Pope Benedict still not threatening warmongers with excommunication
Pope Benedict did not hesitate to threaten excommunication for those who vote for abortion rights for women. Yet, he continues to hesitate to threaten excommunication against those who clamor for more war--despite an otherwise spirited denunciation about the "useless slaughter" that accompanies war.
While I have been pleasantly surprised with Pope Benedict on issues such as religion and science and Greek (Hellenist) influences on the development of Catholic philosophy, I remain disappointed with the Pope's continued refusal to give equal force to the Church's anti-war position as its anti-abortion position.
posted by Mitchell J. Freedman @ 8:27 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS FORMER NAZI IS TELLIng WOMEN WHAT TO DO . HOW MANY WOMEN AND BABIES DID HE SLAUGHTER IN NAZI GERMANY AS A YOUNG PUNK SOLDIOER FOLLOWING HITLER'S ORDERS? HOW MANY JEWISH WOMEN DID HE KILL BABY AND ALL?
Wikipedia on the young Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict):
"...Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth — membership being legally required after December 1939[4] — but was an unenthusiastic member and refused to attend meetings.
His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, believing it conflicted with the Catholic faith. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was killed by the Nazi regime in its campaign of eugenics. In 1943 while still in seminary, he was drafted at age 16 into the German anti-aircraft corps. Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty.
As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the War in summer 1945.
He reentered the seminary, along with his brother Georg, in November of that year."
And here is the London Times from April 17, 2005:
"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."
I'm loathe to be critical of the young Ratzinger, and Anon. may wish to provide some evidence to the contary, if Anon. disagrees with these sources.
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