Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, of Germany, a doctrinal conservative, was elected the 265th pontiff Tuesday evening in the second day of the first papal conclave of the 21st century. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. Video here.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - Dawn
Seriously, how many good years does this Pope have in him 5, maybe 10 assuming he is really healthy.
So they pick a ultra-conservative, former Nazi youth to turn the ship around and send religious rhetoric back 100, maybe 200 years.
How long til this Pope takes back the apology that Pope John Paul made to the Jews.
What were these Popes thinking picking this guy.
Oh wait, I know: "Hey guys, that Pope John Paul guy was too touchy feely, too warm and fuzzy, he reached out and connected with the people making them think the church was a living, breathing entity. It's time we put the gays and those dirty Jews back in line, let's go with the Nazi. All in favor say "Hail Hitler!"
Oh joy, I think I will shit my pants now too.
27 - Eric Olsen
good points Dawn
28 - NC
Membership in the Hitler Youth was compulsory. If you were a certain age, you were in. Thus his "crime" isn't that he was a Nazi, it's that he was a German born in the late 1920s. The Jerusalem Post absolves him.
Besides, I know my liberal friends don't really want to get into a pissing match about youthful membership in racist organizations rendering one unfit to lead. Right?
Charming stuff, though, Dawn, especially coming from a member of a sect founded by one of Germany's all-time greatest Jew-haters -- which is really saying something.
29 - Dawn
Whatever there NC. For a person who's not a big fan of God, you sure like those Popes telling everyone how to run other people's lives.
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.
Link here
So you are saying you like the new choice in Pope?
Figures, you would.
30 - Aaman
This guy is also close to Opus Dei - they've hailed his appointment/nomination/selection/anointment.
Given Ratzie's role as chief enforcer for the Vatican, that's like making Paulie Walnuts or Richie Aprile the Soprano capo
31 - Eric Olsen
I'll bet Mel Gibson already has a film in production
32 - Eric Olsen
NC, you may be going a little soft on the new pope, but you're 100% right about Bareback Andy
33 - Eric Olsen
upated with quotes from Bush and the German Jews
34 - Rob
Dear Dawn ,dear Eric it's even worse.
I just found a little-known detail from Ratzinger's biography : The Guy's German !!!!
He's EVIL INCARNATE !!!
and guess what- he's catholic, too ...
35 - NC
I like the Pope telling Catholics how to run their lives because that's what the Pope does. That's his job. That's what you expect when you join the Church. I don't know who's worse: Sullivan, for belonging to a faith that's at odds with his personal morality and then acting shocked when it behaves accordingly, or you, for taking offense at the idea that the Pope's opinion should guide Catholics in their day to day lives. I don't sit here and bitch that the Lutheran Church has failed its members by not providing them with a central leader; to do so would be inane, as it would fault Lutheranism for what its believers take to be one of its chief virtues. So why do you do it with respect to Catholicism?
And yeah, I do like the choice of Pope. Ratzinger's no mere figurehead; he's a brilliant guy and one of the Church's great theologians. I respect him enormously for refusing to bend in his convictions simply because western liberals deem them insufficiently "progressive." If you believe in God, and you take the idea of God's will seriously, then your belief in God's position on, say, barebacking doesn't change simply because some Catholics think it's really important to "who they are" or whatever.
As for Ratzinger's relationship with the Jews, Israel's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Aharanoth, gives him mixed marks but does note the following:
More from Haaretz, which also is a mixed bag but notes that he left the Hitler Youth to enter a Catholic seminary and later deserted the German Army after being conscripted. It also offers a few expert opinions:
Read the Jerusalem Post editorial, too.
Eric -- Sullivan's taking so much abuse today for his overreaction that I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
36 - NC
The Anti-Defamation League weighs in on Ratzinger with a big thumbs up.
37 - Dawn
Does it also say he loves the gays now that we have established that he is in fact a documented Jew-lover?
Let me know what you find out on that front.
