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Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger’s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Poland and in 1986 became the first pope to visit Rome’s synagogue.

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It's interesting, though, that he supposedly was only kicked out. Expressing support for what the Nazis had officially decreed were enemies of the state, as in Catholics, was a sure fire way of getting jailed, killed, beaten, etc.

In either case, at first glance this new pope looks like a real downer--the same backward ass views on many social issues and totalitarian governing practices as PJ II without the charisma.

Then again, what should we expect from an elite of under-worked, over-paid pork-chopper cardinals? Progressive reformist popes are very much an historic exception and are usually chosen by fluke.

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Originally posted by Ethical Redneck:
In either case, at first glance this new pope looks like a real downer--the same backward ass views on many social issues and totalitarian governing practices as PJ II without the charisma.

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That might change if the Catholic rank and file across the globe got to make that choice democratically.

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quit causing problems

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Just because you happen to have problems doesn't mean I caused them.

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you know damn well that is a lie and you're running your mouth because you don't have faith

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That's correct, in part. I do NOT have faith that an invisible superhero who lives in outer space and rewards humans — who bow before him and who promise to hate heterosexuals — with everlasting life in space with him.

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you don't believe in the church

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Again, correct.

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you have given up on yourself

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Quite the opposite. I am all I need. You, however, can't seem to face the day without the imagined protection and guidance of the invisible superhero, or one of his sidekicks Superboy, Miracle Mom or the Holy Bird.

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leave the Pope and the church alone

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Hehe. Or what? Just FYI, I didn't wake up this morning intending to take potshots at the church until I read your post, so perhaps if you can restrain yourself from beaking off about how awesome your superhero and his newly elected Jimmy-Olsen-in-a-dress is, I won't have to mix it up with you.

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and while you're at it, get a job.

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Quite the opposite. I am all I need.

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He's done very little since then to show that the HJ wasn't at least partly successful in forming his worldview, but the College of Cardinals sees no problem at all with elevating him to pope.

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He should have been denied the papacy because he has reactioanry views, whether he acquired them from Hitler Youth or(as seems more likely) from traditional Catholicism.

And let's not forget, prior to about 35 years ago, Ratzingers views on social issues were pretty much the same views as were held by a huge chunk of people in the western world, most of whom had never been members of fasicst organizations.

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: voice of the damned ]

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Originally posted by audra trower williams:
Heph: Don't feed the trolls. Or call people Nazis.

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*sigh* okaaaaaaaaaay...

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He should have been denied the papacy because he has reactioanry views, whether he acquired them from Hitler Youth or(as seems more likely) from traditional Catholicism.

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Did they have to choose the hardline reactionary with the troubling association to Hitler? Was this wise?

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Well, from a progressive perspective, it wasn't wise to choose a reactionary, no. But I don't see what his membership in Hitler Youth, a group that all "pure-blooded" German teenagers had to join, comes into it.

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Originally posted by voice of the damned:
...But I don't see what his membership in Hitler Youth, a group that all "pure-blooded" German teenagers had to join, comes into it...

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Well, from a progressive perspective, it wasn't wise to choose a reactionary, no. But I don't see what his membership in Hitler Youth, a group that all "pure-blooded" German teenagers had to join, comes into it.

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How about this then: Just because all people had to join, does not mean that they did not want to. And having problems with the authorities because of your status as a Catholic does not necessarily indicate that you were out-of-step the rest of the HJ program. And, there is this: his reactionary attitudes today, vis-a-vis muslim Turkey (better for them to align themselves with the Muslim countries as opposed to Christian Europe through the EU, he said*) might give us a clue as to where his head was at when he was 18.

Its just unfathomable. 1.1 Billion Catholics and they find a guy who is not tainted by service, voluntary or not, within the Hitler Youth? That's ok? Its not important enough for the Church for them to nix that, just on the basis that it might give the impression that the Hitler Youth were excusable.

*Please, note that the anti-semetic attitudes of Germany of the thirties have been replaced by the anti-Turkish (immigrant) movement, and that Ratzinger' comments directly play into the German anti-immigrant lobby, some of which represent Nazi-styled skin heads.

Vatican Stand on Turkey's EU memebership

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Outspoken Ratzinger has argued in the past that allowing Turkey to join the EU would be ''a huge mistake'' that would run ''counter to history''.

''Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe,'' Ratzinger said during an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro last year.

Instead, he believes Turkey should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations rather than the EU, which has Christian roots.

He also called demands for European ''multiculturalism'' as ''fleeing from what is one's own''.

