New Pope Is Former Hitler Youth

[|Zach|]

I thought this was a little strange.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...2667_1,00.html

Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth
Justin Sparks, Munich, John Follain and Christopher Morgan, Rome
THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler” — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.

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.

“John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people,” said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who is due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

“If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldn’t mean in the long run he wouldn’t be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish world.”

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly 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,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

“Resistance was truly impossible,” Georg Ratzinger 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, like 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 had made a different choice.”

In 1937 another family a few hundred yards away in Traunstein hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter. SS troops repeatedly searched homes in the area looking for the fugitive and his fellow conspirators.

“When he was betrayed and the Nazis came for him, Braxenthaler shot himself because he knew he couldn’t escape,” said Frieda Meyer, 82, Ratzinger’s neighbour and childhood friend. “Even though they had tortured him in Dachau concentration camp he refused to give up his resistance efforts.”

Despite question marks over Ratzinger’s wartime conduct, the main obstacle to his prospects in the conclave — the assembly of cardinals to elect the new pope — is the conservative stance he has adopted as guardian of Catholic orthodoxy since John Paul named him to head the congregation for the doctrine of the faith in 1981.

His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorder”.

He upset many Jews with a statement in 1987 that Jewish history and scripture reach fulfilment only in Christ — a position denounced by critics as “theological anti-semitism”. He made more enemies among other religions in 2000, when he signed a document, Dominus Jesus, in which he argued: “Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation”.

Some of his staunchest critics are in Germany. A recent poll in Der Spiegel, the news magazine, showed opponents of a Ratzinger papacy outnumbered supporters by 36% to 29%.

As one western cardinal who was in two minds about him put it: “He would probably be a great pope, but I have no idea how I would explain his election back home.”

One liberal theologian,when asked what he thought of a Ratzinger papacy, was more direct: “It fills me with horror.”

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

The Guy Bolted the German Military, along with his brother for a seminary.......devoted his life to God and good works.

yeah........He's a real Nazi bastard alright.

It's a lot more fun if you'll just ignore the facts and play along.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

It's not now?

Good point.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Nzoner 338

My comment was based on a Catholic I talked to once who told me since I wasn't baptized into the Catholic Church I couldn't truly be saved.

I just think his(the new pope's comment)might be better received if he said only in Jesus is there eternal salvation.

The Sacraments aren't strictly necessary, but aren't easily dispensed with. This ought to clear it all up, as it's a model of clarity and conciseness...


http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13295a.htm

The Seven Sacraments:
(1) In what sense necessary Almighty God can and does give grace to men in answer to their internal aspirations and prayers without the use of any external sign or ceremony. This will always be possible, because God, grace, and the soul are spiritual beings. God is not restricted to the use of material, visible symbols in dealing with men; the sacraments are not necessary in the sense that they could not have been dispensed with. But, if it is known that God has appointed external, visible ceremonies as the means by which certain graces are to be conferred on men, then in order to obtain those graces it will be necessary for men to make use of those Divinely appointed means. This truth theologians express by saying that the sacraments are necessary, not absolutely but only hypothetically, i.e., in the supposition that if we wish to obtain a certain supernatural end we must use the supernatural means appointed for obtaining that end. In this sense the Council of Trent (Sess. VII, can. 4) declared heretical those who assert that the sacraments of the New Law are superfluous and not necessary, although all are not necessary for each individual. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church and of Christians in general that, whilst God was nowise bound to make use of external ceremonies as symbols of things spiritual and sacred, it has pleased Him to do so, and this is the ordinary and most suitable manner of dealing with men. Writers on the sacraments refer to this as the necessitas convenientiae, the necessity of suitableness. It is not really a necessity, but the most appropriate manner of dealing with creatures that are at the same time spiritual and corporeal. In this assertion all Christians are united: it is only when we come to consider the nature of the sacramental signs that Protestants (except some Anglicans) differ from Catholics. "To sacraments considered merely as outward forms, pictorial representations or symbolic acts, there is generally no objection", wrote Dr. Morgan Dix ("The sacramental system", New York, 1902, p. 16). "Of sacramental doctrine this may be said, that it is co-extensive with historic Christianity. Of this there is no reasonable doubt, as regards the very ancient days, of which St. Chrysostom's treatise on the priesthood and St. Cyril's catechetical lectures may be taken as characteristic documents. Nor was it otherwise with the more conservative of the reformed bodies of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther's Catechism, the Augsburg, and later the Westminster, Confessions are strongly sacramental in their tone, putting to shame the degenerate followers of those who compiled them" (ibid., p. 7, 8)

[Duck Dog]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Yeah bud, you'd have stayed and fought the Nazi regime when you and your family ahd a chance to escape it? You can say that with 100% certainty huh?
Please.

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything since I'm not mentioned in the article yet everything I posted is.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Except the merit badges were different.
Very, very different.

[Bob Dole]

Mein Papstkampf.

Seriously. You guys suck.

Bad.

[Mr. Kotter]

Originally Posted by whoman69

.....I do find it interesting that in his own country there is more support against than for the new pope. I neglected to also state there would be no change in doctrine in their view of homosexuality unless its a further step to the right.

So the worldwide Catholic church ought to cowtow to the liberal wishes of the American "Cafeteria" Catholic church???

FTR, I'm not Catholic....but the rest of the world's Catholics ought to have some significant say in this to, it would seem to me. Just a thought...

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

The Sacraments aren't strictly necessary, but aren't easily dispensed with. This ought to clear it all up, as it's a model of clarity and conciseness...

Pretty ironic that this bit of sarcasm would come from an attorney.

Or maybe you really appreciate the care with which theological discourse is written.

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

hahaha

THe guy hasn't been Pope 3hrs yet, and the Dodos are already having him dropping Poison Gas pills at a concentration camp.

Jeez man, I thought it was an interesting story; I also learned a little from it.

If you can find anything that my posting history that could be considered pope bashing then it would be new to me.

[Uncle_Ted]

Originally Posted by badbobby

Mein Papstkampf. Get it?

****ers...

When I first saw that I thought it was "Mein Pabstkampf". How would that translate? My struggle for PBR?

[Iowanian]

Uh...where does it say "Zach is one of the dodos"?

paranoia

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by whoman69

I neglected to also state there would be no change in doctrine in their view of homosexuality unless its a further step to the right.

now now...I'm sure the Pope hopes you and steve are very happy together. He knows God Loves you, but also that your prostate wasn't designed to be a pinata.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Laz

you misunderstand me ... I'm neither condemning or supporting anything


he's is NOT my pope ... it is NOT my religion

i couldn't care less that a bunch of old fucks voted some other old fuck as their leader.



I'm just saying that unless someone was THERE during his time as a youth in Germany, they don't know what he was actually doing.

That is the most ludicrous stance I might have ever seen on this board. You are an uncouth slob for characterizing the leading body of Catholicism as " a bunch of old.....as their leader".
That pretty much paints you as a hick, dullard, inbred drooling wang.
**** you.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kotter

So the worldwide Catholic church ought to cowtow to the liberal wishes of the American "Cafeteria" Catholic church???

FTR, I'm not Catholic....but the rest of the world's Catholics ought to have some significant say in this to, it would seem to me. Just a thought...

Umm, he's from Germany, not America.

[MOhillbilly]

My grandpa got a silver beaver and was a scout master for 30-40years.
all his boys are eagles and order of the arrow as all there boys but me.

was asked not to return after 2 weeks.