations?

Do not judge that you may not be judged. For with what judgement you judge, you shall be judged. Matthew 7:1

Mood::

annoyed

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There are 29 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

He was a member of the Hitler Youth when he was 14 (apparently), but the people who are jumping on him for that don't seem to know their history, for they didn't have much choice.

I'm not sure whether I like him or not (I don't know a lot about him), but I will defend him against the Nazi accusation!

As will I, even though I'm not a Catholic.

I suppose in a way it's something I feel strongly about because of Ben, his Grandad was German, got out of there before the war but still had to spend the conflict in an internment camp.

Ratzinger deserted from the army - surely that shows that he didn't agree with what the Nazi's were doing?

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I have no problem with people feeling strongly about Germans as a whole if they have been POWs or something similar, but it's a shame they can't take off the blinkers and look at individuals.

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Make that a "me three" on those who are quick to judge. You h*had* to be in the Hitler Youth. There was no option (well there was, but it was the labour camps for you andyour family pretty much). Plus, at 78, he was born in 1927? 28? - which would make him 11/12 at the outbreak of War. And how anyone filled with propaganda throughout their formative years can be blamed for a madman's actions is beyond me.

Habeas Papam - now live with it! (and, just fyi, I'm not Catholic either)

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Me, too. They make me sick, honestly. All Germans are Nazis. I think that means all Australians stole children from the Aboriginals. *shudder*

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People are saying he's a Nazi? That's a bit far (she says, understating it wildly). I don't know if Ratzinger would be the man I'd choose, but the decision is not mine - it is God's. So I'm sure the right decision has been made.

*huggles KB*

I agree, absolutely.

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i dont know if he is or not, but you are right, he wouldnt have gotten where he has gotten if he was a true nazi or anyone else...

i had someone tell me that they were worried about him being a nazi too today, but i didnt listen to him because i take his words at face value.

follow your heart hun, only you know what you believe no matter what everyone else thinks.

I don't condemn him as a person for having been in the Hitler Youth (and of course it's true that it was dangerous not to be.....but as we know from the Chalet School books, one could make that choice, and risk death if necessary in order not to be a participant in something genuinely evil; I can't help suspecting that the 14-year-old Ratzinger didn't actually dissent particularly strongly from the Nazi Orthodoxy). Anyway, as I say, I don't condemn him as a person; but I do think it makes him an odd choice for Pope. Me, I would have done whatever it took to survive in those dark times. But I don't think I (even if I were Catholic) would deserve to be made Pope either. Shouldn't a Pope -- God's deputy on Earth -- be a really special person, the kind of person who would have said no to the Nazis?

Considering that the Pope at the time couldn't even say no to the Nazis, but actually said yes on more than one occasion, I don't think that's quite fair.

Equally, the time of saying no to the Nazis that we are told about in the CS series is very early on, when the Nazis were more reliant on public opinion and less willing to act in a way that could draw international dissent on their heads. (Remember, in addition to the CS being a British woman's idea of what went on, that this was even before the annexing of the Czech republich.) During the war years, people became increasingly aware of what could and would be done to them if they dissented as openly as to refuse to belong to the Hitler Youth (HJ).

Information I read said that Ratzinger was a member of the HJ only in 1941 when it became compulsory (unless you were a Jew, as I said before) and was given a dispensation because he was training at a seminary. If he had been for the Nazis, he would surely have left the seminary and stayed in the HJ.