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November 23, 1992 - Two Skinheads, aged 19 and 25, firebombed two houses in Moelln, Schleswig-Holstein, killing a Turkish woman, her 10-year-old granddaughter, and 14-year-old niece. Several others were severely injured. The perpetrators telephoned the police station and announced, "There's a fire in the Ratzeburger Strasse. Heil Hitler!" They made an identical call to the fire brigade regarding the second address. Michael Peters and Lars Christiansen were tried and convicted in December 1993, and sentenced to life imprisonment, and 10 years, respectively.[1]

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Wakey Wakey

It interesting how the language of "cultural studies" has supplanted that of "socio-biology" as vasaline of racisim. Ratzinger once said that "Europe is a cultural not a geographic continent."

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

However, I recently came across what I consider to be pretty openly racist comments by Ratsi. Here's what he wrote:

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The ever more passionately demanded multiculturalism is often above all a renunciation of what is one's own, a fleeing from what is one's own."

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One's own? I thought the entire human family was one. I thought nothing human is alien.

I thought that I have no duty to seek out only those traditions which come from my ethnic heritage, but may chose all those which give me insight, pleasure, or happiness.

This comment attempts to attach individuals to their "blood and soil" in a way common among right-wing nationalists in Europe.

A critique of multi-culturalism simply thinks races and nations should keep apart. I call that a fraudulent pope.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/4/13/213000.shtml

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: jeff house ]

Actually, I have seen lines of Ratzinger's that disturb me more than those that jeff house has quoted.

It doesn't bother me -- in fact, it often delights me -- that people find great joy in ethnic identification, I guess (help me -- I'm looking for the right term), in the accomplishments and even, sometimes, the tragedies of their communities.

The notion, though, that all of Europe shared some essential soul -- that was a notable theme of collaborationist writing during the Second World War, even among ostensible liberals who were trying to rationalize their own inaction in the face of Nazi racist "cleansing" of the continent.

And Ratzinger has written to that topic, and recently, in comments about Turkey's admissability to the EU.

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I've had an argument with an American who was convinced that multiculturalism was racism. Does our definition of it differ from everybody else's?

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There is a difference between arguing against multiculturalism as a policy, and arguing against the inclusion of persons on the basis of cultural identity. This is the specfic shape of Ratzingers opposition to Turkish inclusion in the EU, not oprression of women, not Human Rights, not trade compatability, but because the Turks are not cultural compatible because they are Muslim (in the majority). What if I were to say that Jews were not culutrally compatible to Canadian society?

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I think the Hitler Youth allegation is unfair. That was then,, this is now.

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And I argue that the Ratzinger's position can be construed to show a continuity of thought that makes his membership in the HJ significant. His latter day views reflect on what we can sumise about his earlier views.

Bing booted out of the HJ for being a strong Catholic is not the same as being booted out for opposition to anti-semetism.

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Then, should a currently progressive person who was forced to join Hitler Youth in the 30s be considered to have ONE strike against him, a strike that should be taken into some account when deciding his fitness for office?

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A candidate who had spent a lifetime, of effort to denouncing and combatting the ideology he was exposed to in the HJ would be considerably more attractive than the fella they elevated, who has spent a lifetime doing quite the opposite. In my judgement, the college's choice amounts to a whitewash of fascism in general and Nazism in particular.

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jeff house is renouncing Norway? Norway? What did Norway ever do to deserve this?

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Actually, my roots are not Norwegian, except in a very minor sense.

So my appreciation of Norway involves valuing multicultural values. Anyone who thinks I am "running away from myself" in so doing wants to confine me to an ethnic role.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
I've had an aboriginal person tell me Chretien's spiritual home was in France. I can understand the emotional reasons for him feeling that way, but I don't agree with the implication that all of us really belong where our ancestors came from.

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You don't agree that his ideas bear a certain xenophobic similarity to the kind that inspired the popular support of NSDAP? You don't think his views add credibility and Papal sanction to some pretty problematic ideas about European purity?

The pope's comments are made in the context of white-christian population in which many are afraid of the specter of mass non-white, non-christian immigration. Remember that while much of the official resitance to Turkish inclusion in the EU is sincere concern about Turkey's human rights history, a major source of popular resistance is the fact that Turkish inclusion in the EU means more or less free access of Turks to European countries.

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Can't you just condemn the views he has expressed recently without claiming it's because he was in the Hitler Youth 60 years ago and maybe possibly he learned those beliefs from them?

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Saying these beliefs "seem to share the same lineage" is feeble. Is everyone who shares those views a former member of the Hitler Youth? Do all former Hitler Youth espouse them?

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You can argue in the negative all day long, if you like, but there is no point.

You missed my point completely. I have made my point about my feeling about the pope stint in the Hitler Youth completely clear. I was moving beyond that, and asking you specifically to comment on his recent statments.

So is it that you disagree then that the NSDAP came to power supported by a wave of xenophobic anti-semetism, or that the present anti-Turkish, anti-Muslim sentiment that exists in much of Europe is a similar kind of xenophobia?

Be that as it may, the Popes views seem to me very much to be the softer side (by which I mean apparently paltable at first glance) of the kind of views that would be espoused by HJ were it still in existence.

[ 29 April 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]