Thread: New Pope
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Old 04-21-2005, 06:39 PM   #9
TeapotScar
 
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Asurai
Quote:
Originally Posted by TeapotScar
I know Pope Benedict left "Hitler's Youth" in 1945, but the fact that he belonged to such a group says something about Pope Benedict's person.

...we could have hoped for a little bit more than an ex-Nazi.
I've had a very interesting talk with a man, probably in his '80s, who fought in the German Army under Hitler. Getting tired of being called a nazi, he would always respond: "The nazis were a political party. I was drafted into the German Army."

It's basically the same thing. If you were a teenager in Germany during the early '40s, you were more-or-less automatically in the Hitler Youth, whether you liked it or not.
Haha, it's good to have you back, Asurai.

You're right- he's not a Nazi.

Quote:
Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941. He soon won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. "Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one," said John Allen, his biographer.
From here.
However, from the same link:
Quote:
"Resistance was truly impossible," Georg Ratzinger [the pope's brother] said. "Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry, as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy."

Some locals in Traunstein, such as Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. "It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others," she said. "The Ratzingers were young and they had made a different choice."
So who's to say... He's a controversial figure, there's no arguing that. He's released many statments that make critics angry, especially statements about other faiths, and how Catholics are the only people guaranteed eternal salvation, and how Buddhism is an "auto-erotic" spirituality... This is the man who's main plan is to open inter-faith talks... I don't trust him.
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