As for being Lutheran and complaining about Catholic doctrine - who doesn't complain about Catholic doctrine?
It's not like the Pope only sends his message to Catholics in some encrypted code only Catholics can understand - he spreads the word to whoever will listen. And you have bitched and moaned plenty about Lutheran's and there beliefs.
Hey, I am just saying they could have picked a person who is a little more progressive without such a "checkered" past.
38 - HW Saxton
RE:Comment#29 Dawn,stand corrected here.
The former Cardinal Ratzinger did not do
time in an AntiAircraft Nazi battle unit
but rather was conscripted to work in a
factory that produced supplies & parts
for such. Big difference, as all men of
service or work age were employed by the
Reich in one form or another.It was that
or eat lead. No big guess which one to
take,eh?
39 - Scoota Rey
I think Pope Benedict XVI might be a transitional pope. He's 78 years old.
40 - Dawn
I think I have been bombarded with enough info that he isn't a hater of Jews - scheww - that's a load off of my mind.
Thanks for all the effort and info.
He still doesn't like gays though and last I checked, they were people too.
41 - NC
Here's what's on the newswires right now. Emphases mine:
In short, he thinks homosexuality is sinful but has "great respect" for gays and regards prejudice against them as "deplorable." How radical.
I didn't say that non-Catholics shouldn't criticize Catholicism. My point was simply that the particular criticism being leveled at Ratzinger -- that he's authoritarian -- is stupid given the authoritarian nature of the papacy. It'd be like me criticizing Lutherans for not ordaining more papists as ministers. Criticizing the institution is fine, but acting surprised and dismayed when the institution promotes people who believe in the virtue of its structure is dumb.
The Pope doesn't speak only to Catholics but they're the only ones obliged to listen to him. Why do you even care who the Pope is, anyway? You're a Protestant. That's like a divorced woman dropping by her ex's house occasionally just to bitch at him.
42 - Dawn
What you quoted is a bunch of religious rhetoric. It's not like he is going to advocate murdering and maiming gays. But clearly until gays and their lifestyles are accepted as normal for them, anything less is a complete utter rejection - and by stating what is normal for them is "sinful" is wink and a nod to go on gay-bashing and hating.
43 - NC
He goes out of way to say he has "great respect" for gays, and you deem it a "complete utter rejection." He goes out of his way to condemn prejudice against gays in his official Church writings -- the stuff Catholics are actually supposed to pay attention to -- and you dismiss it as "rhetoric." Meanwhile, if he had condoned prejudice against gays in his official writings but been more conciliatory towards them in informal settings, you'd say, "How come he doesn't condemn prejudice in his official writings?" He can't win.
Your comment illustrates perfectly the difference between the Church and the more permissive Protestant sects. Something is deemed sinful; then a group steps up and declares, "We won't give that up." The Church's response: "Resist temptation. Your sacrifice is an act of love for God." The Protestant response: "Okay, forget it. If it's that important to you, God mustn't have meant it." How do you keep your faith in a religion that's willing to redefine sin rather than ask its members to make tough choices? Is it any surprise that hardcore evangelical Protestants continue to pack 'em in -- including in Latin America now -- while the Church of England, for example, is hemorrhaging members? You guys are eventually going to arrive at the point where you abandon the concept of sin entirely (at least in "victimless" situations) for fear of being too "judgmental." You actually used scare quotes around the word "sinful" in your comment, for Christ's sake. Does your minister do the quotation-marks thing in air with his fingers when he talks about sin on Sunday?
Seriously, is religion really this much of a means-end thing for you? Gays aren't accepted enough in society, so the Church is supposed to toss its beliefs out the window and adopt whatever creed is necessary to make them feel more special? Why not just get rid of Jesus and worship St. Andrew of the Perpetual Pants-Shitting?
44 - JR
How can one man's bowel movements really be that interesting?
45 - Dawn
I don't consider a gay lifestyle any more sinful that a hetero lifestyle. So yeah, I guess us non-Catholics are more permissive and forgiving of people in general.
