Wow, Uncle J., this is "big" news! This is being replaced by that? L'osservatore Romano has always claimed to be the one and only true voice of the Holy See. The ascension of a new Pope is, maybe, signaling the emergence of new signals of (maybe, just maybe, I am speculating wildly here, maybe unnecessarily so) new political tensions or media rivalries or necessary revamps? I hope not (but what do I know? (LOL.) Can you share with us who made the decision, or maybe, more importantly, why? Thanks.
News media are starting to notice the new Pope's early association with Nazi Youth groups. What they haven't noticed (are far as I've seen) is that the selection of the name is supposed to be symbolic, and the last Benedict was criticized by some for alleged pro-Kaiser sympathies during World War One. Ah, well. He's 78 and not in perfect health, so maybe we'll get an African or Latin American the next time 'round. The celebrity death lottery sites (and there are many of them) are already taking bets. See http://www.stiffs.com/ for instance. DegreeInfo tontine, anyone?
I find it interesting that they would elect this person Pope 1. He was a German soldier (a crime against mankind) 2. He deserted (a crime against Germany) 3. He is the equivalent of the Inquisitioner (modern day of course - without all of the torture). 4. He is 78 (note, JP II ws 58 when elected). Obviously he will not live to make the same impression. My opinion as a former Catholic, a very poor choice.
As a current and future Catholic, he wasn't my preferred choice, but he was the person I expected to be our next Pope. I didn't expect radical changes like allowing married and/or women priests even though I would like to see it. As far as his past, I don't hold his membership in German Nazi groups against him. It was mandatory. What were his choices as a teenager; join or get shot (or worse)? Not much of a choice there. He is 78 (note, JP II was 58 when elected). Obviously he will not live to make the same impression. That could very well have been a factor which favored his appointment rather than a negative factor. However, I think the main reason for choosing him is for the Church to get its house in order like resolving sex abuse by priests. Frankly, if he can come in and clean house I will feel like he has done his duty to God and the Church. If he is able to do more, than all the better.
My understanding is that he was a young teenager in secondary school when membership became mandatory, so he was automatically inducted along with the rest of his classmates. Of course he was criticised by others for anti-Kaiser sympathies. Again, my understanding is that this earlier Benedict tried to position himself as a neutral third party in order to get negotiaions going, but only succeeded in making both sides distrust him at a time when nobody really wanted to negotiate. Personally, I don't think that Ratzinger's choice of the name 'Benedict' has very much to do with former popes. I think that Ratzinger is looking all the way back to St. Benedict in the 6'th century. St. Benedict was the author of what came to be known as the Benedictine rule. This was the monastic rule that governed the lives of monks in monasteries of what came to be known as the Benedictine order. The Benedictine monasteries were at the height of their influence during what are known as the 'dark ages', between 500 and 1000 AD. This was a period in which ancient Roman civilization had largely collapsed, cities had fallen into ruin, and what little literacy remained was often preserved by the monks. The relevance of this to today is Ratzinger's often expressed views about the direction that Western civilization is taking, into what he apparently sees as a morass of rationalism, skepticism and relativism. The ancient certainties of the medieval church have lost their grip and fallen into ruin, increasingly out-of-tune in the modern world. So I think that Ratzinger might see himself as a new Benedict, promulgating a rule to govern the church through these new dark times. (At least dark to him.) If there's any truth to that, it suggests that he sees the church on a monastic model. That implies that he sees it as a small group of highly committed, and highly disciplined, people who are called apart from worldly life in order to preserve what he believes are unchanging revealed truths intrusted to the church by God. That in turn suggests that the Benedict XVI pontificate may be rather hard-line and uncompromising. He will be willing to watch the church shrink as secular Catholics who are unwilling to accept the discipline of what he believes is the church's timeless message bail out. Ratzinger has written that he doesn't see the church as reflecting the society around it, but rather as what he termed a "creative minority" within it. So I think that a Ratzinger pontificate may lead the church in a sectarian direction, towards being some kind of self-conscious 'righteous remnant'.
Hi Bill: You are correct. Membership in the HJ was compulsory, unlike membership in similar Communist youth organizations, by which membership was used as part of a carrot-and-stick approach. The HJ was all stick and no carrot. Given its pagan fetishism of the body and its obsession with "manly" outdoor activities, participation in the HJ can scarcely have been much fun for a bookish and unathletic boy like young Ratzinger--let alone one from a devout and "nicht gleichgeschaltet" Roman Catholic family. It should also be borne in mind that, whatever its far larger moral failures in its relationship with National Socialism, the Roman Catholic church objected vehemently to this compulsory participation in the HJ and to the dissolution of specifically Roman Catholic youth organizations by the Hitlerite government.
True. But let us also not forget the deafening silence of the Vatican during WWII as to the beastality and horror of the fascist and Nazi governments.
If anyone thinks that a defence of the infamous Mgr. Pacelli's conduct as pope, or of the loathsome "rat line" at the end of the war, or of anti-Semitism in *any* religious organization (or anywhere else), or of making one's peace with National Socialism or Communism, can be found in anything I have ever said, I would respectfully suggest that such a person is grossly mistaken. It is mildly ironic that a confessional Lutheran who is utterly committed to a profoundly negative theological view of the papacy should be put in the position of defending Pope Benedict's conduct as a child and teenager under a vicious totalitarian government. Fair's fair. But for every Count-Cardinal von Galen, there were too many German bishops (of every denomination) who kept silence. This, I would equally respectfully suggest, was chillul ha-Shem, a desecration of the Name of God. I trust this clarifies things. Janko Preotul