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Oh, no doubt, and I'm not saying he was for the Nazis. Just that there were people at the time who worked consciously against the Nazis, at great personal risk to themselves, precisely because of their religious faith and the strength it gave them to stand up for what was right even if it meant death. Ratzinger wasn't one of them. It doesn't make him a bad person, it just makes me unsure what the criteria are for becoming Pope. And yes, I do hold the same lack of resistance against the contemporary Pope as well (and indeed, wasn't it John-Paul II -- although I'm not one of the people you cite who thinks John-Paul II could do no wrong -- who explicitly admitted that the Church had been in the wrong not to stand out against the Nazis?). I think it wasn't really any harder to see that torturing and killing Jews (et al.) in the 1930s-40s was wrong than it would have been to see that torturing and killing Jesus in 70 A.D. or whatever was wrong, and the whole point of Christianity is more or less that torturing and killing people is right out, so I do sort of feel that a Pope should have some demonstrated commitment to that point of view. But I'm not prepared to go to the mat with you about it, because (a) my knowledge of Ratzinger himself if very superficial, and mostly political; we don't see eye to eye on most things as far as I can tell -- not that John-Paul II and I did either; and (b) as I'm not a Catholic, it really doesn't matter a toss what I think!

(BTW, the CS character I has in mind was Luigia [surname?] -- who dies resisting the Nazis and was actually canonized or considered for canonization IIRC?? -- anyway, she is mentioned in HT and other places when the Peace League is explained.)

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I certainly don't want to argue about it (hey, your Ph.D. would knock my almost-MA for six ;-) but I do enjoy political, historical and philosophical discussion.

(And besides, the problem of resistance is rather relevant to my thesis, so that's fun, too.)

So...

I think the question of active resistance versus rather more passive opposition is quite a pertinent one. For all of those who participated in July 20-style assassination attempts, there were hundreds of others who gave Jews food and still thousands who felt that, by doing nothing, they were doing something. There is also the question of people claiming more than they actually did to escape justice from the Allies after the war. It becomes very murky indeed.

My feeling is that it comes down to the leader being there to support the central doctrines of the religion he (in the case of the Catholics) is representing. Who can do the best job? The fact that, of the cardinals who were present at the vote that put JPII in the position, only two or three were still there this time suggests that JPII brought in cardinals who he believed thought very much the same way he did. It's unlikely that anyone who was voted into the position was going to cause the really dramatic change that some people thought/hoped would happen as regards issues of homosexuality, divorce, contraception, etc. Having an older man means that, once he is gone, whoever takes his place may then introduce some change. It's a matter of waiting and seeing.

As regards Luigia di Ferrara, she was already a nun when the Nazis came to power (I think that is mentioned in Lintons or similar) and, as a nun, she was a prime target of the Nazis. Although she is often depicted as dying heroically against a wall, the greater likelihood is that she would have been herded into a gas chamber with hundreds of others and gassed. I don't recall anything about canonisation, but she was on the school's Honours Boards.

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Believe me, my PhD has consumed just enough of my brain cells, rendering them warped and useless, that you could run rings around me in any argument. At which point I would get dizzy and fall over. :)

di Ferrara! I can't believe I couldn't remember her last name. Honor boards are almost as good as canonization in the EBD-verse, though.

It's just disappointing to me to think of a Pope as a successful manager ("Who should be the CEO of the Catholic church?" "Well, Cardinal Ratzinger's been keeping the ship on an even keel for some years now, he'll do a good job.") rather than, and I realize this is a sentimental view that probably stems from not really getting it, an inspirational figure. I personally didn't derive inspiration from JPII, but a lot of people obviously did, and I think part of that was the fact that he was the first Polish Pope -- the fact that people had this romantic image of him as a kind of outsider moved to the fore by God. It's less romantic when God is portrayed as saying "Oh, well, actually the guy you want is already in the Vatican-- just look over there," and less romantic still when you try to draw inspiration from his childhood and run up against something that, while it doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, is hard to explain in a Godly light.

But I suppose romance was not foremost on the cardinals' minds.

Anyway, as aforementioned, I don't actually know anything about it, or him. I didn't expect any changes to Church doctrine on abortion or ordaining women or anything like that, but I was sort of hoping that maybe someone like Tettamanzi, who would bring the same doctrinal conservatism but less *political* conservatism, might be chosen. At least then there would be someone speaking out on traditional Christian social issues of concern like poverty and the rape of the Third World, even if the Church's attitudes to women and homosexuals didn't move forward (which I've no doubt they eventually will -- but evolution like that doesn't happen overnight).