Hey, the new Pope should have huge respect for gays, at least they aren't as "sinful" and reprehensible as the child-raping pedophiles the Vaticans been hiding and protecting for years.
Oh, and I am pretty sure I have seen my pastor use the quotation marks thing in the air before.
46 - Eric Olsen
I am also convinced about his "Nazi past" and attitude toward Jews, thanks for all the info.
But I still wonder what the internal political aspects of his selection are: what message were they trying to send? Isn't this a big screw you to anyone but hardliners?
47 - Dawn
The Vatican's been saying "screw you" for years.
Especially if you are underage and unable to defend yourself against priests who have a proclivity for children.
48 - NC
But what is there to forgive? Forgiveness implies repentence of a sin; you guys seem to be edging away from the concept of sin entirely, at least as it applies to nonviolent behavior. I showed this thread to a fellow Catholic last night and she objected to my earlier description of mainline Protestant morality as libertarian. What it really is, she said, is pagan: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt." Isn't she right? Does the Lutheran Church ask you to sacrifice anything in emulation of Christ's example of ultimate self-sacrifice? Or is it just shit like murder, theft, etc., which you'll go to prison for anyway? Maybe you guys should dump the Bible and worship the Penal Code.
If they had chosen a reformist, wouldn't it have been a big screw you to anyone but reformists? I don't know why you frame it in negative terms, as though it's a rejection of something as opposed to an affirmation that, yes indeed, the Church really believes what it says. If there's a message at all -- and true believers would deny that there is, since they attribute the cardinals' choice to divine guidance -- it's that they're going to offer an alternative to secular narcissism and mainline Protestant Jesus-as-Barney-the-dinosaur-ism. Which is all they can do, really: if western Catholics were hot for watered-down "reformist" Catholicism, there'd have been a mass exodus to the Episcopalians or Lutherans long ago. Hasn't happened. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the real crowd-pleasers are the fundamentalist faiths -- the evangelicals and Islam, which, between the two of them, are gobbling up Christendom. The irony about all the pants-wetting over Ratzinger is that he actually represents the moderate position between Barney the dinosaur on the one hand and snake-handlers and burqas on the other.
In the long run, I think it's a losing battle and the Church will succumb. But it won't be the Anglicans that get 'em. It'll be Mohammed and Jerry Falwell. Good times ahead!
49 - Aaman
Good - then we'll be back to the real original stuff - not half-baked reinterpretations of Semitic mythology which is itself half-baked reinterpretations of Egyptian and Sumerian mythology
Back to the trees, I say! Back to the oceans!
50 - Eric Olsen
back to the cells!
51 - Dawn
Prison cells?
I still don't understand the overt hypocrisy of calling out gays as being sinful while simultaneously hiding and rearranging pedophiles all over hill and yonder, rather than turning them over to law enforcement for crimes committed against children.
What kind of message does that send?
And, to your penal code suggestion: at least with the penal code there is black and white to what is right and wrong - not some willy nilly interpretation based on some old conservatives holed up in a monastery making arbitrary rules.
52 - Steve S
For a long-term survival strategy, I think this Pope was probably a good choice for them. I don't know anything about him, other than what has been on the news since he was chosen, but if all the pundits on the news channels are even remotely correct, his arch-conservatism will drive many from the church, shrinking it in size. They have said they are okay with this, because the end result is a 'tighter' church with people willing to follow it's ideologies.
That gives me hope in the fact that as the rest of the world progresses in terms of civil rights, the church, if it does shrink, should continue to lose societal influence. Their ideology can go back into practice within their churches and not in society overall, because the Pope should have NO influence or say in what is right or wrong for anybody except those who choose to follow the Pope.
He goes out of way to say he has "great respect" for gays......He can't win.
No he can't win as long as he does not treat all people equally. And how does one go 'out of their way' to say something? Answer, they don't, but rather there is an attempt here to make it look like there was an effort when there was none.
53 - NC
They're not making up "arbitrary" rules. They're doing what they understand to be God's will. You seem to scoff at the very idea of such a thing, which only proves the point I've been making about watered-down Christianity and which, needless to say, is mighty ironic coming from a member of your sect. Was Luther just some old conservative crank who pulled 95 arbitrary theses out of his ass?
You started your comments in this thread bitching about Ratzinger's alleged Nazism. When I shot that down, you started in on his supposed hatred of gays. When I offered you quotes to the contrary, you dismissed it as "rhetoric." When I tried to show how it wasn't mere rhetoric, you fell back on the sex-abuse scandal, which no one is defending and which Ratzinger has rightly described as "filth inside the Church." What's next? Bashing him because he enjoyed the Mel Gibson movie?
I have just three words for you: HE IS RISEN.
Right. Just like it has in Europe, where progressive values have led to a steady population decline, anemic economies, and an unbounded tolerance for unassimilated immigrants. By the time you and I are in our dotage, European progressivism will have long since been swept away by Islam, and good ol' Jesusland USA will look positively socialist by comparison. It's almost poetic justice, really.
54 - Dawn
As the former Pope's right hand man, Ratzinger was crucial in the bylaws and decisions that were handed out in regards to pedophilic priests. That one "scandal" was a huge black mark on an otherwise good Pope.
I would say Ratzinger may say one thing and call these pervs of the cloth filth, but did sorry little to protect its own innocent flock.
Sorry NC, but you can dismiss my arguments and try to paint me as not knowing of what I speak, but I feel quite confident that without having to dig up every obscure and obvious fact available, I have made some very valid points about the inherent weakness of the Catholic Church head spokesman.
55 - NC
From now on I'm going to try to be less judgmental about other sects. It's not fair of me to criticize without knowing the ins and outs of other faiths, and the least I can do is educate myself before making up my mind.
They're having a Lutheran service this Sunday a few blocks from where I live, and I'm thinking about going. Here's the flyer.
56 - Dawn
Hey, you could do worse. Barney teaches excellent values, like kindness, love and how to be a friend.
57 - NC
Does he teach you how to call your friends Nazis too?
58 - Dawn
No, just their chosen leaders. Barney assumes smart people can tell the difference.
Wait, Barney may be too advanced, perhaps a visit here first would be helpful.
59 - NC
Whatever. In this very thread, you noted Ratzinger's failure to stand up to the Nazis and then said:
Whatever could you be implying?
60 - Dawn
Or maybe it was your special affinity for gays?
Besides I didn't say he or you were Nazis, I merely agreed with the facistic agenda that was being suggested.
But as you said, whatever. This is old news and clearly months haven't sobered you to the fact that it was a stupid argument in the first place.
Let us continue to move on.
61 - Steve S
Just like it has in Europe, where progressive values have led to a steady population decline, anemic economies, and an unbounded tolerance for unassimilated immigrants. By the time you and I are in our dotage, European progressivism will have long since been swept away by Islam, and good ol' Jesusland USA will look positively socialist by comparison. It's almost poetic justice, really.
Could all be neatly rephrased as "worship MY God or you'll end up worshipping THEIR GOD, damnit".
So you blame the 'anemic' conditions in Europe on Godlessness? You should be able to corroborate that with proof.
62 - NC
I blame the anemic conditions and the godlessness on progressivism. Do you really need me to prove that exorbitant welfare programs, strong trade unions, 35-hour-work-week ceilings, and high minimum-wage rates tend to make economies a bit sluggish? After a hundred years of communism and third-way socialism? Google around and see if you can find a socialist country that's doing as well as the United States.
You've already acknowledged that as "progressive" values rise, organized religion tends to suffer, so presumably I don't have to prove that connection either. I think your instinct about that is 100% right, by the way: the more comfortable people's lives become, the less need they have for a heavenly paradise. The problem facing Europeans is that Muslims haven't reached the comfort zone yet, and, like most groups that haven't, they tend to breed a lot faster than groups that have. Bernard Lewis looked at the demographics and told a German magazine last summer that he expects Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.