Actually I'm starting to feel really curious about what the other Catholics on GO feel about the new Pope -- too bad it would be so off-topic (and potentially dangerous) to ask!!.

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*runs around Raya in a circle to get her dizzy*

Yes, I think you're right about Honours Boards being as good as sainthood to EBD, but have you ever thought how weird it is to have an Italian (enemy) name on an English school board? (I did and added it to Peace ;-)

The question of 'godliness' is an interesting one. I suppose it's hard for people to be able to spot that, and even if one or two people do, that doesn't mean the majority will. Presumably Benedict was a safer option, which is perhaps less satisfying, but more reassuring to the majority, giving the sense that JPII is still in power in some way. And no, I can't imagine they were really thinking about godliness at the time. Perhaps they should go with the principle of selecting Prefects in the Winterton series (Australian boarding school WWII series) of having to vote for the best Christian. Unfortunately I suspect politics is overcoming Christian virtues.

I think the best thing we can do is wait and see - however hard that may be...

(And it would be interesting, but if politics can set them off in that way, imagine what religion would do!)

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but have you ever thought how weird it is to have an Italian
(enemy) name on an English school board? (I did and added it to Peace ;-)

Good for you! I hadn't thought of it, but only because I was busy trying to figure out what said Italian nun was doing in Nazi Germany....

Come to think of it, I'm not sure EBD (or the English at large??) ever fully grasped that the Italians were the enemy too! You never hear a Chaletian patiently explaining, "It's not the Italians, it's the Fascists" or exclaiming uncharitably "If I could get my hands on old Mussolini, I'd give him a talking to he wouldn't forget in a hurry!"

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I don't think Luigia was there, I think she was in Italy and when the Germans invaded Italy, she was taken then. But yes, it is odd that EBD never said that sort of thing about Italians. Perhaps she thought more than one enemy would be too confusing to her readers. Also, I suppose the Nazis did commit more obvious atrocities, at least in the geographical area EBD was concerned with.

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Okay, I'm treading really carefully here, because I don't like stepping on other people's beliefs. And I want to say first - I neither agree nor disagree with the Nazi allegations. I simply don't know enough about the circumstances.

But as an aetheist, I often question whether religious leaders are suitable for their posts. If you take away the divinity, Holy See stuff, then the Papal is essentially a multinational leader for the people. He is a moral compass, and probably more influential than any one man or woman in any government the world over.

Because I don't believe in a god, I am always wary of the argument that a divine figure has allowed a person into a position of power. The question I raise is this - could the new pope have made it through a democratic federal government election such as those held in Australia, or the US, the UK, or any other number of countries? Would his record have been clean enough to withstand an election campaign and publicity? Would his orthodox positions have been accepted by the majority of the 1.1 billion?

The fact that there's a very small number of cardinals who have elected him makes me wonder if he is the best person to lead 1.1 billion people spiritually, or if the election is already biased by the very fact that these cardinals had been placed by John Paul II, and that Ratzinger was his right hand man.

Feel free to ignore this post, I'm more thinking through type than anything else...

I wouldn't dream of ignoring it - it's very interesting. I think JPII's long term gave him the chance to set up his successor. As I mentioned above, there were only about three cardinals who were present when JPII was voted into and who are there this time, so it makes sense that the same type of many would come in at this vote. Perhaps next time there will be change.

I think Popes have less power now than they used to. Many countries that were willing to be led more or less by their religious leaders and now turning more to their politicians, who are generally elected by the people. I think if the whole 1.1 billion Catholics voted, though, it's unlikely they could really have picked one leader clearly. There would be too many clashes in terms of culture and beliefs for this to happen in any peaceful sense. And then other branches of Christianity and other religions would probably also demand their say, as they interact with the Pope and Catholics so often, so we would have the entire 6 or 7 billion people in the world trying to pick one leader. The only conclusion would surely have been chaos.