If you want to dismiss that as "MY God or THEIR God" rhetoric, be my guest. All you're offering as an alternative is "NO God or THEIR God." The point is, Muslims don't need to make these types of arguments. They have the numbers. For them, it's "MY God or ... MY God."
On that happy note, I leave you with these words from an open letter to Pope Benedict by that sage progressive, Mark Morford:
Is Mark a Lutheran, I wonder? He should be.
63 - Steve S
You've already acknowledged that as "progressive" values rise, organized religion tends to suffer
That's odd that you define the church condensing it's flock to the most true believers is suffering. Your new Pope doesn't even believe that.
the more comfortable people's lives become, the less need they have for a heavenly paradise
Or, it could be that the more evolved/learned we become, the less we need others to show us the way to Christ.
64 - HW Saxton
Why do people feel the need to look out
side rather than inside for their own
spirituality?
I can see the qualities of the shared
experience at a somber Catholic Mass,
what with all the sanctimony,mystery,the
darkness,candles,incense,latin chanting,
etc or a rousing gospel service at some
AME church with the preacher shouting &
gospel choir rocking.This I understand
what with the shared experience and the
fellowship and all but ultimately when I
leave I still have to look into myself
for the ultimate answers.To each his own
but I feel much more spirituality on the
outside of a church than on the inside.
65 - Natalie Davis
"The former Cardinal Ratzinger did not do time in an AntiAircraft Nazi battle unit but rather was conscripted to work in a factory that produced supplies & parts for such. Big difference, as all men of service or work age were employed by the Reich in one form or another.It was that or eat lead. No big guess which one to take,eh?"
Indeed. Eating lead would be the only moral choice - for an adult. Ratzie the Rottweiler, of whom I am NO fan, was a kid when he was in Hitler Youth -- NOT his fault. The folks calling him a Nazi are way off base, I believe. The notion of his papacy and the apparent entrenchment of JP2's horrid vision over what shold be a stopgap pontificate gives me seemingly endless chills, but he ought to be criticized *fairly*.
BTW, I am a Catholic catechist who fled the church about a decade and a half ago. I find the anti-woman, anti-sanity, anti-GLBT doctrine untenable and, frankly, un-Christian. Frankly, I hope intelligent Catholics -- and they do exist, working tirelessly to change a long-broken institution from the inside -- will flee for their very sanity and for their very lives.
66 - Steve S
the more comfortable people's lives become, the less need they have for a heavenly paradise
One sort of translation: Organized religion gets it's power from some form of oppression.
67 - dfgdfgdfg
i hate the way the catyholic churhc is strenghening it's hatred of gays, gays used to be allowed to be priests and now they are banning them, this to me shows that the catholic church is evil, and a scandal, no wonder lenin kuilled priests, they are just ahorrible sinister people, with extreme beliefs, using their power, to humilaite and bully gays, and it is funny how when gays are being burned and bullied wordwide, the catholic chucrh supports that bullying, i hjate the peope, the nazi scumbag is horrible, and i can not understand why it is so evil and right wing, the only thing it ever talks about is how it hates gays, christianity is just like human sacrifice it is just another immoral religon, thjats hates incocent people, and loves the strong, it is funny howe the pope is so wealthy, he is a thiefburgala, and worse, well done the french revolution for ousting this horrible lot of bullies from france in 1789, well done
68 - phil
this blog seems to wholeheartedly support and have interest in pale religious matters, like somehow people here actually realize that no matter who is pope>...Christ's suppossed successor seams to have peaked quite a few peoples interests....Joy to the world...Maybe there is hope for some of you guys
69 - Silas Kain
Organized religion gets it's power from some form of oppression.
And the quicker we all realize that this is, in fact, truth, the better off we will be. There's nothing wrong with subscribing to a belief system -- so long as it does not encroach upon the rights of others.