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Isn't Christianity (at least partly) about repentance of past sins and mistakes, and forgiveness for them. St Paul is considered to be a great figure in the early Church, but before his conversion he was deliberately hunting out Christians to kill them. Whatever the new Pope may have done in his past, surely it's where he stands with God now that matters.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

And if Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, would stick to that adage as well, I'd be happier. But do you know how many things I'm going to hell for, according to him? More than under the previous Pope, believe me.

Katie: I've been debating this one half the day with Meg and my mother, so I won't subject you to it, as well. The upshot of it all is that it's God's church, not the Pope's. But given that my reaction this morning was to swear a blue streak, and the fact that blogging and the internet and all these various forms of instanteous communication are around, I think there has to be an allowance for a lot of what's being said to be knee-jerk reaction. (You'll notice I haven't posted on the topic. I've commented here and there, though.)

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But do you know how many things I'm going to hell for, according to him?

*lol* You're not the only one. Even under JPII, I'm in dead schtuck.

I agree that there was a lot of knee-jerk reactions, which is also why I didn't post for a few hours after I first found out about it. I waited to see the reactions, but there's a thread on the CBB that is all but on fire, with people saying they will leave the church and all sorts of things, which really irritated me. (Hey, I'm stressed. For once, I'm going to actually say what I think and damn the torpedoes or Norwegians or something. *apologies to any and all Norwegians who might read this* ;-)

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But do you know how many things I'm going to hell for, according to him?

*lol* You're not the only one. Even under JPII, I'm in dead schtuck.

Probably just as well for all of us that it's not his decision!

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*vbg* Very true!

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As a card-carrying pedant, I feel compelled to step in here and point out that it's really (*best Miss Annersley voice*) "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." *grins nervously* *scurries away*

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*snicker* Nicely done! *applause*

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You might find this interesting: http://www.livejournal.com/users/rozk/71979.html

I've seen the "well, at least the church will collapse as a result" around a couple of times this evening, and I haven't the faintest idea where that's coming from or why anyone would want that, unless they're simply blatantly anti-Catholic. But some of the rest of what Roz says is very much along my lines of thinking. Especially in the fact of the new Pope's pronouncements about relativism...

Admittedly, I didn't read it in full detail as my mind is pointing out that sleep would be very nice around now, but the impression I got from that was that the author doesn't like the Catholic Church, wanted someone to blame, got that person and piled up the iniquities. Interesting that they brought up the 'forgive us our trespasses' bit. Why can't they forgive Benedict for the sins he committed in the past?

Thanks for it though.

One thing that bothers me about religion is that it really isn't a hard and fast thing. It's a set of guidelines by which we choose live our lives and we can (and do) ignore those that are not appropriate to our beliefs and feelings. There are the threats of what might confront us after our deaths if we pay no attention, but I don't see most people feeling that that makes any difference. The thing that really amazes me is that the people who seem most upset about his appointment often admit to not being Catholics, so I'm not sure I see WHY they're so upset. It's not going to make much of a difference to their lives anyway.

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Why can't they forgive Benedict for the sins he committed in the past?

See, I found her position in relation to Benedict's absolutism quite convincing.

As someone who isn't Catholic (not that you didn't know that, but other people reading the thread deserve the context, I suppose) - and by the way, is mightily glad of that fact right about now - it's partially the fact that a) a goodly proportion of the world seems to point to the Pope as the symbol of mainstream Christianity generally; b) it's a confirmation of the increasing conservatism of the world generally and religion specifically, and to progressives like me, that's scary.

Anyway, I shall stop babbling and let you sleep.

~huggles~ dear. Sleep well.

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I did sleep well, thank you.

You might be right about the Pope as head of mainstream Christianity, which probably does explain why I've heard from so many non-Christians in the last few days. I get the feeling most Catholics (except perhaps those in South America) have felt 'okay, we have a Pope, let's move on', as I've barely heard from anyone in any Australian Catholic churches about it. I suppose the logical conclusion is that, if the Catholic church remains traditional, the other churchesz will move away from it and become even more independent. I'm not sure that's necessarily in their best interest, but perhaps it's inevitable.

Hope you have a good day at work. *huggles*

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December